Zürich Opera House Unveils 2026/27 Season — "One That Gets Under Your Skin"
From Mozart to Wagner, Carnegie Hall to Sechseläutenplatz — the 2026/27 programme is a statement of intent.
The Opernhaus Zürich has unveiled its 2026/27 season, and on paper it reads like a deliberate effort to remind the world that one of Europe's finest opera houses is operating at full stretch. The roster of names alone — Jonas Kaufmann, Anna Netrebko, Diana Damrau, Cecilia Bartoli, Elīna Garanča, Juan Diego Flórez and Lise Davidsen among them — signals a season pitched squarely at international ambition.
The season opens with a new production of Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, conducted by Finnish talent Tamo Peltokoski and directed by Daniele Finzi Pasca, the Swiss-Canadian theatre director known for his visually sumptuous stagings. From there the programme moves through Puccini's La Fanciulla del West with Kaufmann and Anja Kampe, a full Wagner Ring cycle anchored by conductor Gianandrea Noseda, and John Adams' Doctor Atomic — a striking choice that plants contemporary American opera firmly at the centre of the season alongside the standard repertoire. Franz Lehár's Die lustige Witwe, with Diana Damrau and Pavol Breslik, rounds out the lighter end of the bill.
The season also marks the launch of a new annual festival: Zürich Baroque, running from 2 to 4 July 2027, dedicated to the music of the early music tradition in a city with deep roots in that repertoire. The open-air Oper für alle format — the opera house's popular free lakeside broadcast at Sechseläutenplatz — returns and expands, this time running across an entire weekend rather than a single evening, with Lise Davidsen performing alongside Noseda.
Beyond Zürich, the house is taking its work on the road in a way that underlines its growing international footprint. Verdi's Un ballo in maschera travels to Edinburgh in 2026, while 2027 brings a concert performance of the complete Ring des Nibelungen to Paris and, for the first time in its entirety, to Carnegie Hall in New York. For a house of Zürich's size, that last engagement is a considerable statement.
Season books are available free of charge from the Opernhaus directly, and advance ticket sales are now open.
Full programme details and tickets are available at opernhaus.ch.
