The Canadian Opera Firm has introduced the main points of its 2025/26 season, which incorporates each conventional favourites from Rossini and Verdi, and a model new Canadian-built manufacturing of Massenet’s Werther.
Robert Carsen and Robert Lepage, two Canadian icons from the world of worldwide opera, add their stylistic contact to the season, which additionally presents a brand new to Toronto audiences model of Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette.
“The Canadian Opera Firm has lengthy established itself as a world chief in creative excellence,” says COC Basic Director David C. Ferguson. “Nevertheless, much more essential than worldwide fame is certainly one of our firm’s key, value-driven priorities: that Canadians, of all ages, backgrounds, and experiences, totally perceive and share our satisfaction within the unbelievable opera being carried out proper right here at house. In curating our 2025/2026 mainstage season, we now have put nice thought into programming a lineup that gives quite a lot of entry factors and layers of engagement with the artwork type in order that there are simply as many thrilling experiences available for a seasoned subscriber as there are for anybody making their very first go to in 25/26. It’s going to be a terrific 12 months to affix us on the opera home.”
Right here’s a take a look at the season in full.
COC 2025/26 At A Look
Gounod: Roméo et Juliette (Toronto premiere of the manufacturing)
September 27; October 5, 8, 10, 14, 16, and 18, 2025
Sung in French with English SURTITLESTM
A manufacturing from Malmö Opera
This placing and vibrant model of the quintessential tragic romance comes from Sweden’s Malmö Opera. The manufacturing is directed by Amy Lane, who Toronto audiences will keep in mind from her cabaret-inspired tackle Gounod’s Faust, which kicked off the COC’s 2024/25 season. This time, she units Roméo et Juliette in New York Metropolis throughout the Gilded Age, the place the household feud explodes at a lavish costume social gathering. Bekhzod Davronov and Kseniia Proshina make their COC debuts because the titular star-crossed lovers. A number of alumni from the Ensemble Studio are within the forged, together with bass Robert Pomakov (Frère Laurent), bass-baritone Gordon Bintner and baritone Korin-Thomas Smith (they share the function of Mercutio), tenor Owen McCausland (Tybalt), bass-baritone Alex Halliday (The Duke), and mezzo-soprano Alex Hetherington (Stéphano).
Gluck: Orfeo ed Euridice
October 9, 11, 15, 17, 19, 21, and 25, 2025
Sung in Italian with English SURTITLESTM
A Canadian Opera Firm co-production with Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Fondazione Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, Opéra Royal Château de Versailles Spectacles, and Lyric Opera of Chicago
Canadian director Robert Carsen’s iconic minimalism attracts the eye to the romantic story on the coronary heart of the Greek fantasy of Orfeo ed Euridice. After the dying of his beloved spouse, Orfeo implores the gods to permit him to deliver her again from the Underworld. However, there are situations: she mustn’t ever look again. Countertenor Iestyn Davies stars as Orfeo, with soprano (and Ensemble Studio graduate) Anna-Sophie Neher as Euridice. Canadian conductor Bernard Labadie leads the COC Orchestra, with Worth Household Refrain Grasp Sandra Horst main the COC Refrain.
Verdi: Rigoletto
January 24, 28; February 6, 8, 10, 12, and 14, 2026
Sung in Italian with English SURTITLESTM
A COC co-production with English Nationwide Opera
Verdi’s Rigoletto is perennially fashionable with good cause: a dramatic story, and iconic melodies which can be among the many most acknowledged within the opera world. Baritone Quinn Kelsey, recognized for his interpretations of the function, stars because the titular clown, with tenor Ben Bliss because the Duke of Mantua. Soprano Andrea Carroll sings the function of Rigoletto’s daughter, Gilda. When the evil Duke seduces her, Rigoletto units on a tragic path of revenge. Director Christopher Alden’s manufacturing places the story right into a meticulously detailed Victorian males’s membership, with set and costume designs by Michael Levine.
Rossini: The Barber of Seville
February 5, 7, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, and 21, 2026
Sung in Italian with English SURTITLESTM
A COC co-production with Houston Grand Opera, Opéra Nationwide de Bordeaux, and Opera Australia
Quick-paced and enjoyable, that is the right opera for households and newbies to the artwork type. Director Joan Font and the Spanish avenue theatre troupe Els Comediants have created a comic book masterpiece on a grand scale for the story, the place the city’s barber, Figaro (baritone Luke Sutliff), schemes to ensure the candy Rosina (mezzo-soprano Deepa Johnny) and her real love Depend Almaviva (tenor Dave Monaco) outwit the evil Dr. Bartolo. Conductor Daniela Candillari makes a much-anticipated debut to conduct the COC Orchestra.
Bartók/Schoenberg: Bluebeard’s Fort/Erwartung
April 25, 29; Could 8, 10, 12, 14, and 16, 2026
Bluebeard’s Fort is sung in Hungarian with English SURTITLESTM
Erwartung is sung in German with English SURTITLESTM
A COC manufacturing
Revolutionary Canadian director Robert Lepage created this double-bill that delves into tales of twisted love. In Bluebeard’s Fort, a spouse discovers horrific secrets and techniques behind the locked doorways of her husband’s house. Mezzo-soprano Karen Cargill sings the function of Bluebeard’s spouse, Judith, with bass-baritone Christian Van Horn because the enigmatic Bluebeard. In Erwartung, a girl spirals into madness throughout a frantic seek for her lacking lover. Anna Gabler makes her debut efficiency on the COC on this solo work. François Racine will direct the revival of this work.
Massenet: Werther
Could 7, 9, 3, 15, 17, 19, and 23, 2026
Sung in French with English SURTITLESTM
A COC co-production with Opéra de Montréal and Vancouver Opera
Three Canadian opera firms group up on this manufacturing of Massenet’s story of romantic obsession. Tenor Russell Thomas sings the function of Werther, a younger man and poet. Toronto audiences will acknowledge him from his gorgeous flip as Otello in 2019. Mezzo-soprano Victoria Karkacheva makes an organization debut as the lady who loves him, however gained’t abandon her engagement to a different. Ensemble Studio alumni, bass-baritone Gordon Bintner and soprano Simone Osborne, co-star as Charlotte’s fiancé, Albert, and her sister, Sophie, respectively. Bass Alain Coulombe and tenor Michael Colvin painting Werther’s mates, Johann and Schmidt. Canadian director Alain Gauthier leads this new Canadian collaborative manufacturing.
Centre Stage: Ensemble Studio Competitors
October 23, 2025 on the 4 Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts
The COC’s Ensemble Studio Competitors showcases the subsequent technology of operatic expertise in Canada annually. Together with money prizes comes the possibility to be a part of the Studio Ensemble, and profit from its intensive skilled coaching program.
- Discover extra particulars concerning the 2025/26 season [HERE].
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Anya Wassenberg is a Toronto Metropolis Editor at Ludwig Van. She is an skilled freelance author, blogger and writing teacher.