# Bavarian State Opera

The Bavarian State Opera (German: Bayerische Staatsoper) is a German opera company based in Munich. Its main venue is the Nationaltheater München, and its orchestra the Bavarian State Orchestra.

## History

The parent ensemble of the company was founded in 1653, under Electress consort Princess Henriette Adelaide of Savoy, when Giovanni Battista Maccioni's L'arpa festante was performed in the court theatre. In 1753, the Residence Theatre (Cuvilliés Theatre) was opened as a major stage. While opera performances were also held in the Prinzregententheater (completed in 1901), the company's home base is the Nationaltheater München on Max-Joseph-Platz.
In 1875, the Munich Opera Festival took place for the first time. Sir Peter Jonas became the general manager in 1993, the first British general manager of any major German-speaking opera house. In 2008, Nikolaus Bachler became Intendant (general manager) of the opera company, and Kirill Petrenko became Generalmusikdirektor (GMD) in 2013. In 2014, the Bavarian State Opera received the Opernhaus des Jahres (opera house of the year) award from Opernwelt magazine. In October 2015, the company announced the extensions of the contracts of Bachler and of Petrenko through August 2021. Both Bachler and Petrenko stood down from their respective posts at the close of the 2020–2021 season.
In March 2018, the company announced the appointments of Serge Dorny [de] as its next general manager, and of Vladimir Jurowski as its next GMD, both effective with the 2021–2022 season. In June 2024, the company announced the extension of Dorny's contract as Intendant through 2031, and of Jurowski's contract as GMD through the close of the 2027-2028 season, at which time Jurowski is expected to stand down as GMD.
The company received the "Opera Company of the Year" award at the 2018 and 2023 International Opera Awards.

## Intendant

* Johann Nepomuk von Poißl (1824–1848)
* Karl Theodor von Küstner [de] (1848–1851)
* Franz von Dingelstedt (1851–1858)
* Karl von Perfall [de] (1868–1893)
* Ernst von Possart (1895–1906)
* Albert von Speidel (1907–1912)
* Clemens von Franckenstein (1912–1918)
* Karl Zeiss [de] (1918–1924)
* Clemens von Franckenstein (1924–1934)
* Hans Knappertsbusch (1934–1935)
* Oskar Walleck (1935–1937)
* Clemens Krauss (1937–1940)
* Georg Hartmann [de] (1945–1952)
* Rudolf Hartmann [de] (1952–1967)
* Günther Rennert (1967–1976)
* August Everding (1977–1982)
* Wolfgang Sawallisch (1982–1993)
* Peter Jonas (1993–2006)
* Kent Nagano (2006–2008)
* Nikolaus Bachler (2008–2021)
* Serge Dorny [de] (2021–present)

## Generalmusikdirektor

* Franz Lachner (1836–1867)
* Hans von Bülow (1864–1869)
* Franz Wüllner (1870–1877)
* Hermann Levi (1872–1896)
* Richard Strauss (1894–1896)
* Max Erdmannsdörfer (1896–1898)
* Bernhard Stavenhagen (1898–1902)
* Hermann Zumpe (1901–1903)
* Felix Mottl (1904–1911)
* Bruno Walter (1913–1922)
* Hans Knappertsbusch (1922–1935)
* Clemens Krauss (1937–1944)
* Hans Knappertsbusch (1945)
* Georg Solti (1946–1952)
* Rudolf Kempe (1952–1954)
* Ferenc Fricsay (1956–1958)
* Joseph Keilberth (1959–1968)
* Wolfgang Sawallisch (1971–1992)
* Peter Schneider (interim, 1992–1998)
* Zubin Mehta (1998–2006)
* Kent Nagano (2006–2013)
* Kirill Petrenko (2013–2021)
* Vladimir Jurowski (2021–present)

## World premieres

| Date | Opera | Composer | Libretto | Location |
| 2 October 1753 | Catone in Utica | Ferrandini | Metastasio | Residence Theatre |
| 13 January 1775 | La finta giardiniera | Mozart | Giuseppe Petrosellini(?) | Salvator Theatre |
| 29 January 1781 | Idomeneo | Mozart | Giambattista Varesco | Residence Theatre |
| 1 February 1782 | Semiramide | Salieri | Metastasio | Residence Theatre |
| 27 January 1807 | Iphigenie in Aulis | Franz Danzi | Karl Reger | Residence Theatre |
| 4 June 1811 | Abu Hassan | Weber | Franz Carl Hiemer | Residence Theatre |
| 23 December 1812 | Jephtas Gelübde | Meyerbeer | Aloys Schreiber | Residence Theatre |
| 10 June 1865 | Tristan und Isolde | Wagner | Wagner | National Theatre |
| 21 June 1868 | Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg | Wagner | Wagner | National Theatre |
| 22 September 1869 | Das Rheingold | Wagner | Wagner | National Theatre |
| 26 June 1870 | Die Walküre | Wagner | Wagner | National Theatre |
| 29 June 1888 | Die Feen | Wagner | Wagner | National Theatre |
| 23 January 1897 | Königskinder (Melodrama) | Humperdinck | Elsa Bernstein | National Theatre |
| 10 October 1897 | Sarema | Alexander von Zemlinsky | Alexander and Adolf von Zemlinsky, Arnold Schoenberg | National Theatre |
| 22 January 1899 | Der Bärenhäuter | Siegfried Wagner | Siegfried Wagner | National Theatre |
| 27 November 1903 | Le donne curiose | Wolf-Ferrari | Luigi Sugana (German by Hermann Teibler) | Residence Theatre |
| 19 March 1906 | I quatro rusteghi | Wolf-Ferrari | Giuseppe Pizzolato (German by Hermann Teibler) | National Theatre |
| 11 December 1906 | Das Christ-Elflein | Hans Pfitzner | Pfitzner and Ilse von Stach | National Theatre |
| 4 December 1909 | Il segreto di Susanna | Wolf-Ferrari | Enrico Golisciani (German by Max Kalbeck) | National Theatre |
| 28 March 1916 | Der Ring des Polykrates / Violanta | Korngold | Leo Feld and Julius Korngold / Hans Müller-Einigen | National Theatre |
| 12 June 1917 | Palestrina | Hans Pfitzner | Pfitzner | Prinzregententheater |
| 30 November 1920 | Die Vögel | Walter Braunfels | Braunfels (play by Aristophanes) | National Theatre |
| 24 July 1938 | Friedenstag | Richard Strauss | Joseph Gregor and Stefan Zweig | National Theatre |
| 5 February 1939 | Der Mond | Carl Orff | Orff | National Theatre |
| 28 October 1942 | Capriccio | Richard Strauss | Strauss and Clemens Krauss | National Theatre |
| 11 August 1957 | Die Harmonie der Welt | Paul Hindemith | Hindemith | Prinzregententheater |
| 9 July 1978 | Lear | Aribert Reimann | Claus H. Henneberg | National Theatre |
| 6 July 1991 | Ubu Rex | Penderecki | Penderecki and Jerzy Jarocki (play by Alfred Jarry) | National Theatre |
| 17 July 2003 | Das Gesicht im Spiegel | Jörg Widmann | Roland Schimmelpfennig | Cuvilliés Theatre |
| 30 June 2007 | Alice in Wonderland | Unsuk Chin | David Henry Hwang | National Theatre |
| 22 February 2010 | Die Tragödie des Teufels | Peter Eötvös | Albert Ostermaier | National Theatre |
| 27 October 2012 | Babylon | Jörg Widmann | Peter Sloterdijk | National Theatre |

## Recordings

Bavarian State Opera has issued numerous recordings under record labels such as Deutsche Grammophon. In May 2021, it launched its own recording label, Bayerische Staatsoper Recordings (BSOrec).
Among the company's noted recordings are the 1989 video recording of Wagners' Der Ring des Nibelungen at the Bayreuth Festival conducted by Wolfgang Sawallisch, which won Best Video in the 1993 Gramophone Classical Music Awards. The 1973 recording of Richard Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier, conducted by Carlos Kleiber and released in 2008, was highly acclaimed and selected as Editor's Choice in the April 2009 issue of Gramophone Magazine.
At International Opera Awards, the Bayerische Staatsoper won the 2018 the Opera Company Award. Their recording of Handel's Agrippina, directed by Barrie Kosky from the Royal Opera House, has been shortlisted for the 2018 Opera Awards.
In 1977, a recording by the Bavarian State Opera was selected by NASA to be included on the Voyager Golden Record, a gold-plated copper record that was sent into space on the Voyager space craft. The record contained sounds and images which had been selected as examples of the diversity of life and culture on Earth. In the recording, soprano Edda Moser sings "Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen" from Mozart's opera, The Magic Flute, conducted by Sawallisch.