It’s a dramatic return for the star singer, whose links to Vladimir Putin have been under scrutiny since the invasion of Ukraine — and who hasn’t performed at the Royal Opera House (ROH) since 2019. An engagement for Il trovatore in the summer of 2022, against the relatively recent backdrop of the war, was quietly dropped. In the same year the Metropolitan Opera in New York severed ties with the soprano, citing her “close association with Putin”.

Talking from his empty new office in the ROH — he will officially move in on August 11— Hrusa, 44, makes no attempt to pass off Netrebko’s comeback into someone else’s inbox. He is proud of both leading ladies in the new Tosca — the role will be shared by Netrebko and the Polish soprano Aleksandra Kurzak. “You ask me about Anna. What made me decide to engage those two singers [Netrebko and Kurzak] is quality — the need to have an absolutely first class artistic approach. And I see it in both ladies.” On Netrebko specifically, he applauds her “as one of the best performers in that fach [category of role]. The ROH should be connected to the best singers, and she belongs to their number.”

Netrebko, who lives in Austria and has not performed in Russia since the war in Ukraine began, issued statements opposing it in March 2022. Yet the boss of the Metropolitan Opera, Peter Gelb, has said that she has “made a disingenuous effort to distance herself from the Russian war effort”.

So is Gelb wrong? “I know she condemned the war,” Hrusa replies, “and I have no reason not to take her statement seriously.”

I posit an unhappy scenario in which, by September, Russia has ravaged Ukraine, a supine America has rolled over to Putin’s demands, and Netrebko’s arrival in the West End on opening night, September 11, prompts public protests in Bow Street (similar demonstrations have greeted her performances in Berlin). It’s not exactly the red carpet moment a new music director would want. “Sensitivities are important … and that’s why we always required the kind of statement that she put out. If [things] happen as you describe, we’ll take it from there. But I absolutely stand by this decision, because artistically it makes sense.”

So, why Tosca? After previous period stagings by Franco Zeffirelli and Jonathan Kent at the house, Mears will update the story to — “war-torn, modern-day Rome” to be precise. “It may be controversial,” Hrusa says, “but when you do a piece like Tosca, it should have a new stimulus, inspiration.”

He stresses that this Tosca is only half the story. He has scheduled Puccini’s melodrama alongside another opera about an imperious diva — Janacek’s The Makropulos Case, which he’ll conduct in November. It’s the house’s first production of the piece. “Which I didn’t know when we were planning it! [The combination] is ideal, because these two composers breathe the same cultural air.” The two productions (Makropulos is directed by Katie Mitchell) will also represent “two very contrasting visions of how theatre can look”.

Add Hrusa’s third show of the season to the mix and it shows “in a nutshell, how I want to take care of the repertoire here”. This will be a May 2026 revival of Britten’s Peter Grimes in the five-star Deborah Warner production and most of the original cast. Bringing fresh eyes to this staging excites him, because “I don’t know any other house where revivals are done with so much precision and commitment”.

Finally, and unusually, Hrusa will also lead an orchestral concert (with the company chorus) of Bartok’s Miraculous Mandarin and a Dvorak rarity, the cantata The Spectre’s Bride. He hopes he is feeding an enthusiasm from the players and intends it to become a yearly event. “This orchestra doesn’t have its own concert series, but they want to be exposed to that kind of culture and knowledge and experience.” Symphonic music has been the spine of his career, although there was a formative and precocious stint as music director of Glyndebourne Touring Opera (“I was the most excited person in the company about going to Plymouth and Norwich”). Hrusa is principal guest of the Czech Philharmonic and his contract as principal conductor of the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra in Bavaria runs to 2029.

The differing specialism, symphonic over operatic, is only one of the formative differences between Hrusa and his predecessor at Covent Garden. The son of a singing teacher, Pappano came to conducting after decades (from childhood on) spent coaching and preparing singers for opera, with no formal training. The Brno-raised Hrusa, by contrast, grew up in a cultured but not musical family, the son of an architect. “The piano was an item of furniture, no one played it, but I was attracted to it.”

He attended a mainstream school albeit one with generous music provision, and took up the trombone, the piano, then conducting, with private lessons feeding what he had realised was “the endless passion of my life”. Conducting as a student was how he met his wife, who played violin, but is now a lawyer. They have a girl, 11, and a boy, 8, and the family have lived in south London since Hrusa came to the city for his ROH debut, conducting Carmen in 2018. We meet the day after World Book Day and while his daughter is too old for costumes, his son went into school dressed as Sherlock Holmes.

Pappano was, as Hrusa freely offers, “extremely and extraordinarily successful in the job”. So has he offered any advice to his successor? Right now he’s in the house rehearsing the second part of the Ring cycle (which continues in 2025-26 under Pappano with Siegfried). “Tony belongs to those wise people who don’t give concrete advice to anyone in the same job.” He was buoyed by the reassurance from the powers that be at the house. “They said, ‘We don’t want you to be in any way similar to Tony. We want you to be yourself.’” He and Pappano have “different inclinations, different backgrounds, different characters”.

Can Hrusa, however, step into the Mr Motivator role that Pappano so vividly embodied? Music director meets head teacher meets arts advocator, and, especially towards the end of his tenure, chief basher of governmental philistinism? “OK, so I live here, in London, where I’ve lived for eight years. Anytime I’m at home, I’m free — for auditions, meeting directors, working with the Jette Parker Young Artists, educational activities. I welcome being exposed to all of this. I don’t think one can measure it in terms of how much time one invests or not … I will be very available to the house.”

I reel off the familiar list of present and looming disasters in the British arts world. Glyndebourne Touring Opera, where Hrusa found his feet in the UK, no longer exists. Pappano told me that the “system was broken from the bottom” and told the BBC that “misguided wokeism” from the Arts Council was one of the things that broke it. How does it look from Hrusa’s perch? “I focus on the positive,” he says, smiling gently. “It’s our task to be adamant — to be absolutely clear and vocal about being proud of opera. I haven’t yet met a person who has said that this house is not an exciting place.”

And Arts Council cuts? “I know about cuts, but the way to cope with those cuts is to be yet more proud and more convincing and more enthusiastic about what one is doing. I don’t want to complain about cuts before I even start the job. I have so many reasons to be happy about what this house represents. I want to take my mission from that.”

• Who is Jakub Hrusa, Antonio Pappano’s successor at Covent Garden?

If he had the culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, in the room with him, what would he tell her? “I would make absolutely sure that she would join me watching what we are doing in the theatre. Because if it’s something like Jenufa or Festen then that person would understand that it’s stunning.”

As a final challenge I have prepared a quickfire quiz for Hrusa about London. Favourite boozer? Coach and Horses around the corner from the ROH. Ale or pilsner? The former if in the UK, the latter if in the Czech Republic. The Hrusa family has no allegiance to a football team.

But they do wave a flag for their adopted city. “I’ve never once felt unwelcome in London, and I think all the people who originally come from other corners of the world would say the same. It’s a city where the atmosphere makes you feel at home. And that’s also true of this house. It really reflects what London is.”

Highlights of the 2025/6 Royal Ballet and Opera seasons

Opera

Tosca

Expect even more fireworks than usual when Anna Netrebko returns to Covent Garden as Puccini’s jealous diva, playing against Freddie De Tommaso’s Cavaradossi. From Sep 11

Les Vêpres siciliennes

A big Verdian showpiece for the Royal Opera’s new principal guest conductor, Speranza Scappucci, featuring Marina Rebeka, SeokJong Baek and Quinn Kelsey. From Sep 19

Last Days

Oliver Leith’s appropriately grungy retelling of the final days of Kurt Cobain was an unexpected hit. It’s back in the Linbury Theatre. From Dec 5

I puritani

Richard Jones’s new staging is billed as the first Royal Opera new production of Bellini’s last opera since 1964. It’s a star vehicle for Lisette Oropesa, singing Elvira. From Jun 30, 2026

Dance

by Debra Craine

A Single Man

If you can’t get to the Manchester International Festival in July for the world premiere of Jonathan Watkins’s reimagining of Christopher Isherwood’s novel about gay love and loss you can catch it when it opens the ballet programme at the Linbury, downstairs at the ROH. From Sep 8

La Fille mal gardée

A welcome revival for Frederick Ashton’s sunny rom-com, 65 years old and still going strong. From Oct 18

Cathy Marston

She scored a hit with The Cellist, so the British choreographer has been invited back to make a new abstract work as part of a triple bill that also includes Justin Peck’s Everywhere We Go, which marks the Royal debut of the hot New Yorker. From Nov 14

Wayne McGregor

The Royal Ballet’s resident choreographer is in the spotlight with a mixed bill that includes a world premiere. No details yet but it will be seen alongside revivals of his Yugen and the gorgeous Untitled, 2023. From Apr 18, 2026

For details of the 2025/26 season at the Royal Ballet and Opera, go to rbo.org.uk