New era for Royal Opera House as Jakub Hrusa, Speranza Scappucci take centre stage
Hrusa takes over from Antonio Pappano, Royal Opera’s music director for 22 years; Scappucci is first principal guest conductor in 30 years
There is a new generation this season at London’s Royal Opera House, where Jakub Hrusa took over after Antonio Pappano’s 22-year reign as music director, and Speranza Scappucci became the first principal guest conductor in nearly three decades.
Last autumn, Hrusa led the company’s first new staging of Puccini’s Tosca since 2006 and its first production of Janacek’s The Makropulos Case, while Scappucci conducted a revival of Verdi’s Les Vêpres siciliennes, the rarely performed original French version. Hrusa will conduct a revival of Britten’s Peter Grimes in May.
“Every little bit counts,” Hrusa says. “It’s almost every non-verbal gesture you do in every rehearsal leads in a sum to a successful career. I believe this is much more important than proclamations of fantastically sounding visions on paper.”
Pappano, 66, led the Royal Opera House from 2002 to 2024, succeeding Bernard Haitink and starting as the youngest music director in the company’s history. Pappano left to become music director of the London Symphony Orchestra.
Now 44, Hrusa was born in the Czech city of Brno and studied at Prague’s Academy of Performing Arts. He was chief conductor of the Prague Philharmonia from 2008 to 2015, has been chief conductor of Germany’s Bamberg Symphony since 2016/2017, and will replace Semyon Bychkov as chief conductor of the Czech Philharmonic in 2028/2029.
Hrusa made his Royal Opera House debut in 2018 leading Bizet’s Carmen and will conduct three productions per season. While his primary residence is in London and he maintains a home in Prague, he stores his scores at a study in Bamberg.