As the Nationaltheater will be closed due to construction work, the Bayerisches Staatsballett will present the first performances of the season in the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona. The classical ballet Giselle in Peter Wright’s version can be enjoyed as a guest performance in five consecutive shows. 

The pre-Christmas period will then see the revival of a further classic. Following a six-year interlude, John Neumeier’s version of The Nutcracker returns to the programme on 2 November 2025. In structuring his narrative here, Neumeier dispenses with the frenzied fighting at the witching hour, as well as the “Castle in the Land of Sweets” in the second act. The central character of the girl, Marie, is instead whisked away all the more into the fascinating world of ballet halls with bars and mirrors, princesses and fairy-tale princes.

Wondrous things also happen in the Scottish forests, and can be enjoyed from 22 November in further performances of La Sylphide. The Bayerisches Staatsballett added Pierre Lacotte’s reconstruction of this 1832 work by Filippo Taglioni to its repertoire in November 2024.

The curtain rises for the 2025-2026 season’s first premiere on 21 December 2025. In the triple bill Waves and Circles the Bayerisches Staatsballett presents works by the old masters Maurice Béjart and William Forsythe, along with a creation by the young Canadian choreographer, Emma Portner.

A further work by John Neumeier then returns to the programme on 16 January 2026. Created in 1976, his successful piece, Illusions - Like Swan Lake, correlates the magical ballet classic, Swan Lake, with the fate of the “fairytale king”, Ludwig II of Bavaria.

A Bayerisches Staatsballett season without John Cranko would be scarcely conceivable; therefore audiences may look forward to further performances of the narrative ballet, Onegin, from 28 February 2026.

The 2025/2026 Ballet Festival Week will open on 28 March 2026 with the season’s second premiere, the triple bill Common Ground. Alexander Ekman and Johan Inger present their work with the Bayerisches Staatsballett for the first time. Also to be enjoyed are the revival of Hans van Manen’s ballet, Grosse Fuge, which was first performed at the Nationaltheater in 1973. The entire bandwidth of the Bayerisches Staatsballett’s repertoire unfolds for Ballet Festival Week audiences with Onegin, La Sylphide, Waves and Circles and Illusions – Like Swan Lake. In very little time here, the Munich ensemble demonstrates its versatility across all kinds of eras and styles.

Scarcely is the Ballet Festival Week over and another highlight of the season already awaits Munich audiences. The Lady of the Camellias returns to the Nationaltheater on 12 May 2026 after almost five years. The Bayerisches Staatsballett is thus presenting no less than three pieces by John Neumeier in one season. The narrative ballet based on the eponymous novel by Alexandre Dumas perhaps owes its popularity with audiences above all to the music of the Polish pianist and composer, Frédéric Chopin.

As soon as early summer seduces people outdoors and arouses the senses, the art of seduction returns to the ballet stage. Angelin Preljocaj’s Le Parc can be enjoyed once again in a performance series beginning on 12 June 2026 – a ballet full of dalliance and refined courtship.

Shortly thereafter, the Munich ensemble will once again make a visit to its second ancestral venue, the Prinzregententheater.  Entitled  Constellations, several shorter ballets or excerpts from ballets, which have already been performed with the Bayerisches Staatsballett and which will be brought to the fore in an extra special way with the new framework and specific composition, can be enjoyed here.

The 2025/2026 season’s programme must, of course, also include the two mobile school productions, The Fish Who Found the Sea and Sakuntala, which are developed especially for younger audiences. The “Ballet extra” series will be expanded in the 2025/2026 season with three piece-related lecture evenings and three film screenings in cooperation with the Theatiner Filmtheater.

The 2025/26 Ballet Festival Week will open on 28 March 2026 with the triple bill Common Ground. Alexander Ekman and Johan Inger’s choreographies Cacti and IMPASSE can be enjoyed here for the first time at the Bayerisches Staatsballett. Also included is the revival of Hans van Manen’s ballet, Grosse Fuge, which was added in 1973 to the repertoire of the predecessor company, the Bayerische Staatsoper Ballet, and which was last performed by the Bayerisches Staatsballett in 2008.

Three performances will now follow on 30 and 31 March and 2 April, which bear testament to the important presence of classical narrative ballets in the Bayerisches Staatsballett’s repertoire: John Cranko’s Onegin (1965), Pierre Lacotte’s La Sylphide (1972) and John Neumeier’s Illusions - Like Swan Lake (1976). On 1 and 4 April the choreographic signatures of William Forsythe, Emma Portner and Maurice Béjart can then be enjoyed in the triple bill Waves and Circles.

Written advance bookings for all Ballet Festival Week performances will be processed from Sun, 28 December 2025.
From Wed, 28 January 2026 you can buy tickets at the box office, via the call centre and online via our programme or the ticket links in the schedule. 

Box office of the Bavarian State Theatres
Marstallplatz 5
[email protected]
+49 89 21 85 19 20
Opening hours: Mon-Sat, 10 a.m.-7 p.m.

At the UniCredit Opening Festival 2025, you can once again look forward to exciting insights into the world of dance. In addition to an evening performance of John Neumeier's The Nutcracker, the Bayerische Staatsballett will also be showing a public rehearsal on the main stage of the Nationaltheater, as well as exclusive guided tours of the ballet rehearsal building at Platzl.