New Season 2014-2015 at the Metropolitan Opera in New York

During the 2014-2015 season, the Metropolitan Opera in New York City will perform 26 operas (including two double-bill productions) in 6 different languages (Italien, French, German, English, Russian, Hungarian).

The brochure announces 8 new productions, including 3 Met premières :

- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart : Le Nozze di Figaro, directed by Richard Eyre ;
- John Adams : The Death of Klinghoffer, directed by Tom Morris (Met première) ;
- Franz Lehar : The Merry Widow (in English), directed by Susan Stroman ;
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky : Iolanta (Met première) and Bela Bartok : Bluebeard's Castle, directed by Mariusz Trelinski ;
- Gioachino Rossini : La Donna del Lago (Met première), directed by Paul Curran ;
- Pietro Mascagni : Cavalleria rusticana and Ruggero Leoncavallo : Pagliacci, directed by David McVicar.

Like several other theatres, the Met advertises as 'new production' some coproductions that have already been performed in other places : the production of The Death of Klinghoffer has been first performed in London (English National Opera) in February 2012, Iolanta was first staged by Mariusz Trelinski for the Festspielhaus in Baden-Baden (July 2009) and Bluebeard's Castle in Warsaw last December, Paul Curran conceived his production of Rossini's opera for Santa Fe during the 2013 Summer.

Therefore, the Met will present only four real new productions (including a double-bill).

The 18 revivals are :

- Georges Bizet : Carmen, directed by Richard Eyre (first performed in December 2009) ;
- Gaetano Donizetti : Lucia di Lammermoor, directed by Mary Zimmerman (first performed in September 2007) ;
- Engelbert Humperdinck : Hansel and Gretel (in English), directed by Richard Jones (first performed in December 2007) ;
- Jules Massenet : Manon, directed by Laurent Pelly (first performed in March 2012) ;
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart : Die Zauberflöte, directed by Julie Taymor (first performed in October 2004) and Don Giovanni, directed by Michael Grandage (first performed in October 2011) ;
- Jacques Offenbach : Les Contes d'Hoffmann, directed by Bartlett Sher (first performed in December 2009) ;
- Giacomo Puccini : La Bohème, directed by Franco Zeffirelli (first performed in December 1981) ;
- Gioachino Rossini : Il barbiere di Siviglia, directed by Bartlett Sher (first performed in November 2006) ;
- Dmitri Shostakovich : Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, directed by Graham Vick (first performed in November 1994) ;
- Igor Stravinsky : The Rake's Progress, directed by Jonathan Miller (first performed in November 1997) ;
- Giuseppe Verdi : Macbeth, directed by Adrian Noble (first performed in October 2007) ; Aida, directed by Sonja Frisell (first performed in December 1988), La Traviata, directed by Willy Decker (first performed in December 2010), Ernani, directed by Pier Luigi Samaritani (first performed in November 1983), Don Carlo, directed by Nicholas Hytner (first performed in November 2010) and Un ballo in maschera, directed by David Alden (first performed in November 2012) ;
- Richard Wagner : Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, directed by Otto Schenk (first performed in January 1993).

Three of these productions are of the 1980s, 3 of the 1990s and the 12 others have been conceived in the last 10 years. There is only 1 contemporary opera : The Death of Klinghoffer.

New season 2014-2015 at the Festspielhaus, Baden-Baden

During the Summer Festival 2014, the following operas will be performed :
- Valery Gergiev will conduct Giuseppe Verdi's Don Carlo, with the director Giorgio Barberio Corsetti ;
- Yannick Nézet-Séguin will conduct Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail, in concert, with Diana Damrau, Rolando Villazon and Thomas Quasthoff.

Then, during the Autumn Festival :
- Karel Mark Chichon will conduct Vincenzo Bellini's I Capuleti e ei Montecchi, with Elina Garanca, Alksandra Kurzak and Francesco Meli (in concert).

For the Easter Festival, Sir Simon Rattle will conduct :
- Richard Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier with the Berlin Philharmonic, in a production directed by Brigitte Fassbaender, with anja Harteros, Peter Rose, Magdalena Kozena and Anna Prohaska ;
- Hector Berlioz's La Damnation de Faust (concert version) with Joyce DiDonato, Charles Castronovo and Ludovic Tézier.

During the Spring Festival,
- Pablo Heras-Casado will conduct Giuseppe's Verdi La Traviata, with Rolando Villazon directing. The cast will include Olga Peretyatko and Ludovic Tézier.

Valery Gergiev will return to Baden-Baden in the Summer 2015 to conduct Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Pique Dame ( a new staging from the Mariinsky Theater) and Hector Berlioz's Les Troyens (in concert). Yannick Nézet-Séguin will return too. This time for a concert version of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro with Bryn Terfel, Diana Damrau, Luca Pisaroni, Anne Sofie von Otter and Rolando Villazon.

New Season 2014-2015 at the Wiener Staatsoper (Vienna State Opera)

In the 2013-2014 season, the Vienna State Opera produced seven new productions, including a world première (Das Städtchen Drumherum, a children opera by Elisabeth Naske, in October 2013), three revivals and 41 repertoire productions.

In the 2014-2015 season, there will be one Austrian première (of a contemporary opera), 6 new productions, and 43 repertoire productions.

- Thomas Adès' The Tempest will be performed in June 2015, in the Robert Lepage production which premiered in Québec in July 2012 and was subsequently presented at the Met in New York the following October.

The new productions are :
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart : Idomeneo, conducted by Christoph Eschenbach, directed by Kasper Holten ;
- Modest Mussorgsky : Khovanshchina, conducted by Semyon Bychkov, directed by Lev Dodin ;
- Giuseppe Verdi : Rigoletto, conducted by Franz Welser-Möst, directed by Pierre Audi ;
- Richard Strauss : Elektra, conducted by Franz Welser-Möst, directed by Uwe Eric Laufenberg ;
- Gaetano Donizetti : Don Pasquale, conducted by Jesus Lopez-Cobos, directed by Irina Brook ;
- Albert Lortzing : Undine (in a version for children), conducted by Johannes Wildner, directed by Alexander Medem.

Repertoire operas are :
- Aida, Don Carlo, Nabucco, Simon Boccanegra and La Traviata by Giuseppe Verdi ;
- Andrea Chénier by Umberto Giordano ;
- Anna Bolena, L'Elisir d'amore and Roberto Devereux by Gaetano Donizetti ;
- Arabella, Ariadne auf Naxos, Der Rosenkavalier and Salome by Richard Strauss ;
- Il Barbiere di Siviglia, La Cenerentola and L'Italiana in Algeri by Gioachino Rossini ;
- Cardillac by Paul Hindemith ;
- La Bohème, La Fanciulla del West, Madama Butterfly and Tosca by Giacomo Puccini ;
- Don Giovanni, Le Nozze di Figaro and Die Zauberflöte by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart ;
- Eugene Onegin and Pique Dame by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky ;
- Fidelio by Ludwig van Beethoven ;
- Die Fledermaus by Johann Strauß
- Der fliegende Holländer, Parsifal, Der Ring des Nibelungen, Tannhäuser and Tristan und Isolde by Richard Wagner ;
- La Juive by Jacques Fromental Halévy ;
- Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District by Dmitri Shostakovich ;
- Manon and Werther by Jules Massenet ;
- I Puritani by Vincenzo Bellini ;
- Rusalka by Antonin Dvorak ;
- The Cunning Little Vixen by Leos Janacek.

With 50 operas in 6 languages (English, Italian, Russian, German, French, Czech) by 21 composers, the Vienne State Opera remains one of the most active opera houses in the world.

Recently, the following opera received its world premiere performance at the Vienna State Opera :
- Aribert Reimann : Medea, in February 2010.

If the Vienna State Opera is not the most active opera house in giving birth to new works, it produces a great variety of performances every year. Among the 50 operas to be performed next season, 4 have been composed in the last 100 years.

New Season 2014-2015 at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris

For the first time in more than 25 years, the program of the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées includes a world premiere.

With only 5 staged opera productions, general director Michel Franck manages to compete directly with larger opera houses, simply because he presents operas that are not performed by other opera houses in Paris.

The 2014-2015 season includes 5 operas :

- Jean-Philippe Rameau : Castor et Pollux (new production), no production in Paris in the last 25 years ;

- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart : La Clemenza di Tito (new production) ;

- Dai Fujikura : Solaris (world première) ;

- Giuseppe Verdi : Macbeth (new production) ;

- Gaetano Donizetti : Maria Stuarda (production from Houston, April 2012).

As usual, a number of operas will also be performed in concert : 

- Georg Friedrich Haendel : Alcina, with Joyce DiDonato ;

- Jules Massenet : Cléopâtre, with Sophie Koch and Ludovic Tézier ;

- Gioachino Rossini : Semiramide, with Elena Mosuc and Michele Pertusi ;

- Agostino Steffani : Niobe, with Karina Gauvin and Philippe Jaroussky ;

- Gioachino Rossini : Guillaume Tell, with Nicola Alaimo and Annick Massis ;

- Gioachino Rossini : L’Occasione fa il ladro, with Roberto de Candia and Désirée Rancatore ;

- Georg Friedrich Haendel : Hercules, with Matthew Rose and Alice Coote.

In the 2013-2014 season were performed, among others, Gaspare Spontini’s La Vestale, Gioacchino Rossini’s Otello (with Cecilia Bartoli) and Tancredi (with Marie-Nicole Lemieux and Patrizia Ciofi) and Giacomo Puccini’s Le Villi.