‘We want people on the edge of their seats’: Royal Opera boss Oliver Merz on the new season – and the latest controversies | classical music

TIn the morning I met Oliver Merz, director of the opera at Covent Garden, and I still walked on air. The other day I saw Wagner’s epic Siegfried, part three of the Ring Cycle. Clocking in at nearly six hours, the film is an immersion into the world of gods and giants, heroes and warrior women – but also deep and poignant human relationships. With the wonderful Andreas Schager in the title role among a wonderful cast, this is Royal Opera at its best. On his way to his office, Mears walks through a backstage maze. Singers warming up. People in the wardrobe discuss last-minute outfit fixes; And a pair of mice running through the canteen adds a bohemian atmosphere. Paradise (give or take a rodent).

Merz tells me about the upcoming season: course after course of operatic banquet. There will be a new Parsifal, conducted by musical director Jakub Hrsha and directed, in his home debut, by the charismatic and interesting Kazakh-born Evgeny Titov. There’s a new Un Ballo in Verdi’s Maschera, with another new director for the house, the “elegant and austere” German Philipp Stölzl. There is a return to Richard Jones’s wonderful production of Janáček’s “Kát’a Kabanová” with Hrša conducting – whose interpretation of Janáček’s “Jenůfa” last season was one of the musical experiences of my life.

After the popular success of last year’s Marc-Anthony Turnage’s “Festen” — an adaptation of Thomas Vinterberg’s film about a family party in which a legacy of child abuse is horrifyingly revealed — there will be no operatic premiere on the main stage next season. Mears says that in an ideal world of unlimited money, he would like them to make two films per season, but that’s a huge financial commitment, and with money tight, every new big piece, whether Festen or Kaija Saariaho Innocence, which premieres in 2023, has to be a “goal.”

It is a reminder of how much the national opera scene has been affected by a series of aggressive cuts by Arts Council England. Glyndebourne and Welsh National Opera are touring less often. English National Opera has been almost completely removed from London to Greater Manchester. “I’ve always said that we thrive when we have a friend who is doing well in the future,” Mears says. I wonder whether, in light of all this, the Royal Opera sees more urgently its role in providing a channel for emerging opera composers. Recent successes in smaller works include Philip Venables’ 4.48 Psychosis, which will be revived for a second time next season; and The Last Days of Oliver Leith, which premiered four years ago and returned to Linbury in December.

But the program that produced these two works – in collaboration with the Guildhall School of Music and Drama – has been temporarily halted, and opportunities are dwindling across the board. “I think what’s most important is that we create and produce the work ourselves, and we’ve just committed a very significant investment in R&D here,” says Mears. What they’re looking for, he says, are pieces that will have “the audience on the edge of their seats.” Often, he says, “when you go and see a contemporary opera, you fall asleep because there’s not enough contrast, there’s not enough variety in the vocal writing. And maybe they asked a friend or a poet to write a libretto, and it doesn’t work.” (He won’t tell me what new works he’s slept on, and although I understand his point, poets and friends can be very good lyricists, if you think of Britten’s Myfanwy Piper’s The Turn of the Screw; or W. H. Auden’s Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress.)

He says the Royal Opera has a major theater commission with one British composer on the go and in conversation with another. As for those who are at an early stage, since there are “dozens of different composers,” he does not want to name any names. I’m looking forward to turning R&D into commissions.

Outside, outside the doors of the Royal Opera House, there are wars and tense politics, annihilation and violence (a world accurately depicted by Wagner, if you look beyond the magic and runes). Covent Garden is not immune to its effects. Last July, an artist raised the Palestinian flag during the closing of the curtain on the opera. Immediately, one of the employees came out of the wings and tried to remove him by force. The whole thing was videotaped by several audience members. The moment made headlines.

The kidnapper was Mears. I wonder if he regrets his reaction? “The curtain raiser is no place for an impromptu personal political protest, especially when someone can be seen speaking on behalf of the entire organization,” he says. “So I stand by my principles, but the situation was chaotic and unfortunate.”

There may have been other ways of dealing with the matter – such as dropping the curtain, which is already the protocol now in place in the event of such an incident being repeated. I certainly don’t begrudge Mears having to decide how to act right now. But 182 of his colleagues at the Royal Ballet and Opera (RBO) have signed an open letter condemning his “apparent anger” and praising the “moral clarity” of dancer Daniel Perry. Perry later said that Mears told him he would never work at the Royal Opera again. “I’m not going to comment on a professional conversation that may or may not have happened,” Mears says.

I’m curious to understand the Fed’s position on expressions of political solidarity. After Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine, blue and yellow flags were raised and the orchestra played the national anthem: support for Ukraine was clear and unambiguous. However, this season – and next, again, in Merz’s own production of “La Gioconda” – Russian soprano Anna Netrebko will appear on stage. Netrebko has in the past received honors from Russian President Vladimir Putin; Her name appeared on his supporters’ lists before the elections in 2012 and 2018; Most notably, in 2014, she was photographed carrying the “Novorossiya” flag – the emblem used by Russia-backed separatists who illegally seized parts of Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk regions. (In an interview with Die Zeit, she said she did not understand the importance of the flag, or know that her name had appeared on a list of Putin’s supporters in 2018.)

“Anna has expressed her opposition to the war plain on many different occasions,” says Merz. “She has not returned to Russia, even in a personal capacity, let alone performed there since the invasion.” Netrebko, a dual citizen who lives and pays taxes in Austria, has been welcomed since 2022 at the world’s major opera houses (but not at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, and last year’s concert in Romania was canceled after an appeal from the Ukrainian embassy). But issuing statements condemning the “war” without blaming Putin, or denouncing Russia’s war crimes, was seen as largely insufficient by many in Ukraine and elsewhere, especially against the backdrop of Russia’s long exploitation of its culture as a tool of propaganda and soft power.

I ask what explains the company’s approach to dealing with these difficult matters. Merz told me that the administration rejected requests to display the Israeli flag on the exterior of the building after October 7, 2023, and, on another occasion, the flag of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. “These are all reactions to horrific events. There’s no doubt about that, but you can see where this could lead. We haven’t always gotten it right, but we have strived to be as impartial as possible.”

We end by talking about the wonderfully extroverted Ring Cycle – a monumental undertaking that was first discussed with conductor Antonio Pappano and director Barry Kosky in 2019. “The Ring Cycle is one of the cornerstones of the entire repertory, a sign of the ambition and vitality of any opera house,” he says – a kind of proving ground for an opera company. “When people come to our theater, I want them to feel those big emotions and experience those big stories of betrayal and despair and jealousy and exhilaration,” he says. “When opera is done really well, it’s the most immersive experience you can have.”

Full details for the 2026-27 RBO season are available here, and public booking opens on 24 June