The Opera Section

Tobias Theorell, well known as a director of both opera and theatre, has been Operan’s artistic director since the beginning of the year. Prior to that he was Folkoperan’s artistic director for over four years.

»The 2025/2026 opera season is glorious, as it’s so varied – there’s something for everyone. The audience will feel at home, whilst also being offered new works. Puccini’s Madama Butterfly is one of the greatest classics in the opera repertoire – Operan has presented it in various versions nearly 700 times – and it’s now being offered in a completely new production, directed by Sofia Adrian Jupither. The Figaro trilogy is culminating with Figaro Gets a Divorce, a late successor to Il barbiere di Siviglia and Le nozze di Figaro, and it will be exciting to see and hear the popular characters in a contemporary context. Rusalka will be new to many. It’s astonishing that this late-romantic classic has never before been performed at a Swedish opera house, and it’s wonderful that it’s at last being put on at Operan. Everyone who knows H.C. Andersen’s The Little Mermaid will be familiar with the story, the music is brilliant, and Netia Jones is one of Europe’s most interesting directors.«

The season also offers a brand-new commission, Britta Byström’s Eatnama váibmu (The Heart of the Earth), which is Sweden’s first opera in a Sámi language. »This is a really exciting project,« says Tobias Theorell. »Sámi culture is coming to the opera house, and this feels absolutely right and proper. It’s a creation story that many of us don’t know about, and it’s at the same time part of our history.« He doesn’t find it problematic that this is a family production that also involves serious and dark components: »Here in Sweden we have a tradition of high-quality children’s culture and children’s theatre based on being able to tell children everything – provided you don’t dissimulate. Eatnama váibmu is a work firmly within this proud tradition.«

Many favourites will also be making a comeback: Die Zauberflöte, Aida, Turandot, Le nozze di Figaro, Der ferne Klang and Prima Donna. »One might say that the season is permeated by stories about artistic creation,« says Theorell. »Schreker’s Der ferne Klang is about a composer, Wainwright’s Prima Donna deals with a jaded diva, and our production of Turandot is clearly linked to Puccini’s dreams and subconscious, his imagination and the kind of opera he writes. There’s something Freudian and slightly surreal going on here, and that’s extremely interesting. Rusalka is about transforming oneself and recreating oneself as a woman. And Eatnama váibmu concerns the origin of the world – could anything be more creative?«