It’s very much alive, the art form of opera. Contemporary music theatre fills the theatres, like grand opera for a large audience.

The series L’Opéra français publishes historical-critical editions of French music theatre works, which offer an authoritative basis for performances.

Andrea Lorenzo Scartazzini’s third opera follows on from his earlier works with a subject full of archaic power. Edward II was commissioned by the Deutsche Oper Berlin and receives its first performance on 19 February 2017. The opera tells a story from the England of the 14th century about King Edward II, who ruled for twenty unhappy years and left a country in chaos. Power struggles, affairs and intrigues about Edward’s homosexual relationships provide a theatrical subject matter for a drama of relationships and politics. Following Scartazzini’s successful collaboration with the librettist Thomas Jonigk on Der Sandmann, the team comes together again with director Christof Loy for this production. Thomas Søndergård conducts.

A critical edition of Jules Massenet’s Werther with all the authentic versions, taking all the sources into consideration including previously unavailable manuscripts, has long been overdue. The American musicologist Lesley Wright, professor at the University of Hawaii and a distinguished expert in the area of 19th century French opera, has worked on this edition for the last several years. Now it will be put to the test at the Zurich Opera, in close collaboration with the conductor Cornelius Meister. Tatjana Gürbaca is the director in the new production of Massenet’s masterpiece, which has its first performance on 2 April 2017. The title role is sung by no less than the Peruvian star tenor Juan Diego Flórez.

The Theater Aachen opens the season on 24 September with a new production of Claudio Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea, directed by Jarg Pataki and conducted by Justus Thorau. This will be the first performance to use the new Bärenreiter critical edition, prepared by the early baroque specialist Hendrik Schulze with students at the editing seminar at the University of North Texas. On 29 October 2017 the Staatsoper Hamburg presents its contribution to the Monteverdi anniversary year with Willy Decker’s new production of Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria. The conductor is Václav Luks, who has caused a sensation in the last few years with his Prague ensemble Collegium 1704.

Juliette, Martinů’s opera of 1937, has stimulated several opera companies to stage new productions in the last few years. Evidently it touches on the contemporary zeitgeist.

Gluck’s duties in Vienna included the provision of “music for the ballets”. His own compositions and pasticci, independent works in their own right, are now being published as part of the Gluck Complete Works.