The Royal Opera House today announces the appointment of Jakub Hrůša as its music director. Hrůša, 41, will begin his tenure in September 2025. He succeeds Antonio Pappano, who steps down from the post at the end of the 2023-24 season after 22 years in the role – making him the Royal Opera’s longest serving music director. In the 2024-25 season, Hrůša and Pappano will share house responsibilities, and both will appear as special guest conductors.
Hrůša was born in the Czech Republic and studied conducting at Prague’s Academy of Performing Arts, where his teachers included Jiří Bělohlávek. He is currently chief conductor of the Bamberg Symphony, a position he has held since 2016, and principal guest conductor of the Czech Philharmonic and the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. Between 2010 and 2012 he was music director of Glyndebourne on Tour, and he has led opera productions for the Salzburg festival, Vienna State Opera, Opéra National de Paris, Zurich Opera and Frankfurt Opera.
Hrůša spoke exclusively to the Guardian about his appointment and his relationship with Covent Garden, which began with an invitation to conduct Bizet’s Carmen in 2018. “My children were very young and so I brought my whole family over to London with me. We loved it so much that we extended our stay two, then three times, and before long we realised we were living in London!” His children started school and, earlier this year, he returned to the Royal Opera to conduct Wagner’s Lohengrin, an experience he terms “one of the absolute highlights of my life”. He had not the slightest suspicion he was being considered for the top job, he says: “I was thinking it must be so fantastic to work here on a regular basis … and what a pity that I might have to wait another four or five years before I’m invited again!”
The Royal Opera House is one of the greatest opera houses in the world, but what makes it particularly unique, he says, is how the drama happens only on stage. “Opera houses can be places of drama themselves. I was happy both times I worked here to witness how focused and smooth the whole rehearsal process and the delivery of the result was. The collaborative nature of the working relationships and the support offered to each person is very special.
“It’s a very friendly and open-minded house. I feel one can flourish there. Not just me, but everyone together. I am thrilled to accept the position of music director, and I feel immensely excited about future collaboration.”
Under his musical leadership, he promises the opera house will continue to present the standard repertoire, “done with the best possible care”, adding that the Italian repertoire that Pappano has championed will remain part of the programme. “I love Italian opera, but of course the emphasis might shift a little.
“Naturally I want to perform music of my own national background – I want to do the best music written for opera and some of it is in Czech so of course I’m not going to avoid it,” he laughs. He’s forbidden to give details of his first season, but can reveal that Janáček, Prokofiev and Britten will feature, and that he will be conducting his first complete Ring Cycle in the 2027-28 season; the culmination of a new cycle that Barrie Kosky will direct and that begins with Das Rheingold in 2023 conducted by Pappano.
“An opera house today must represent the eternal quality of art but, equally importantly, when people go to performances they must not feel that they are entering a museum. They must be entering an institution which is with them in their lives and connected to reality,” he says.
Contemporary music, too, will certainly feature under his directorship. He won’t be drawn on composers he has his eye on – “commissioning needs to be a team decision”, but underlines the importance of contemporary opera to speak to and illuminate our here and now. And, “there’s nothing as exciting as bringing something brand new to the world”.
He has resolved to be pragmatic about Brexit and the concomitant red tape that is causing the musical world such problems. “I don’t like the fact that it happened, but I don’t want to spend all my days complaining about it.” What’s done is done, he argues, and the split has only emphasised the importance of the opera house’s role connecting people and building bridges.
The issues around diversity, inclusion and representation on and off stage that are forefront of all opera producers’ minds today will be central but, he points out, the ROH “is already taking this seriously in the right way and at the right pace”.
In short, a Hrůša opera house will not feel substantially different to Pappano’s, he believes. “The excitement in the corridors won’t diminish, it will just have a different flavour and colour.”
And above all he promises to continue to advocate for an art form that is “absolutely unique and irreplaceable”. “There’s nothing else in human culture which is similarly complex and at the same time directly speaks to the human heart.”
Oliver Mears, director of the Royal Opera, said: “Jakub is one of today’s most exciting conductors. We are all excited to see how his experiences with some of the world’s greatest symphony orchestras informs his work with the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House – building on Tony’s legacy of exceptional music making. We have been hugely impressed by not only his superlative music and theatre-making, but also by the generosity and warmth of his personality. He is a true collaborator, able to get the very best from his colleagues. He is level headed and professional – exactly the kind of personality that we need in place at a time of huge uncertainty for us as a country and as an organisation.”
