Season 2025–26
WE ARE WHAT WE MAKE OURSELVES TO BE
If we think about the nature of human existence, Jean-Paul Sartre’s famous quote, “we are what we make ourselves to be”, reminds us of the far-reaching responsibility of each and every individual for the shaping of the individual being and their own existence.
The 2025-2026 season runs in harmony with this theme, as each narrative of our new stagings exemplifies processes of self-creation and the consequences of a person's freedom of choice and freedom to decide. In Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto the tragic, tortured jester is entangled in the webs of revenge and love, and his struggle shows us that every action has effects on our being, sometimes in a calamitous, and only difficult to bear way.
In Charles Gounod’s Faust, we meet a man who is prepared to put his soul on the line to obtain knowledge and power. “He only earns his freedom and existence, who daily conquers them anew (Bayard Taylor translation)”, reminds us the literary original, Goethe’s immortal drama, by impressively demonstrating the dangers of a desire that consumes the soul.
Brünnhilde is also fighting an existential struggle in Richard Wagner’s Die Walküre. She wrestles with the restrictions and contradictions of love and duty – a classic opera conflict therefore, which is expanded into the universal here.
Alcina, the sorceress in Georg Frideric Handel’s eponymous opera, attempts to shape reality according to her wishes. But her magical powers ultimately turn against her.
The supernatural element also appears in Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s Die Nacht vor Weihnachten, where it results in the characters searching for their own happiness being given the opportunity to transform themselves in a world filled with light and shadows.
Hans Werner Henze’s animal parable,Die Englische Katze, addresses the issue of a person’s right to self-determination on the level of social coexistence. The complex interplay between conformity and self-determination becomes the subject matter of a biting satire here.
The world premiere of Brett Dean’s opera, Of One Blood, illustrates two queens caught up in their personal ambitions – Mary Stuart and Elizabeth I. They act contrary to Hannah Arendt’s understanding, according to which power only becomes reality where words and actions are inseparably interwoven with one another.
The Bayerisches Staatsballett’s Waves and Circles triple bill performance is a programme filled with contrasts. With their Boléro and Blake Works I pieces, Maurice Béjart and William Forsythe, two of the 20th century’s pioneering choreographers, are contrasted with the choreographic signature of the young Canadian choreographer, Emma Portner.
The Bayerisches Staatsballett presents Common Ground to get the Ballet Festival Week started, with works by Hans van Manen, Alexander Ekman and Johan Inger forming an exciting combination. Both Ekman and van Manen choose music by Ludwig van Beethoven here – a composer who stands for freedom like no other.
For the opening of the 2026 Munich Opera Festival with Konstellationen, the Bayerisches Staatsballett is launching a new format in which components of its own repertoire are recombined – with the goal of illustrating surprising references and cross connections.
The Bayerisches Staatsorchester, one of the world’s most renowned orchestras, once again guarantees programme diversity and artistic excellence at the highest level this season. Big symphonics meet rarely performed works, interpreted by renowned maestri and first principals, as well as young talent.
Yours, Serge Dorny
