Salzburg Festival 2026: celebrating Messiaen & Kurtág, a new Carmen, Ariadne auf Naxos on Mars, Henze, Dusapin & more

Donizetti: Maria Stuarda – Nino Gotoshia, Lisette Oropesa – Salzburg Festival 2025 (Photo: SF/Monika Rittershaus)

For the 2026 Salzburg Festival, the Intendant, Markus Hinterhäuser has taken Roland Barthes’ 1977 book A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments (Fragments d’un discours amoureux) as his inspiration. Realistically, virtually any opera could be shoehorned into Hinterhäuser’s themes of relationships, vulnerability and love. But he has put together a rather tempting array of productions, new and old, which cast away any doubts.

Hinterhäuser describes Bizet’s Carmen as the ‘darkest and most brutal of the 2026 operas’, whilst of course it also explodes with energy and great tunes. The new production with be conducted by Teodor Currentzis with his Utopia orchestra, and directed (and choreographed) by Gabriela Carrizio with her Peeping Tom dance company. Soprano Asmik Grigorian is Carmen with Jonathan Tetelman as Don Jose, Kristina Mkhitaryan as Micaela and Davide Luciano as Escamillo. There is no word, yet about versions and editions but as the production takes place in the Grosses Festspielhaus we should expect something grand. Before we get too agitated we should remember that just before his death, Bizet had signed a contract with the Vienna Court Opera, and it was this that generated the grand opera version of Carmen produced by Bizet’s friend Ernest Guiraud. Carmen might have started out as opéra comique, but it was always going to go on a journey.

A second new production is Richard Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos in the familiar revised, 1916 version. This opera is one of the most popular of Strauss’s operas in the Salzburg Festival canon. After the revised version was premiered in Vienna in 1916 (where it was performed 93 times in the years up to 1934), it was performed in Salzburg in 1926 with Lotte Lehmann as Ariadne, conducted by both Clemens Kraus and Richard Strauss.

The new production is directed by Ersan Mondtag (who also designs), making his Salzburg debut, with Manfred Honeck conducting and the Wiener Philharmonker in the pit. Mondtag is a director, designer and visual artist; he recently designed the German Pavilion for La Biennale d’Arte di Venezia. Mondtag relocates ‘Naxos’ to Mars, using it as a metaphor for modern ruthlessness. Kate Lindsay is the Composer with Elina Garanca as a mezzo-soprano Ariadne, plus Eric Cutler as Bacchus and Ziyi Dai as Zerbinetta.

Hinterhäuser describes the third new production as a gigantic act of faith, going on to say that it is a privilege to do it in Salzburg. This is the opera Saint François d’Assise by Olivier Messiaen. After the work’s premiere in 1983 at the Paris Opera it was not staged again until 1992 when it was performed at the Salzburg Festival in the Felsenreitschule, directed by Peter Sellars with Esa-Pekka Salonen conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the production was revived in 1998. Hinterhäuser describes seeing this production at Salzburg as a transformative experience for him.

For the 2026 production, again in the Felsenreitschule, Romeo Castellucci directs and designs with Maxime Pascal conducting the Wiener Philharmoniker. The production marks the 800th anniversary of the death of St Francis of Assisi. Lauranne Oliva is L’Ange and Philippe Sly is St François with a cast including Sean Panikkar, Russell Braun and Willard White.

The festival is having a focus on Messiaen this year. In addition to the opera, Visions de Messiaen features pianist Pierre-Lauren Aimard in movements from the Catalogue d’oiseaux, organist Olivier Latry in a feast of Messiaen’s organ music, Igor Levit and Markus Hinterhäuser in Visions de l’Amen and the Quartet for the End of Time.

Theatre-goers leaving the Haus für Mozart with Festung Hohensalzburg in the background.

Barry Kosky’s production of Rossini’s Il Viaggio a Reims premieres at the Salzburg Whitsun Festival this year and then returns to Salzburg in the Summer. Gianluca Capuano conducts Les Musiciens du Prince – Monaco, the period instrument ensemble founded by Cecilia Bartoli in 2016. Bartoli sings Corinna with a cast including Marina Viotti, Melissa Petit, Tara Erraught, Edgardo Rocha, Dmitry Korchak, Ildebrando D’Arcangelo and Florian Sempey.

The finale staged opera is a revival of Christoph Loy’s 2020 production of Mozart’s Cosi fan Tutte, originally presented during the Lockdown festival of 2020 and here revamped to include the uncut version of the opera. Joana Mallwitz conducts the Wiener Philharmoniker with Elsa Dreisig, Victoria Karkacheva, Andre Schuen and Bogdan Volkov as the lovers, plus Lea Desandre and Johannes Martin Kranzle.

Concert performances of opera include Pascal Dusapin’s Passion (first performed in 2008), here conducted by Franck OIllu with Ensemble Modern, Sarah Aristidou and Georg Nigl. In complete contrast is Massenet’s Werther with one of the finest contemporary exponents of the role, Benjamin Bernheim plus Mariannne Crebassa as Charlotte and Alain Altinoglu conducting the orchestra of La Monnaie, Brussels. The final concert performance is perhaps the most intriguing. Hans Werner Henze’s 1960 opera, Der Prinz von Homburg with its libretto based on Heinrich von Kleist’s play. Ingo Metzmacher conducts the ORF Radio-Symphonie Orchester Wien with Maximilian Schmitt, Tanja Arianne Baumgartner, Kathrin Zukowski, Lauri Vasar and Georg Nigl.

For the concert programme, there is also a focus on György Kurtág whose centenary is this year (!) There are performances of his Lieder der Schwermut and der Trauer with Teodor Currentzis and Utopia in a programme that also includes Arvo Part’s Miserere, plus another programme including Kurtág’s Grabdtein fur Stephan; Matthias Pintscher directing Samuel Beckett: What is the Word along with Morton Feldman’s For Samuel Beckett, plus a programme with Anna Prohaska combining Kurtág’s vocal works with Nono’s homage to the composer; Pierre Lauren Aimard in Jaketok; the Gringolts Quartet in four of Kurtág’s works; Lawrence Power, the Budapest Festival Orchestra and Ivan Fischer in Kurtág’s Movement for Viola and Orchestra; a programme of Kurtág, Brahms, Schumann and Ligeti chamber music with pianist Kirill Gerstein; and a more general exploration in a programme with violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja.

The Wiener Philharmoniker is, of course, in residence and its concerts include performances with Andris Nelsons, Christian Thielemann, Tugan Sokhiev and Gustavo Dudamel. But perhaps the most striking concert is Ricccardo Muti conducting Verdi’s Requiem. Not the first time Muti has conducted the work at the festival but, given that he is now 84, possibly the last time he does so. The soloists are Iwona Sobotka, Marianne Crebasssa, Michael Spyres and Maharram Huseynov.

Tenor Michael Spyres is also giving a vocal recital with Il Pomo d’Oro in music by Handel, Hasse, Vivaldi, Galuppi, Rameau, Porpora and more. Other vocal recitals include baritone Konstantin Krimmel in Schumann, Brahms and Romanian composer Eusebius Manyczewski (1857-1929), Kate Lindsay with pianist Baptiste Trotignon in Weill, Korngold, Zemlinsky, and Alma Mahler, and Lisette Oropesa in a Spanish programme that moves well away from just the familiar faces.

Full details from the Festival website. See my reviews from the 2025 festival.