Alan Gilbert celebrates 500th anniversary of Royal Swedish Opera Orchestra; winter highlights also include Stockholm company’s Magic Flute & Elektra at Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie
(November 2025) — Next year marks the 500th anniversary of the Royal Swedish Orchestra. As Music Director of the Royal Swedish Opera, Alan Gilbert kicks off the company’s yearlong celebrations of this historic milestone with concerts combining the world premiere of a new commission with Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony (Jan 17 & 18). The winner of a Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording, Gilbert also conducts the Stockholm company’s seasonal staging of The Magic Flute (Dec 18–Jan 29). With Hamburg’s NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, where Gilbert is now in his seventh season as Chief Conductor, upcoming highlights include Britten with cellist Alisa Weilerstein (Jan 22–25), Elektra in concert (Feb 13 & 15), a livestreamed collaboration with the NDR Vocal Ensemble (Feb 4 & 7), and a new release in their OneGate Media recording series (Dec 19). Gilbert completes his winter lineup with a return to the Orchestre philharmonique de Radio France in Paris for Jeanne d’Arc au bûcher (Feb 20), after which he embarks on a long-planned six-month sabbatical.
Royal Swedish Opera: historic anniversary & Magic Flute
Since spring 2021 Gilbert has been Music Director of the Royal Swedish Opera (RSO), where he was named Royal Court Kapellmeister by the King of Sweden. His past company highlights include Wagner’s Parsifal, of which Opera magazine declared: “Musically, the performance was outstanding.”
The RSO celebrated its 250th anniversary in 2023, yet the orchestra that anchors the company’s productions, and gives many symphonic concerts at the Stockholm house, is almost twice as old. Founded in 1526, the Royal Swedish Orchestra (Kungliga Hovkapellet) is one of the world’s oldest active orchestras, and celebrates its landmark 500th anniversary next year. Gilbert says:
“I was of course aware of the orchestra’s long history, but its magnitude really hit home when I started working with them. The wonderful chemistry we share is a source of real joy.”
To start the Royal Swedish Opera Orchestra’s year-long fifth centennial celebrations, he leads festive concerts on the mainstage of the RSO’s Stockholm house. Their program showcases the world premiere of Time Weave, a new commission from RSO violist Torbjörn Helander, flanked by two works by Beethoven: the Egmont Overture and incomparable Ninth Symphony, featuring the Royal Swedish Opera Chorus and vocal soloists Matilda Sterby, Miriam Treichl, Michael Weinius, and Ola Eliasson (Jan 17 & 18). New York Classical Review called one of Gilbert’s performances of Beethoven’s Ninth with the New York Philharmonic “a special, perhaps once-in-a-lifetime event,” marked by “commitment, pure excitement and a wide range of intellectual and emotional power.”
Gilbert rejoins the orchestra to continue their milestone celebrations next August, when Wagnerian soprano Nina Stemme joins them for a tour of Germany, Spain, and the Netherlands. Meanwhile, over the holiday season, he helms the Royal Swedish Opera’s revival of Ole Anders Tandberg’s Swedish-language take on Mozart’s The Magic Flute. Danish tenor Jonathan Koppel sings Tamino, with Finnish soprano Emma Kajander as Pamina, Swedish baritone Helgi Reynisson as Papageno, Swedish bass-baritone John Erik Eleby as Sarastro, and Ukrainian coloratura soprano Tetiana Zhuravel as the Queen of the Night (Dec 18–Jan 29). “I am sure people know Bergman’s famous version, which was also in Swedish,” notes Gilbert, “and there’s a long tradition of loving this opera here in Sweden.”
NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra: Elektra, livestream, & more
Gilbert is now in his seventh season as Chief Conductor of Hamburg’s NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra (NDREO). They frequently program music by Hamburg native Brahms, and their interpretation of his Third Symphony was recently chosen as one of Gramophone’s five “unmissable new classical recordings.” At concerts in Hamburg and Lübeck, they couple Brahms’s Second Symphony with Britten’s solo cello concerto, the Symphony for Cello and Orchestra (Jan 22–25). As on their forthcoming recording of the work, their soloist is MacArthur award winner Alisa Weilerstein, “a cellist of depth, fire, and sinew” (The New Yorker).
After joining members of the orchestra on viola for a chamber concert of quintets by Mozart and Brahms (Feb 2), Gilbert leads two more performances with the NDREO, the first of which will stream live to home audiences worldwide. To showcase the connections between two of the NDR’s four different performing groups, the NDR Vocal Ensemble will join Gilbert and the orchestra for a program juxtaposing Beethoven’s mighty “Eroica” Symphony with choral settings of the Orpheus myth by Germany’s Hans Werner Henze, Finland’s Einojuhani Rautavaara, and Iceland’s Jóhann Jóhannsson (Feb 4 & 7; livestream Feb 4).
Finally, Gilbert and the orchestra give concert performances of Strauss’s expressionist opera Elektra, starring Swedish dramatic soprano Ingela Brimberg in the title role, with Karita Mattila as Klytaemnestra, Christina Nilsson as Chrysothemis, Benjamin Bruns as Aegisthus, and Andreas Bauer Kanabas as Orestes (Feb 13 & 15). Gilbert notes:
“Even in a concert setting, you can completely tell an opera’s story in compelling way, and Strauss’s Elektra, a powerful psychodrama, is an opera that lends itself perfectly to this format. We have an absolutely first-class cast and I am excited to do it with my orchestra in Hamburg, which I am sure will really own the score.”
The production follows their acclaimed stagings of Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre, Dvořák’s Rusalka, Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, and, most recently, Berg’s Wozzeck, of which the Hamburg Abendblatt reported:
“Gilbert confidently navigates the rapids and cliffs of the horrendously demanding score. … The conductor proves himself to be the shrewd operatic conductor he is. … He lets the orchestra sometimes blossom in sound, sometimes vanish into nothingness, and then explode again at a volume for which even the term ‘forte-fortissimo’ is far too weak. Above all, however, he gives the solo voices the space they need.”
As Germany’s Klassik Begeistert affirmed, “Hamburg hasn’t heard such a brilliant Wozzeck for a long time.”
Before these live engagements, December 19 brings the release of Tempus fugit by Finland’s Magnus Lindberg, one of the contemporary composers whom Gilbert has done most to champion. Captured at the 2021 Elbphilharmonie Visions biennial, an online festival at the height of the pandemic, this marks the newest addition to the conductor’s ongoing digital recording series with NDREO, available from OneGate Media on all major streaming platforms.
Honegger in Paris
A guest conductor in high demand, Gilbert completes his winter lineup with a return to the Orchestre philharmonique de Radio France in Paris. Their program pairs the French premiere of No!, a Radio France co-commission from Israeli-American composer Chaya Czernowin, with a concert performance of Honegger’s dramatic oratorio Jeanne d’Arc au bûcher (“Joan of Arc at the Stake”), featuring French actor Judith Chemla in the title role and the Chœur de Radio France (Feb 20). Gilbert has previously performed the work with both the New York Philharmonic and the Berlin Philharmonic, with which he impressed Seen and Heard International with his “superb account” of the oratorio last year.
Looking ahead to his long-planned sabbatical, Gilbert reflects:
“I’ve been thinking of taking a little time away from work for years, and finally I just said to my team, ‘If we don’t do it now it may never happen. We just need to bite the bullet.’ I’m really looking forward to not having a structured schedule and spending time on other things – whatever comes up. Frankly, the plan is to have no plan!”
Alan Gilbert: winter engagements
Dec 18, 20, & 26; Jan 6, 8, 15, 26, & 29
Stockholm, Sweden
Royal Swedish Opera
MOZART: The Magic Flute
Jan 17 & 18
Stockholm, Sweden
Royal Swedish Opera House
The Royal Swedish Orchestra & The Royal Swedish Opera Chorus
500th Jubilee Concert
BEETHOVEN: Overture to Egmont
Torbjörn HELANDER: Time Weave (world premiere)
BEETHOVEN: Symphony No. 9 (with vocal soloists Matilda Sterby, Miriam Treichl, Michael Weinius, & Ola Eliasson)
Jan 22–25: concerts with NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra
Jan 22 & 25: Hamburg, Germany
Jan 23: Lübeck, Germany
BRITTEN: Symphony for Cello & Orchestra (with Alisa Weilerstein, cello)
BRAHMS: Symphony No. 2
Feb 2
Hamburg, Germany
NDR Chamber Concert
MOZART: String Quintet in G minor
BRAHMS: String Quintet in G
Alan Gilbert, viola; with members of the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra
Feb 4* & 7
Hamburg, Germany
NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra
NDR Vocal Ensemble / Klaas Stok
JÓHANNSSON: Orphic Hymn
RAUTAVAARA: Orpheus singt
HENZE: Orpheus behind the Wire
BEETHOVEN: Symphony No. 3, “Eroica”
* The Feb 4 performance will be livestreamed.
Feb 13 & 15
Hamburg, Germany
NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra
NDR Vocal Ensemble
R. STRAUSS: Elektra in concert
Feb 20
Paris, France
Maison de la Radio
Orchestre philharmonique de Radio France
Chaya CZERNOWIN: No! (French premiere of Radio France co-commission)
HONEGGER: Jeanne d’Arc au bûcher