LA Opera’s 40th Season Will Begin With ‘West Side Story’

Looking for something pretty, witty and bright? LA Opera can offer a production of West Side Story when it kicks off its 40th anniversary season in September at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

Music director James Conlon begins his 20th and final season in Los Angeles by conducting the company premiere of the Leonard Bernstein–Stephen Sondheim classic, which will feature iconic Jerome Robbins original choreography and star Gabriella Reyes as Maria and Duke Kim as Tony. The first of eight scheduled performances is Sept. 20.

Also announced Tuesday for the Chandler are Puccini’s La Bohème (starting Nov. 8) in a Herbert Ross production led by Colombian American resident conductor Lina González-Granados; Philip Glass’ ancient Egypt-set Akhnaten (Feb. 28), led by Ukrainian-born Finnish guest conductor Dalia Stasevska and starring countertenor John Holiday; and two other operas conducted by Condon: Verdi’s Falstaff (April 18), starring Craig Colclough, and Mozart’s The Magic Flute (May 30).

The 2025-26 season also includes concerts by tenor Juan Diego Flórez (Feb. 10), Patti LuPone (Feb. 21) — in a 25th anniversary performance of her iconic cabaret show Matters of the Heart — and soprano Renée Fleming (June 13). Another concert, devoted to Mozart, Verdi and Wagner and celebrating Conlon’s two decades as music director, takes place April 24.

Conlon, 74, announced in March that he would retire.

“I am thrilled to conclude my tenure by conducting three great operas, including the final works of both Mozart and Verdi,” he said in a statement. “Coupling those two great composers with Wagner in a concert tribute unites those three great pillars of the operatic tradition for a final gala performance.

“After a lifetime of music making, conducting a total of more than 900 performances of those three composers alone, I look to a great future for LA Opera and my own continued bond to the company as Conductor Laureate.”

Meanwhile, LA Opera’s partnership with Beth Morrison Projects will continue with their 17th collaboration, the world premiere of Hildegard (starting Nov. 5). A new opera by Sarah Kirkland Snider, it’s based on the writings of German composer and mystic Hildegard von Bingen and will be presented at The Wallis in Beverly Hills.

There’s also a world premiere of The Tower of Babel (May 8), a new community opera commissioned from composer-librettist Carla Lucero that will take place free of charge at the downtown Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels under the baton of Conlon.

“We sought to create a season that centers on James’ most treasured composers in some of the company’s most iconic productions,” LA Opera president and CEO Christopher Koelsch said in a statement. “Over the course of the season, artists and audiences alike will have the opportunity to reflect on both his titanic impact on the musical life of the company as well as our concurrent four-decade commitment to enduring theatrical excellence.”

LA Opera’s annual Halloween presentation at the United Theater on Broadway will feature the silent film The Phantom of the Opera (1925), starring Lon Chaney. The LA Opera Orchestra will perform Roy Budd’s soundtrack score live on Oct. 30 and 31.

The company’s Off Grand initiative will host tenor Ben Bliss in recital on Dec. 7 at The Wallis; soprano Nadine Sierra in recital on March 21 at The Colburn School’s Zipper Hall; and the Paris-based music ensemble Les Talens Lyriques, led by conductor and founder Christophe Rousset, on May 24, also at Zipper Hall.

Season tickets for the 2025-26 season are now available, and tickets for individual events go on sale in June. For more information, please visit the LA Opera website.