Adelaide Festival 2026 announced its first two this morning, and they are incredible, and will delight Francophones, and Francophiles alike. Both are exclusives to Adelaide Festival, so this will be your only chance to see these shows in Australia. First release tickets for these first shows went on sale at 10am this morning so get in quick.
French stage and screen actress Isabelle Huppert, who is well-known by French cinephiles, will return for Adelaide Festival 2026. She was last in Adelaide for Adelaide Festival 2012 when she starred in A Streetcar. This time around, it’s as Mary Queen of Scots in an Adelaide exclusive performance of Mary Said What She Said, which sees Isabelle Huppert perform solo for 90 minutes. Written by American novelist Darryl Pinckney, directed and designed by the late Robert Wilson, and with a score by celebrated Italian composer and pianist Ludovico Einaudi, Isabelle Huppert will plunge us into the psyche of Mary Stuart, a woman involved in some of the most notorious plots of the time, and a woman who was exiled, isolated and misunderstood. Of the production, France’s Le Figaro called “The Huppert-WIlson duo, undeniable perfection“.
Mary Said What She Said is a production of Théâtre de la Ville-Paris, and will be performed at the Festival Theatre from 6 to 8 March 2026. Purchase your tickets here
Ensemble Pygmalion is the second act announced this morning. Founded and directed by Raphaël Pichon with a view to reinterpret and highlight the links between works by many great baroque music composers. In France, the ensemble regularly performs on the most prestigious stages including the the Philharmonie de Paris, the Opéra de Versailles, the Opéra-Comique and the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence. Ensemble Pygmalion will be making its Australian debut at Adelaide Festival 2026 with not one, not two but three different concerts.
- Bach: Good Night World: a program exploring both Bach’s music and that of his forebears, which was so deeply important to him on a personal and musical level. Responding to the tumult of the time, including the Thirty Years War, these composers sought to inspire their listeners with a sense of consolation, hope and beauty: themes which resonate with us today and ensure Bach’s enduring legacy
- Orfeo by Luigi Rossi: the first-ever French opera, written by Italian composer Rossi while in exile in Paris and debuting in 1647, and then lost for over 300 years. Based on the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, Pygmalion’s production brings to life their tragic tale of love and heartbreak
- Monteverdi’s Vespers: Monteverdi’s first published work of sacred music (1610), which instantly whisks the audience to golden-age Venice in Saint Mark’s Basilica just as the Italian Baroque began. In his setting of the Vespers, Monteverdi drew on centuries of sacred music tradition, but he broke the mould by bringing the theatricality and drama of opera into the church
Ensemble Pygmalion will perform at Adelaide Town Hall on 27 and 28 February (Bach: Good Night World) and 4 and 6 March (Orfeo by Luigi Rossi); and at St Peter’s Cathedral on 2 and 3 March (Monteverdi’s Vespers) 2026. Tickets for Bach: Good Night World here, Orfeo by Luigi Rossi here, and Monteverdi’s Vespers here.
Of these first announcments, Adelaide Festival 2026 Artistic Director Matthew Lutton OAM said: “Raphaël Pichon and Ensemble Pygmalion are leaders in their interpretation of early music. They celebrate you hearing Bach and Monteverdi with entirely new ears – it’s electric. Director Robert Wilson inspired generations with his genius, and I was deeply saddened to learn of his recent death. We have lost a visionary, and Mary Said What She Said was to be his Adelaide theatre debut. This production, created with the force of nature that is actor Isabelle Huppert, not only reveals new layers of Mary Queen of Scots, but the power of Wilson’s unique theatrical vision.”
We are incredibly excited by these first announcements this morning and cannot wait to see what other French and Francophone links the Adelaide Festival 2026 program will bring! Adelaide Festival will launch its full 2026 program on 27 October 2025 and will run from 27 February to 15 March 2026.
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For more events with links to France and the Francophonie happening in Australia, check out our What’s on in August
