The Season 2025-2026

In Venice, the autumn and spring festivals will be taking a broader look at those aspects of the repertoire: the light-hearted and entertaining productions of the Second Empire and the Third Republic, on the one hand; the works of the “children of the century” – “les enfants du siècle” – who brought about the flourishing of French musical Romanticism, on the other. In Paris and in Canada, among others, these two cycles will also include operatic and instrumental programmes, ranging from Louise Farrenc’s three symphonies to Offenbach’s Robinson Crusoé, and including two very different adaptations of Goethe’s Faust: La Damnation de Faust by Berlioz and Le Petit Faust by Hervé.

The new opera productions presented this season are diverse: Luigi Cherubini’s Médée (Théâtre des Champs-Élysées); Jean de Nivelle by Léo Delibes (Müpa Budapest); Gustave Charpentier’s Louise (Festival d’Aix-en-Provence and Opéra de Lyon); Clémence de Grandval’s Mazeppa (Oper Dortmund); Charles Silver’s La Belle au bois dormant (Opéra de Saint-Étienne); Zampa by Ferdinand Hérold (Prinzregententheater, Munich); Gaetano Donizetti’s Lucie de Lammermoor (Opéra-Comique); La Montagne noire by Augusta Holmès (Auditorium de Bordeaux). Furthermore, some productions will still be touring; they include Carmen (in Dallas), La Vie Parisienne (Versailles) and L’Arlésienne and Le Docteur Miracle (in Switzerland and Normandy). Reflecting an eclectic programming policy catering for all audiences, some of these titles will be added in due course to the Bru Zane label’s ‘French Opera’ series. The first release of the season will be devoted to L’Ancêtre by Camille Saint-Saëns (revived in 2019).