Greek National Opera – 2026/27 Programme

The Greek National Opera’s new programme for the 2026/27 season, curated by its Artistic Director, Giorgos Koumendakis, brings to the Stavros Niarchos Hall important premieres, celebrated artists, new works, international collaborations, ambitious new opera and dance productions, mixed spectacles, musical performances, classical ballet, revivals of successful productions, and one opera for young audiences.

In the new 2026/27 programme, the Greek National Opera brings together renowned stage directors, set and costume designers, and choreographers from Greece and around the world, including William Kentridge, Stephen Langridge, Katie Davenport, Valentina Turcu, Alexandros Eflkidis, Eirini Vianelli, Sabine Theunissen, and Alan Hranitelj.

The productions will be led by internationally acclaimed conductors as well as by emerging Greek and foreign maestros, such as Vassilis Christopoulos, Konstantinos Terzakis, Dmitri Jurowski, Pier Giorgio Morandi, Jacques Lacombe, Sesto Quatrini, Lukas Karytinos, José Salazar, and others.

In the 2026/27 productions, alongside the GNO stars Dimitri Platanias, Tassis Christoyannis, Cellia Costea, Vassiliki Karayanni, Dionysios Sourbis, Tassos Apostolou, Petros Magoulas, Yanni Yannissis, and Yannis Christopoulos, we will have the pleasure of experiencing performances by world-acclaimed Greek and international artists, including Sonya Yoncheva, Ermonela Jaho, Charles Castronovo, Brian Jagde, Arturo Chacón-Cruz, Riccardo Massi, Marcelo Puente, Anita Rachvelishvili, Christos Kechris, Mary-Ellen Nesi, Dmitry Golovnin, Hovhannes Ayvazyan, Matilde Wallevik, Danae Kontora, and Anna Agathonos, Chrysanthi Spitadi, among others.

This year’s season, alongside the GNO Ballet dancers, will also showcase internationally renowned performers on the Stavros Niarchos Hall stage, including Maia Makhateli, Elisabeth Tonev, Ksenia Ovsyanick, Carollina Bastos, Leticia Dias, Young Gyu Choi, and Alejandro Virelles.

The season’s official opening will take place on 30 October 2026 with a work that will be showcased for the first time at the Greek National Opera—in a grand international co-production with the Glyndebourne Festival and the New York Metropolitan Opera—, L’Orfeo by Claudio Monteverdi, directed by the prominent visual artist and director William Kentridge.

In December 2026, a Russian repertoire masterpiece, The Queen of Spades by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, will be presented in a new, ambitious production directed by internationally renowned British director Stephen Langridge.

March 2027 will mark the return of Igor Stravinsky’s 20th-century masterpiece The Rake’s Progress to the GNO repertoire after half a century, in a new, captivating staging by the distinguished Greek director Alexandros Efklidis.

In May and June 2027, the Greek National Opera will present, for the first time in its history, Ludwig van Beethoven’s Missa solemnis, a monumental masterwork of Western music, as part of the 200th anniversary of the composer’s death, in an ambitious mixed performance featuring the GNO’s Orchestra, Chorus, and Ballet.

In February and March 2027, the GNO Ballet will present a new choreography by Valentina Turcu, based on Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire—a co-production between the GNO and the Maribor Slovene National Theatre—, while in December 2026 and January 2027, it will showcase a revival of the classical production of Giselle, choreographed by Verónica Villar and Elena Iglesias.

With the revival of Verdi’s fascinating Otello in April and May 2027, the Greek National Opera will honour Robert Wilson, the prominent avant-garde artist who redefined opera’s stage language. The two black-and-white productions with cinematic aesthetics by Nikos S. Petropoulos will return to the GNO: Puccini’s Tosca in January and February 2027, and Verdi’s Rigoletto in July 2027. Traditional Japanese culture will once again be contrasted with American modernism in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, directed by Hugo de Ana, which will be revived at the Stavros Niarchos Hall in June and July 2027.

Lena Platonos’ musical fairy tale The Emperor’s Nightingale will return to the Stavros Niarchos Hall from November 2026 to January 2027, featuring nine performances for families and schools. Dimitra Galani will stamp her mark on a special musical performance titled Even If You Go Away…, paying tribute to a unique Greek lyricist, Marianina Kriezi, in a production featuring Savina Yannatou and Yannis Palamidas.

Following its international tours across Europe, Asia, and Africa, the GNO will present a grand concert at New York’s iconic Carnegie Hall in October, titled Nikos Kazantzakis: An Odyssey in Music, featuring works by Hadjidakis, Theodorakis, Skalkottas, Mitropoulos, and Koumendakis.

Sacred music will return to the GNO’s programme with the 4th Sacred Music Festival, which will take place during the first days of the 2027 Holy Week at churches, museums, and archaeological sites in Plaka and the centre of Athens.

Booking for tickets for the October to December 2026 trimester will open on 1 June 2026 at 12.00 via ticketservices.gr and at the GNO Box Office.

The Artistic Director of the Greek National Opera, Giorgos Koumendakis, notes: ‘The 2026/27 season marks a new direction for the Greek National Opera’s repertoire, with important premieres and notable returns. Two works that have determined the development of music invite us to a generous immersion in the core of our art: Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo—the work with which the art of opera was born four centuries ago—and Beethoven’s Missa solemnis—one of the most remarkable masterpieces of Western music—will be presented for the first time at the Greek National Opera.
Along with them, another landmark work of the 20th century, Igor Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress, will return to the GNO repertoire after half a century. Moreover, Tchaikovsky’s unique masterpiece, The Queen of Spades, will mark the return of the Russian School to the GNO, a school that has defined the art of opera worldwide.
Our international presence is advancing rapidly and yielding impressive results: This year, the GNO will make its Carnegie Hall debut in New York with a purely Greek programme dedicated to Nikos Kazantzakis. At the same time, the GNO, along with the Glyndebourne Festival and the New York Metropolitan Opera, will co-produce William Kentridge’s new staging of L’Orfeo.
Prominent among our revivals will be Verdi’s emblematic Otello, directed by Robert Wilson, which will serve as an ultimate tribute to him for his entire contribution to opera staging. Furthermore, we will be reviving three more masterpieces from the operatic repertoire: Tosca and Rigoletto, directed by Nikos S. Petropoulos, and Madama Butterfly, staged by Hugo de Ana.
In addition to reviving the classic ballet Giselle, our Ballet will present the new production A Streetcar Named Desire, based on Tennessee Williams’ masterpiece of the same name, choreographed by Valentina Turcu and co-produced by the Greek National Opera and the Maribor Slovene National Theatre. Moreover, the GNO Ballet will participate in the mixed performance we will create for Missa solemnis.
Dimitra Galani will pay a special tribute to an exceptional creator. Even If You Go Away…—a small homage to Marianina Kriezi—will introduce a unique Greek singing universe at the Stavros Niarchos Hall.
Furthermore, we will once again present Lena Platonos’ The Emperor’s Nightingale, a colourful, animated introduction to the art of opera for children, directed by Katerina Petsatodi, at the Stavros Niarchos Hall for a 9-performance run.
The 4th Sacred Music Festival will return to Plaka in the Easter of 2027, with numerous concerts during the first days of Holy Week.
I would like to welcome the many Greek and international creators who are set to bring this year’s productions to life and present them to the audience’s judgement, while also urging them to embrace the inherent artistic risks without fear.
For the realisation of this year’s programme, our grand tour in the United States of America, and their longstanding support, I would like to thank the Stavros Niarchos Foundation and its Co-President, Andreas C. Dracopoulos. The distinctive relationship of mutual understanding and appreciation we have built has yielded significant results for the GNO and its international presence.
Another relationship we have been building very carefully for years—that with our private sponsors—has given us the important opportunity to fund our artistic work and realise all artistic visions worth performing. For this year’s season, I would like to thank, most of all, the Public Power Corporation, our Major Sponsor, for its enduring support for our Company as a whole. I also extend heartfelt greetings to Piraeus Bank, Prodea Investments, Metlen Energy & Metals, Eurobank and Alpha Bank.
The Greek National Opera is a state organisation whose existence and survival depend on the grants it receives from the Ministry of Culture. However, it is the knowledge, commitment, genuine interest, and creative insight of the Minister of Culture, Lina Mendoni, that offers the GNO not just funding but also all the tools and opportunities necessary for it to evolve into a multilayered, international cultural producer. I thank her wholeheartedly.
In closing, I would like to express my deep gratitude to the worthy team of my tireless collaborators, the Chair of our Board, Hary Stavropoulos; our Board Members, Dimitris Dimitriadis, Eleni Skarkou, Dimitra Filippou, and Nikolaos Sarris; and the entire artistic, administrative, technical, and other staff of the GNO for their decisive contribution to our Company’s work.’

The Minister of Culture, Dr Lina Mendoni, remarks on the GNO’s new programme: ‘The Greek National Opera’s 2026/27 season programme moves reflectively along the creative and imaginative lines the Company has carved out in recent years, achieving not only the most enthusiastic response from the audience, which has placed it among the world’s leading music scenes, but also attracting young people thirsty for quality. Its long tradition of presenting emblematic works has forged its modern mark, while it consistently upholds the highest artistic standards. To achieve its ambitious goals, the GNO’s human resources have played a decisive role, working with complete commitment, as have crucial collaborations with leading artists and creators known for their performances of major works in Music Theatre. For this season as well, the programme to be presented by the GNO to Greek and international audiences is highly dense and complex, comprising new emblematic productions, legendary revivals, high-caliber global collaborations, and mixed performances, featuring world-class, celebrated creators and performers.

The GNO programme begins at the end of October with Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo, presented for the first time as a co-production with the Glyndebourne Festival and the New York Metropolitan Opera, and directed by the renowned William Kentridge. Soon after, one of Tchaikovsky’s masterpieces will follow – his eternal opera The Queen of Spades, which is based on a work by Aleksander Pushkin and explores themes of greed, obsession, and the consequences of one’s choices. Then, at the end of May 2027, comes Ludwig van Beethoven’s Missa solemnis, a work that expresses the spirituality and faith of its creator, imbued with a powerful sense of divinity and personal elevation. This landmark in Western music will be presented for the first time by the Greek National Opera in honour of the 200th anniversary of the prominent composer’s death. The opera performance programme will be completed by the revival of Verdi’s Otello in the coming spring, the return of two black-and-white, film-aesthetic works by Nikos S. Petropoulos—Puccini’s Tosca and Verdi’s Rigoletto—, and the masterful Madama Butterfly, which will be staged in the Stavros Niarchos Hall, in the summer of 2027.

The GNO’s successful recipe is actually exceptionally simple at its core: it reaches a wide-ranging audience that extends well beyond opera enthusiasts, while insisting on highly challenging productions of increasingly higher quality. The Greek National Opera offers Art on a universal scale, a “culture for all”. Never before has the Greek National Opera enjoyed such international appeal, such high impact on audiences, and such success in its artistic choices, all of which is credited to its people. To its artistic director, Giorgos Koumendakis, a dear friend and celebrated creator who combines deep knowledge with love for his craft and the dynamism and skills required to manage a major emblematic institution, I offer my warmest congratulations and express my firm belief that the 2026/27 season will offer us unique moments of musical pleasure and aesthetic delight.’

The Greek National Opera is funded by the Hellenic Ministry of Culture

Lead Donor of the GNO: Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF)