Breaking: The Atlanta Opera Unveils Its New Season

“Transformation and Renewal” will be the focus, punctuated by the long-awaited production of Richard Wagner’s Twilight of the Gods

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Last season’s Atlanta Opera performance of Die Walküre, part of Richard Wagner’s Ring cycle. The company will conclude this cycle in its upcoming season with Twilight of the Gods.

Photo by Raftermen Photography

Unveiled February 4, the Atlanta Opera’s upcoming 2025/2026 season is “all about twilight,” says artistic director Tomer Zvulun. And not just because the company is presenting the eagerly awaited production of Richard Wagner’s Twilight of the Gods (Götterdämmerung), the impressive conclusion to the composer’s Ring cycle, a massive 15-year undertaking for the Atlanta Opera.

Atlanta Opera Artistic Director Tomer Zvulun

Photo by the Sintoses

The entire season will focus on, as Zvulun describes it, “change, transformation, renewal, and a new dawn.” Verdi’s La Traviata is set for Nov. 8, 11, 14, and 16, 2025; Philip Glass’s score for La Belle Et La Bete will take place Nov. 15, 2025; Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro will be performed March 14, 17, 20, and 22, 2026; Turandot by Puccini takes center stage April 25, 28, May 1, and 3, 2026; and finally, Twilight of the Gods will be performed May 30, June 2, 5, and 7, 2026.

Two centuries of masterworks are included in the season’s lineup, from Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, originally presented in 1786, to Turandot, which will be performed on the exact centennial of its 1926 premiere: April 25, 2026. And Philip Glass wrote his 1994 original score to be synchronized with a screening of La Belle Et La Bete, director Jean Cocteau’s classic 1946 film. “I’m excited for audiences to see the historical progression we have planned for the new season,” Zvulun says.

But of course, it’s the completion of Richard Wagner’s Ring cycle that Atlanta Opera fans are most excited about—an excitement Zvulun shares. The 15-year odyssey to present the four-part German-language epic in Atlanta was one of his original goals when he arrived at the Atlanta Opera in 2013. “It is so rarely achieved because it is such an elaborate and complex effort,” Zvulun says. “When an opera company does it, it transforms the company. Doing the Ring cycle is a bit like climbing the Mount Olympus of opera. It is arguably opera’s greatest masterpiece, the most complicated and the longest written. It took Wagner 26 years just to write it.”

Morris Robinson

Photo courtesy of the Atlanta Opera

As Twilight’s villain Hagen, the Atlanta Opera is bringing back Atlanta native Morris Robinson, who has become one of the world’s finest bass singers. (Robinson will also be seen in March in this season’s Atlanta Opera production of Macbeth.)

Angela Meade

Photo courtesy of the Atlanta Opera

And while some opera companies have quietly tiptoed away from staging Puccini’s Turandot, originally set in a fictionalized China (a country the composer never actually set foot in), the Atlanta Opera is inventively reimagining it as a timeless fairy tale. “A lot of companies have struggled with the challenge of approaching Turandot in a way that highlights this idea of exoticism, which was how it was done 100 years ago,” explains Zvulun. “But the story is very much a fairy tale based in mythology. That’s what we’re leaning into, and the beautiful and romantic music Puccini wrote supports this story beyond time and place.” Angela Meade, who has performed the title role at the Metropolitan Opera in New York and at the Los Angeles Opera will again sing the role for Atlanta’s Spring 2026 production.

The Atlanta Opera’s artistic director also teased one final 2025/26 production—a co-production with the Alliance Theatre to be directed by Zvulun himself. (The Alliance will unveil the title as part of its upcoming season announcement.)

While it’s exciting for Zvulun to add the completion of the Wagner Ring cycle to his resume, he also recognizes the team effort it represents. “People fly in from New York City, Australia, and Vienna for opening night,” he says. “This has been an effort that is profoundly moving to watch. Our orchestra has grown so much by doing this masterwork. Our marketing team has risen to the occasion. The sets are built in Wales, so our team travels across an ocean. The costumes are made in Minnesota, so we’re flying there to make sure every detail is correct. It’s very moving to see a vision begun 15 years ago come to life and now reach its conclusion. And we have the audience to thank for that.”

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