Les Arts premieres new productions of Carmen, Lohengrin, Simon Boccanegra and La clemenza di Tito in a season featuring Bartoli, Buratto, Davidsen, Jaho and Oropesa

Les Arts premieres new productions of Carmen , Lohengrin , Simon Boccanegra and La clemenza di Tito in a season featuring Bartoli, Buratto, Davidsen, Jaho and Oropesa

• With Christopher Maltman, Thomas Hampson, Camilla Nylund, Ricarda Merberth, Francesco Meli, Charles Castronovo and Andrè Schuen
• Mikko Franck, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Thomas Hengelbrock, Philippe Jordan, Antonello Manacorda, share the podium with Sir Mark Elder

Valencia (May 19, 2025). The Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía will premiere four new opera productions: Carmen , Lohengrin , Simon Boccanegra and La clemenza di Tito . Within its 2026-2027 Season, a reflection on power, geopolitics and social conflicts through a program that ranges from the Baroque of Riccardo Primo to the Post-Truth of Nixon in China.

Les Arts is once again the leading venue for the best conductors on the circuit this season, in which the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana, under the tutelage of Sir Mark Elder, will work with Mikko Franck, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Thomas Hengelbrock, Philippe Jordan, Antonello Manacorda and Vasily Petrenko.

Performers of the caliber of Cecilia Bartoli, Lang Lang, Lise Davidsen, Lisette Oropesa, Eleonora Buratto, Ermonela Jaho, Ricarda Merberth, Ruth Iniesta, Camilla Nylund, Francesco Meli, Charles Castronovo, Davide Luciano, Andrè Schuen, Antonio Poli, George Petean and Gevorg Hakobyan return and, among others, Thomas Hampson, Christopher Maltman and Hugh Cutting make their debut.

The president of the Board of Trustees of Les Arts, Pablo Font de Mora, and the artistic director of the institution, Jesús Iglesias Noriega, presented the XXI Season of Les Arts at a press conference today.

In his review of the previous year's management, Pablo Font de Mora highlighted the Foundation's main economic strengths. The Chairman of the Board of Trustees emphasized that Les Arts has achieved a balanced budget, with economic activity of €30.8 million compared to expenses of €29.5 million, resulting in a positive balance of over €1 million for the 2025 fiscal year, consistent with the positive results of recent years.

In this regard, he pointed out that box office revenues have been “over 4,500,000 euros”, the section on rental of spaces, events and complementary activities “which totals 3,900,000 euros”, as well as the capital from sponsorship and patronage “which reaches almost 900,000 euros” with an increase of more than 120%, consolidating the public-private collaboration.

Iglesias Noriega has asserted that the 2026-2027 season consolidates Les Arts as a center for operatic production in Europe. “After having launched three new productions in the season that is about to end, the new program includes a record four new productions, in co-production with the most prestigious theaters: Rome Opera, Venice La Fenice, the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, and the Grand Théâtre de Genève.”

After visiting the Pollença Festival with Sir Mark Elder in August, the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana (OCV) opens its season, once again, away from its home venue. German conductor Anja Bihlmaier makes her debut with the OCV in a concert in Vall d'Uixó on September 12, which she will repeat on Sunday the 13th for the Open House, marking the start of the season at the Calatrava building.

Les Arts és Òpera invites reflection on power, geopolitics, and social conflicts in a season that begins on October 2nd with a new production of Bizet's Carmen , Ted Huffman's first work for the Main Hall. Following L'incoronazione di Poppea , nominated for an Opera Award, the director of the Aix-en-Provence Festival is preparing a striking vision of Merimée's cigarette girl, an icon of individual struggle against the established order, embodied by the emerging Vasilisa Berzhanskaya with Michele Spotti conducting.

Les Arts Florissants, on their visit in October, delves into the conflicts between power and passion, with the concert version of Riccardo Primo , Handel's fascinating opera about Richard I of England, which the group rescues from oblivion with Paul Agnew conducting and countertenor Hugh Cutting in the main role.

Seventeen years after the acclaimed Ring Cycle , Les Arts returns to its own Wagnerian productions with Damiano Michieletto's psychologically brutal yet aesthetically pleasing dissection of Lohengrin , which the Italian conductor reinterprets as a critique of mass fanaticism. Sir Mark Elder conducts one of his most celebrated works in December with a cast that combines emerging and established figures from the Wagnerian world, including David Butt Philip, Wolfgang Koch, and Ricarda Merbeth.

Mozart transcends the political and delves into the intractable cracks of official discourse with La clemenza di Tito , which Rafael R. Villalobos, in his second production for Les Arts, transposes to the cinematic universe of Cinecittà in the 1940s to ask us whether clemency is an act of state or an ethical dilemma in the face of the loneliness of power. Antonio Poli leads an exquisite Mozartian cast under the musical direction of Stefano Montanari in January.

With Simon Boccanegra, Verdi bequeathed a corrosive and destructive vision of power, which Àlex Ollé, in his first new production for Les Arts, sees as a shattered mirror of the present: fractured societies, exhausted power, and institutions incapable of reconciliation. Sir Mark Elder, a passionate Verdi scholar, will conduct one of his favorite operas in March, starring George Petean alongside leading voices such as Eleonora Buratto, Francesco Meli, Jongmin Park, and Gevorg Hakobyan.

Politics, media, performance, and myth converge in the construction of contemporary power, brilliantly portrayed by John Adams in Nixon in China . Valentina Carrasco, under the baton of Cornelius Meister, captures the clash between two opposing worlds in this masterpiece of contemporary opera, which will be performed between the end of April and the beginning of May. Thomas Hampson, one of the leading baritones on the circuit, makes his Les Arts debut in the role of Nixon.

Love, prestige, and social standing function as forms of domination in Adriana Lecouvreur , which transforms the theater into a battleground against the laws of the Ancien Régime . Cilea's verismo arrives in June under the poetic direction of Vincent Boussard, following his ecstatic Giulio Cesare in Egitto . The charismatic Ermonela Jaho sings her opera debut at Les Arts, with Charles Castronovo, Roberto Frontali, and Clémentine Margaine, conducted by Maurizio Benini.

Iglesias Noriega also noted at the presentation that Les Arts is resuming its collaboration with ENSEMS with the audacious Estètica i massacre , by Carles Prat and Oriol Pla, which will be hosted by the Teatre Martín i Soler on September 17 and 18.

For its part, Les Arts és Sarsuela revives Bretón's La verbena de la Paloma , recreated by Nuria Castejón as a tribute to the now-defunct Teatro de Apolo. José Miguel Pérez-Sierra directs Les Arts' first foray into the género chico (a type of Spanish light opera) with performers such as Borja Quiza, Antoni Comas, and Milagros Martín.

In the symphonic realm, Les Arts and the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana once again serve as the benchmark for the most prestigious conductors on the international circuit. Mikko Frank, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Thomas Hengelbrock, Philippe Jordan, Antonello Manacorda, Cornelius Meister, Vasily Petrenko, and Sir Mark Elder present an ambitious program that includes some of Strauss's most exuberant symphonic poems, as well as the most beloved symphonies of Mozart, Mahler, Tchaikovsky, Schumann, Shostakovich, and Sibelius.

Iglesias Noriega also pointed out that the OCV and its director will continue their activities outside of Les Arts, which, after Pollença, include concerts at the National Auditorium of Madrid, the Úbeda Festival and La Maestranza in Seville.

The 2026-2027 Season consolidates Dance Fridays at Les Arts with a kaleidoscopic program that combines classical ballet, Spanish dance and also contemporary dance from the most cutting-edge companies: Antonio Najarro and his exercise in memory with Les Ballets Espagnols de “La Argentina”, Olga Pericet with La Leona , Kader Attou with Le murmure des songes , Marcos Morau with La Veronal and La Mort i la Primavera or the Antonio Ruz Company with Norma .

Once again, Les Arts maintains its commitment to Valencian excellence and new creation with Estela de Alba Castillo, co-produced with Dansa València, as well as its commitment to the great classical repertoire with the OCV in the pit, which on this occasion will accompany the Aalto Ballet of Essen in Swan Lake .

Five unmissable events are presented for lovers of Lied with the debuts

in the cycle of Camilla Nylund and Georg Zeppenfeld, essential in the German repertoire; as well as the soprano Sabine Devieilhe and the bel canto tenor Lawrence Brownlee; along with the return of the acclaimed Andrè Schuen.

For its part, Les Arts és Grans Veus brings together in Valencia the top names in the repertoire: the exceptional Cecilia Bartoli and piano star Lang Lang, in a journey from the Baroque to late Romanticism; the extraordinary countertenor Franco Fagioli in a tribute to Farinelli, in addition to two concerts by the OCV, which will accompany the new diva of the Wagnerian universe, Lise Davidsen who, together with the acclaimed Christopher Maltman, tackles a monograph of the Leipzig composer, and the dazzling Lisette Oropesa, absolute protagonist of the contemporary scene, in a bel canto soirée .

Les Arts és Baroc i Música Antiga will once again bring together the most prominent historicist figures and formations, with Lea Desandre & Thomas Dunford, Franco Fagioli, Maite Beaumont or Harmonia del Parnàs & Bruno de Sá, and titles such as Il martirio di Santa Teodosia , with Al Ayre Español, and Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno with Il Giardino Armonico under the direction of Giovanni Antonini.

Les Arts will not miss its appointment with flamenco singing with Yerai Cortés, the Zambomba Flamenca, Rancapino Chico, Lela Soto and Chano Domínguez & Antonio Reyes, while the lineup of other music will feature the Latin jazz of Michel Camilo Trio, without forgetting the local talent in Les Arts és Músiques Valencianes .