The Copenhagen Opera Festival staged 140 events across 11 days, bringing experimental productions and traditional works to unconventional venues including canals, warehouses, an underground water cistern, and a nineteenth-century library, according to festival organizers.
Under the direction of artistic director Amy Lane, who has led the festival since 2019, the program featured the Danish premiere of Puccini’s La rondine on an outdoor stage in Nørrebro alongside new contemporary works. Lane is set to leave her role to become the Director of Opera at Opera Australia, with Louise Beck scheduled to present her first edition of the festival next summer, according to festival announcements.
New Writing and Experimental Productions at Aveny-T
Among the festival’s new writing showcase, the most effective production was Helvedsblomsterne (‘The Flowers of Hell’), an exploration of existential philosophy featuring verse by Baudelaire and Sophie Haagen, who also performed as the mezzo-soprano soloist. According to festival reviews, Signe Kjelbo designed the set at the Aveny-T theatre as a forest of giant flowers pumped with mist, accompanied by ambient electronic music and rhythmic minimalist interludes by Mikkel B.
The performance featured actor Patrick Baurichter delivering poetic exhortations alongside Haagen’s chanson-style songs. The production was presented officially as a work-in-progress, allowing audiences to track the development of the project over multiple years.
Immersive Wagner Adaptations and Talent Recognition
The festival’s most talked-about project was The Ring – Forever Hot, an immersive pop-culture celebration of Wagner’s Ring developed over three years following a 2025 pilot. Staged at AFUK, Copenhagen’s Circus School, the production invited audiences to move between Valhalla—an indoor warehouse styled as a glitzy hotel foyer—and Nibelheim, an outdoor stage featuring benches, beer, hot dogs, and circus performers.
Musical composition for the production was handled by Kirstine Fogh Vindelev, who wove excerpts of Wagner’s score into original pop-folk music. Anna Sofie Keller Brandsborg directed the staging.
Laura Helene Hansen performed as Brünnhilde in the AFUK production and received the festival’s 2026 talent prize. Hansen subsequently presented her own recital at Aveny-T as a one-woman show exploring on-stage opera deaths, accompanied on piano by Steven Moore.
Library Staging and Underground Performances
Composer Niels Rønsholdt staged his new opera Den stærkes ret – den svages pligt (‘The Right of the Strong – The Duty of the Weak’) inside the newly restored University Library. Co-created and directed by Louise Beck, the production utilized the library setting to match the work’s thematic focus on books and knowledge, featuring the movement of musicians and acrobats along the central aisle.
In Frederiksberg, composer and performance artist Marcela Lucatelli presented a solo evening titled The Inhuman Human Voice inside Cisternerne, a series of underground water cisterns, following her work Necromancy at the 2025 festival.
Worth a look