Powers,
Desires

2026–2027 season
Power seduces. Desire commands.
9 operas · 1 ballet · 1 symphonic concert
The soundtrack Playlist · Power, Desire
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Operas

Verdi’s Macbeth, directed by Stefano Poda · ORW 2026
Opera

Macbeth

Giuseppe Verdi
18>26.09
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A victorious general. Witches in his path. And a woman who has already decided everything for him.
This is not a love story, but a study in manipulation and what power does to those who crave it too fiercely. Stefano Poda is the director, set designer, costume designer, lighting designer and choreographer: a labyrinthine castle of mirrors and translucent structures, constantly shifting in shape.
What to expect
Dark Verdi, Shakespeare with no safety net, and a Lady Macbeth who is genuinely terrifying.
Ravel’s L’Heure espagnole and L’Enfant et les sortilèges, directed by Jean-Louis Grinda · ORW 2026
Opera

L'Heure espagnole
& L'Enfant et les sortilèges

Maurice Ravel
29.10>08.11
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A woman hiding her lovers in clocks. A mischievous child whose toys begin to rebel.
Two short works by Ravel, witty and lightly cruel, brought together in a single programme. On stage, mechanisms laid bare, objects springing to life, transformations happening in real time: everything unfolds before your eyes.
You’ll love it if
you want an evening that moves from the delicious bite of Desperate Housewives to the unruly imagination of Toy Story. Ravel in French, inventive, and genuinely funny.
Andrea Battistoni’s Zombie Opera, directed by Marta Eguilior · ORW 2026
Opera

Zombie Opera

Andrea Battistoni
21>26.11
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A supermarket. Christmas Eve. An outbreak.
For the first time at the opera, the zombies arrive. Think Beetlejuice meets Gremlins: blue zombies, aisles bursting with colour, cheerful apocalypse. Beneath the playful mismatch, there is something deeply contemporary: the feeling of a world permanently tipping off balance.
You’ll love it if
you like genre films, dark humour, and the idea that opera can have real nerve. See it even — especially — if you’ve never been to the opera before.
Massenet’s Thaïs, directed by Olivier Lepelletier-Leeds · ORW 2026
Opera

Thaïs

Jules Massenet
17>31.12
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New York, 1929. Thaïs is the woman everyone wants to see, touch, possess. That evening, one man wants something else: to save her soul.
Art Deco in all its splendour: a theatre with Egyptian motifs, diva costumes, the electric atmosphere of the last great night before the crash. Everything is too much — and that is exactly what it needs to be.
What to expect
Opulence, sensuality, a theatre set ablaze, and the violin Méditation, one of the most beautiful pages in the French repertoire. If The Great Gatsby had a soundtrack, it would sound like this.
Wagner’s Lohengrin, directed by Jean-Claude Berutti · ORW 2027
Opera

Lohengrin

Richard Wagner
29.01>06.02
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He appears out of nowhere, saves a woman falsely accused, and asks only one thing in return: never ask his name.
She agrees. But can you love someone you are not allowed to know? At the centre of the stage, a church devastated by the Napoleonic wars crumbles act by act — an exact image of what is happening between them.
What to expect
A gripping drama from beginning to end. And, quite honestly, the best way into Wagner’s world.
Smetana’s Hubička, directed by Éric Chevalier · ORW 2027
Opera

Hubička

Bedřich Smetana
05>13.03
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(And yes, it’s pronounced “Hoo-bitch-ka”. There, that’s done.) She refuses to kiss him. He takes it badly. And things unravel.
She refuses to kiss him. He takes it badly. And things unravel. Hubička (“The Kiss”) is a little-known treasure of Czech opera, with a libretto by Eliška Krásnohorská, one of the very few female librettists of the nineteenth century, and a committed feminist in her time. Not a manifesto, but a sharply observed look at the moment when a relationship jams. All of it carried by music of great delicacy.
You’ll love it if
you enjoy bittersweet comedies like Fleabag or The War of the Roses, and think that a man sulking because someone refuses to kiss him is a very nineteenth-century problem. Or perhaps not.
Donizetti’s Roberto Devereux, directed by Jacopo Spirei · ORW 2027
Opera

Roberto Devereux

Gaetano Donizetti
11>20.04
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A queen loves a man she will have to condemn. She has the power to save him. She will not.
Imagine an episode of The Crown written by Shakespeare. A plunge into the solitude of a woman in power whom history will ultimately break. On stage, a monumental library whose shelves rise, turn and collapse as the drama unfolds: absolute power coming apart from within.
What to expect
Bel canto at its height, electrifying confrontations, and a queen alone amid the ruins of who she once was.
Richard Strauss’s Capriccio, directed by Rodula Gaitanou · ORW 2027
Opera

Capriccio

Richard Strauss
15>25.05
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A poet and a composer vie for a countess’s heart. No one gives way, no one decides, and that is precisely the point.
Yes, it is late Strauss. No, you will not be bored. On stage, the set recreates the ORW auditorium itself, velvet and gilding included: the fiction unfolds in the exact space where you are sitting. You are watching a stage that is watching you back. Vertiginous, elegant, and genuinely clever.
What to expect
Sparkle, seduction, and an evening when you may no longer be entirely sure whether you are spectator or accomplice.
Puccini’s Turandot, directed by Jean-Romain Vesperini, new ending by Andrea Battistoni · ORW 2027
Opera

Turandot

Giacomo Puccini
18>29.06
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A princess sets deadly riddles to her suitors. A man accepts the challenge. She still refuses to yield.
Puccini died before finishing Turandot. For this production, the ORW has commissioned an entirely new ending from its composer in residence, Andrea Battistoni: an alternative conclusion, darker in tone, that reshuffles every card.
What to expect
Nessun Dorma, grand spectacle, and an ending nobody has ever seen before… not even Puccini fans.

Ballet

Dark Matter and Le Spectre de la rose, choreography by Marco Goecke, Basel Ballet · ORW 2026
Ballet

Dark Matter
& Le Spectre de la rose

Marco Goecke · Basel Ballet
02>04.10
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Barbara, Lady Gaga, Nina Simone, Ravi Shankar… then the orchestra live, for Marco Goecke’s Le Spectre de la rose.
Forget what you think you know about contemporary dance. Marco Goecke is not trying to be abstract: he is trying to grab hold of you. His style — urgent, nervous, metronomically precise — hits the body before it reaches the mind. You do not need the instruction manual. Six short pieces set to radically different musical worlds, followed by his reimagining of Le Spectre de la rose: coherence emerges exactly where you least expect it.
What to expect
The ultimate shuffle. As though your favourite playlist were coming to life before your eyes, with dance that gets under your skin, and an evening that speaks as much to ballet-lovers as to those who have never seen any before.

Symphonic concert

Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, conductor Giampaolo Bisanti, ORW orchestra and chorus · 2027
Concert

Symphony No. 9

Ludwig van Beethoven
12.02
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Beethoven could no longer hear when he composed it. It became one of the most famous pieces of music on the planet.
And at the heart of it all, the iconic Ode to Joy, which became the anthem of the European Union — and, in a way, of humanity itself.
What to expect
An evening that goes straight to the core, with the orchestra and chorus at their finest.

The season soundtrack