La Plage
2025-2026 Season
2025-2026 Season
La Plage: three original productions, a host of activities, collaborations and partnerships, educational programmes for schools and organizations and bespoke projects for all those who want to come ashore and allow us to make some space for them at the beach.
The productions
From 9 to 11 November 2025 at the Cité Bleue
Précédé d’En vertu de…
14 and 15 March 2026 at the UN and the Comédie
Grand Théâtre Jeunesse
For Young Audiences
Listen, see, experience and feel…
Sponsored by
Whether it’s a tour, a workshop, a project or a production specially conceived for young audiences, every year we renew our forms to offer you an experience adapted to the age and profile of your students.
Thanks to our partnerships with École et Culture for schools run by the Canton of Geneva’s Department of Public Education, and with the AGEP’s cultural service for Geneva’s private schools, every season more than 3,000 students from 1P to grade 4 in secondary schools throughout the canton (and sometimes beyond) discover opera and ballet with the Grand Théâtre Jeunesse.
For public schools in the Canton of Geneva, the educational programme brochure and online registration form will be available from June 16, as well as on the École et Culture website. Participants will be selected by 8 September 2025.
For private schools, the educational programme brochure form will be available from June 11, as well as on the AGEP website.
Contact: [email protected]
In the SAPE – Structures d’accueil de la petite enfance – educational and cultural activities are special moments that allow children to develop and find their bearings. Because the last year before starting school is a pivotal moment for children, the Grand Théâtre has designed a programme of opera discovery especially for 3-4 year olds, La Fabrique d’Opéra, in collaboration with early childhood professionals.
After an initial meeting with a singer in their school, preschoolers can settle comfortably in the foyer with their educators and let the magic of this strange place where people dress up and sing happen.
Contact: [email protected]
Partnerships, workshops, discovery visits… Each season we work with several higher education institutions such as the HEAD, the HEM or the musicology department of the University of Geneva… Please check the news section of our website to find out more about these collaborations!
Because family outings are also a good way of getting to know the Grand Théâtre, the Grand Théâtre Jeunesse offers a multitude of activities. The Siestes musicales, accessible to parents and toddlers from 6 months! For older children, there are discovery workshops on Wednesdays (les Mercredis du GTJ) and during the school vacations (les Vacances du GTJ), with a program that’s always full of surprises.
Siestes musicales (Musical naps)
Why not take a nap with your child at the Grand Théâtre? After a successful first attempt last season, the Grand Théâtre is now offering a time dedicated to parents and their very young children. Close your eyes, open your ears wide and, in the company of an instrument, let yourself be lulled to sleep by the music!
Children from 6 months accompanied by an adult
Duration: 45 minutes
Stroller garage and changing table available
Tickets CHF 15.- for parents with child under 3 / CHF 10.- for children aged 3 to 12
Wednesdays at 2PM
September 17 2025
November 19 2025
December 3 2025
Decembre 17 2025
At the GTG
Family Workshops
Singing, dancing, discovering costumes made in our workshops: once a month, the Grand Théâtre is the place to be for families!
Discovery workshops for children aged 6 to 12 accompanied by an adult
Duration: approx. 1h
Wednesdays at 3PM
October 8 2025
November 12 2025
November 26 2025
December 10 2025
At the GTG
Activities before, after and about the performances
Chop chop! 45 minutes before the bells call you into the house, it’s time to refresh your memory and go back to the beginnings of the opera: we offer a brief introduction to remind you what the work is all about and what kind of magical, apocalyptic, critical or hyper-realistic worlds the people behind the production have in store for you. Lickety-split, there’s just enough time to grab some bubbly before you take your seats under the star-studded ceiling of a thousand and one shows!
45 minutes before each opera or ballet performance
Free admittance with performance tickets
In the main foyer of the GTG or in the foyer of the alternative performance venue
A slice of life, a slice of laughter and a slice of music to garnish the canapé that comes with our urban apéritif! Have a spritz or a vermouth while we supply the entertaining company. Apéropéra is a relaxed, fresh and unstuffy way to (re)discover a composer, a work, a topic, miles away from the usual lectures you get before the performance. Get ready for some good stories, from the past and especially the present. And in between, there’ll be live music from the show (or in the same vein) performed by artists on the production!
Pelléas & Mélisande (GTG) 2.10.2025
Imperial Ball (GTG) 13.11.2025
An American in Paris (GTG) 3.12.2025
L’italiana in Algeri (MEG) 15.1.2026
Castor & Pollux (MAH) 5.3.2026
Madama Butterfly (MEG) 2.4.2026
Svatbata (MEG) 7.5.2026
200 Motels (EMA) 11.6.2026
Tickets CHF 25.-
First drink included (except cocktails and champagne)
At the GTG
Haven’t you ever wondered what it’s like on the other side when the curtain falls on a performance? How does all the technical machinery work? What do the stagehands have to do to get things back into working order? Or maybe just bump into one of the stars of the show? So let us raise the curtain on all this for you. With every production, we give our patrons an opportunity to come backstage with us, raise their eyes to the flies and take a good look at what’s behind the sets. It may be dark in the wings but there’s a whole lot going on there! And because it’s a busy place, we can’t really do this more than once per performance run. You will need to book your visit beforehand, so don’t delay!
A member of the theatre staff who can answer all your questions and show you some of the very impressive features of our opera house takes you backstage for free.
Tannhäuser 28.9.2025 (GTG)
Pelléas & Mélisande 30.10.2025 (GTG)
Imperial Ball 20.11.2025 (GTG)
An American in Paris 19.12.2025 (GTG)
L’italiana in Algeri 1.2.2026 (BFM)
Castor & Pollux 21.3.2026 (BFM)
Madama Butterfly 28.4.2026 (BFM)
Svatbata 20.5.2026 (BFM)
200 Motels 25.6.2026 (BFM)
The “En coulisse” tour lasts about 20 minutes, starts 15 minutes after the performance, is free of charge on prior reservation with our box office service by email [email protected].
Activities about the performances and the GTG
The operas of the 2025-2025 season will be the subject of a very comprehensive conference on the work, its libretto, context and music, a few days before the first performance, always at the same time, 6.30 pm, by the Association genevoise des amis de l’opéra et du ballet.
These conferences take place at the Théâtre de l’Espérance.
Tannhäuser 17.9.2025
Pelléas & Mélisande 15.10.2025
An American in Paris 9.12.2025
L’italiana in Algeri 19.1.2026
Der Kaiser Von Atlantis – En vertu de… 9.3.2026
Castor & Pollux 18.3.2026
Madama Butterfly 22.4.2026
200 Motels 2.6.2026
At 6:30PM
Théâtre de l’Espérance
Association genevoise des amis de l’opéra et du ballet
7D, chemin Pré-Marquis
1241 Puplinge
+41 22 349 83 60
[email protected]
amisdelopera.ch
In partnership with
Three times per season, the Grand Théâtre stays up way past its bedtime. In November, to open the season, in March to drive the winter away and in June, to celebrate summer. It’s also a good time to invite some of our neighbours and cronies over and open up to other genres. This uncommon season, we will attempt a Cinderella’s Ball, an industrial party with Antigel’s comparses and then a Fête de la musique near the BFM… Let’s see some world!
Late Night #1 2.11.2025
Late Night #2 28.2.2026
Late Night #3 18.6.2026
At the GTG and other venues
For one night, come and live in the Grand Théâtre, we’ll take you from the ceiling to the stage, from maze to maze, along the melodies of yesteryear and sweet polyphonies. Come and dream under the lights of the chandeliers and the stars, we will sing you to sleep until the early morning, and then what a wake-up call! And bring your things:
- sleeping bag or other blanket
- mattress more or less soft
- pillow
- flashlight
- toilet bag
- teddy bear
- …
31.10.25
At the GTG
To celebrate the Fête de la Musique together with the Grand Théâtre, we’re inviting you to sit with us under the stars. Not those that sparkle by the hundreds in Jacek Stryjeński’s gold and silver ceiling in our auditorium, the real ones that await us al fresco, as night starts falling on the parc des Eaux-Vives. Come and experience, free of charge, on a giant screen, our production of Giacomo Puccini’s Madama Butterfly.
Screening of Madama Butterfly
Free admission
19.6.2026 at 9PM
Parc des Eaux-Vivess
Sponsored by
Activities about the GTG
With the kids or just wander in, the doors are wide open.
A quick onceover with the mop and broom and we throw the windows and doors wide open to let the sounds of our busy Saturday morning out onto the street for all to hear. This is your chance to come in and check us out. You can watch the Chorus rehearsing a performance. There will be lots of activities specially designed for this opening weekend: stuff for the kids (makeup, drawing, games in the theatre), food and wine tasting and tours for grownups, discovery circuits for the eternally curious, in short, never a dull moment in our company. And this is just the trial run for other festive weekends we are planning this season along the same format!
Free admission
7.9.2025
From 11am to 6pm
At the GTG
In partnership with
B is for Bel canto and Bellini (also a very nice drink), Bizet and Berlioz, Britten and his Billy Budd and, of course, B is for Brunch! Will you be alone or tête-à-tête, will you be a bunch of boisterous brunchers or are you looking to bring your babbling brood? The tables are set for a Grand Brunch in Geneva’s most beautiful ballroom, where the gods and nymphs of legend beam their benign, but blasé, smiles down on you from above. Four Sundays, four chances for a nice lie-in, four chances to add some beautiful music to your eggs benedict: we have a Sunday buffet ready to satisfy the hungriest opera and ballet buffs! As space is limited in our Main Foyer, we kindly ask you to reserve your table beforehand.
14.9.2025
19.10.2025
16.11.2025
7.12.2025
Sundays from 11AM
Tickets CHF 70.– / CHF 20.– (up to 12 years old)
In the foyer of the GTG
What is the connection between the Duke of Brunswick and the Grand Théâtre? Between the Valkyrie and the great fire? Between a Second Empire façade and a 50s-60s theatre?
Nine times a year, we let visitors into the bowels of the huge ship of the Place de Neuve, navigating between opera trivia and heritage curiosities. From the Atrium to the Milky Way, from the marble of the entrance to the gold of the fireplaces, discover this emblematic building, guided by our in-house connoisseurs, who will tell you all its secrets.
15.9.2025
13.10.2025
10.11.2025
8.12.2025
Tickets CHF 15.- / CHF 10.- (until 12 years old)
Visits at 12:30PM
Duration: 55 minutes
At the GTG
Because we love putting the Grand Théâtre in afterwork mode, we will be trying out something new this season. The Apérovisite: a hybrid between the traditional Guided Tour and the Apéropéra. Marvel at our Murano glass or Léon Gaud’s gaudy frescoes, sure, but have a drink with that. Our marble halls and our gilded chimneypieces are so much more thrilling with a glass of Viognier. Apérovisite will only take place three times this season, so save those dates!
9.10.2025
6.11.2025
18.12.2025
At 6:30PM
Tickets CHF 25.-
First drink included (except cocktails and champagne)
At the GTG
Would you like to discover the Milky Way with your colleagues or have the gilt and chandeliers in the foyer for you and your friends? How about a team-building session like no other or a taste of the world of opera? On the other side, we have all kinds of private guided tours of the Grand Théâtre and/or its set and costume workshops. Or even made-to-measure artistic workshops facilitated by professional singers.
Contact : [email protected]
Out and about with the Grand Théâtre
Partners, partnerships, twinning, collaborations, co-programming, alliances, parallels, concordances, synergies, all these words basically mean one thing: don’t stay in your corner, go out and meet the other person, your neighbour, your friend, your sister, the guy you meet at the bus stop every day. Outside the walls, within our walls, walled in, in ruins, under construction, down and out, everything is good for knocking down over-conceived, over- learned or hand-me-down ideas. Come and see for yourself, come and practice the art of taking a step back to observe the world. Like every season, we offer you a few options for adventurous encounters…
Contact: [email protected]
If you work in a civil society organization or a structure linked to disability or to the integration of asylum seekers and you want to introduce opera and ballet to your participants or beneficiaries, feel free to contact us. We can build a project suited to your purpose that takes into account your needs and our availability.
Our “Power Games” this season will naturally be played out in our productions but will also feature in many joint and special projects and events. With our partners the Orchestre de la Suisse romande and the Orchestre de chambre de Genève of course, but also with Antigel, the Bains des Pâquis, La Bâtie-Festival de Genève, the Cinémas du Grütli, Les Créatives, La Comédie, Electron Festival or even the Théâtre de Vidy. The more the merrier!
The collaborations
The Grand Théâtre de Genève invites you to continue the season with our partners in Geneva and the French-speaking cultural scene in Switzerland. Here are some shows at Vidy, at the Comédie, at La Bâtie and among many others that echo our season.
Faustus in Africa!
Quaternary freely inspired by Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Faustus in Africa! is a landmark play that introduced the work of South African artist William Kentridge to European audiences in 1995 at the Festival d’Avignon. Premiered in Cape Town four years after the end of apartheid in South Africa, Faustus in Africa! sets out to tell the story of the exploitation and domination of the African continent by the West, using every means of theatre and the arts. Conceived with the Handspring Puppet Company, his adaptation of Goethe’s play intimately blends the art of puppetry with animated film, the visual arts and literature, creating a sensitive and critical journey to the heart of the shared history of Africa and Europe.
Puppet theatre by William Kentridge
From 29 October to 1 November 2025
Comédie de Genève
Special rates for GTG season ticket holders
In partnership with
Club Amour
Café Müller – Aatt enen tionon – herses, duo
Three pieces about desire, three ways of writing the coming together and going apart of bodies. Boris Charmatz joins Pina Bausch’s iconic Café Müller (1978) with two pieces from his own repertoire. The bodies that relentlessly embrace and repel each other in Pina Bausch’s piece are echoed by those separated in Aatt enen tionon (1996) and the intertwined duet from herses (une lente introduction) (1997). With this triple programme, Tanztheater Wuppertal and Boris Charmatz offer a turbulent evening of colliding aesthetics, music by PJ Harvey and Purcell, bodies and ways of looking at dance.
With the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch Ensemble and guests.
Dance by Pina Bausch and Boris Charmatz
From 12 to 14 February 2026
Comédie de Genève
Special rates for GTG season ticket holders
In partnership with
Bovary Madame
From the novel by Gustave Flaubert
Christophe Honoré directs Bovary Madame, working with the same troupe as Les Idoles and Ciel de Nantes. He imagines her as the Lola Montes of Max Ophuls’ film, a woman whose life is on show in a circus. Surrounded by men in Flaubert’s novel, elevated to the status of an icon of world literature, read over and over again, she is presented as a figure on whom decades of desires and criticisms are reflected. But she will also make her woman’s voice and her intimate life heard, recalling the secret interior of the novel’s famous carriage ride.
Theater by Christophe Honoré
September 2025
Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne
Free shuttle bus from the Grand Théâtre
In partnership with
Il Cimento dell’Armonia e dell’Inventione
Vivaldi’s Four Seasons is as much a classical music ‘hit’ as it is music from a Mediterranean culture and a celebration of the continuous variations of nature. Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and Radouan Mriziga, lifted by violinist Amandine Beyer’s lively, limpid performance, explore the infinite, generous layers of Vivaldi’s composition by choreographing a male quartet: rhythmic structures, mythological figures and symbolic arrangements write our understanding of nature in time and space – and question the alarming relationship we have with it today. With Boštjan Antončič, Nassim Baddag, Lav Crnčević, José Paulo dos Santos.
Dance by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and Radouan Mriziga
From 13th to 15th January 2026
Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne
Free shuttle bus from the Grand Théâtre
In partnership with
La Bâtie, the Geneva festival, will once again be our host and our guest: amphytryonne with the ADC – Association pour la danse contemporaine – for the production conceived by Yasmine Hugonnet with some of the dancers from our Ballet (1000&1_ Odyssée, pp. 68-69), while we will be welcoming La Bâtie for François Chaignaud’s performance Dumy Moyi in the setting of our Grand Foyer. This solo performance, which has already been performed at some of the world’s leading festivals, offers a cross-section of his new work with Nina Laisné and Nadia Larcher, also presented during La Bâtie.
8 September 2025 – 7PM and 9PM
At the GTG
In partnership with
The Grand Théâtre’s traditional season opener at the Bains des Pâquis will focus on the post-Wagnerian repertoire (yes, we’re starting once again with Richard Wagner and his Tannhäuser, if you ever start reading at the end). In search of a new language, new proses, harmonies and modes of expression, the programme will follow a number of paths from Arnold Schoenberg to Viktor Ullmann. We look forward to meeting you at the dawn of the 20th century, and perhaps also at its twilight, on this August morning that we hope will be mild despite the fires that seem to be rekindling everywhere.
Augsust 17, 2025 at 6AM
Bains des Pâquis
In partnership with
The truth is we aren’t too fond of seeing opera at the movies. We’d rather have it live on stage in all its vibrating emotional loudness. But at the opera, we do like a good movie. In fact, we’re just as keen to watch one as our neighbours at the Cinémas du Grütli, Geneva’s art house cinema. So we developed this new format, Cinéopéra, as both a tribute to and a discovery of the silver screen, where three opera and ballet greats who will be on stage with us this season choose their favorite film to view and discuss. Three very different artists, all exceptional, using film to zoom in (or out) on the productions they designed for us, in an amusing play of intertextuality and inter-referentiality. And perhaps one day, it’ll be hard to tell whether you’re at the opera or at the movies…
Damien Jalet
25 October 2025 – 6PM
About Pelléas & Mélisande
Wayne Marshall
6 December 2025 – 6PM
About An American in Paris
Diana Markosian
28 March 2026 – 6PM
About Madama Butterfly
Les Cinémas du Grütli
In partnership with
A not-to-be-missed summer rendezvous in Geneva, CinéTransat reinvents open-air cinema. More than just a screening, it’s a cultural and human event that embodies the essential values of meeting and sharing. As a long-standing partner, the Grand Théâtre is delighted to be taking part in this unique event offering a rich and diverse panorama of cinema. Among the more than 50 films and short films on offer free of charge, the Grand Théâtre adds its own artistic touch each year by presenting a film that resonates with its new season’s programme. It’s a unique event in the Parc de la Perle du Lac, to be enjoyed with family or friends, with a full picnic or a delicious sandwich, after a splash or right on time! Sit back and enjoy the film under the stars.
8 August 2025 – 9PM
Free entrance
Parc de la Perle du Lac
In partnership with
We’ve had few opportunities to collaborate with the Musée d’ethnographie de Genève – a trial run last year around the play The Ghosts are returning with La Bâtie and Forum Meyrin and the questioning around the issues surrounding human remains and their restitution. Hosting three apéropéras in this new season will enable us to highlight the links between objects and cultural products, between genres and the context in which they are produced.
15 January 2026 – 6:30PM
Apéropéra about L’italiana in Algeri
2 April 2026 – 6:30PM
Apéropéra about Madama Butterfly
7 May 2026 – 6:30PM
Apéropéra about de Svatbata
Musée d’ethnographie de Genève
In partnership with
Fortunately, we’re not the only ones to celebrate Thursdays with an elaborate after-work party. That’s why the MAH (Musée d’Art et d’Histoire) is inviting us to join forces!
Following on from the dance tour of the Ugo Rondinone exhibition a few seasons ago, this is our chance to cook up two apéropéras (and who knows, maybe some surprise visits too?) together on Castor & Pollux (look out for Groove’n’Move too).
5 March 2026 – 6:30PM
Apéropéra about Castor & Pollux
Musée d’Art et d’Histoire
In partnership with
eMA or l’école des Musiques Actuelles reopened its doors in 2023… or rather, reopened the doors of the Ansermet auditorium, the former radio studio, with ultra-modern equipment and the broadest possible appeal to young people – as far as music is concerned at any rate. They’ll be welcoming us for the last apéropéra of the season, with the music of Frank Zappa and a few surprises on the programme.
11 Jun 2026 – 6:30OM
Apéropéra about 200 Motels
École des Musiques Actuelles
In partnership with
Because we don’t do public workshops on Saturdays any more, but we don’t want to sit on our hands waiting for you to take an interest in what we’re doing, or simply waiting for the good weather, and also because our partners at the bibliothèque de la Cité are not slacking off on Sundays, we’re taking advantage of our ‘hors les murs’ time to introduce you to this new format, halfway between a workshop and a conference, always ahead of our premieres, between doing and learning, know-how and knowledge, come and (re-)discover your talents and interests. It’s free, but you need to register!
11 January 2026 – 2PM
Bibliopéra about L’italiana in Algeri
22 February 2026 – 2PM
Bibliopéra about Castor & Pollux
8 March 2026 – 2PM
Bibliopéra about Emperor of Atlantis
19 April 2026 – 2PM
Bibliopéra about Madama Butterfly
Bibliothèque de la Cité
In partnership with
2025-2026 Season
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Credits
Illustration © GTG / Joëlle Flumet
