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Opera

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Step into the world of opera, where music, drama, and storytelling come together in an unforgettable experience. From timeless classics to contemporary masterpieces, opera captivates with its powerful voices and emotional depth. Whether you’re new or a seasoned listener, each performance offers a unique journey through human passion and artistry.

Overview

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Concert Features

Children and Family

Talks and Literature

Program

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Carl Maria von Weber

Richard Strauss

Musicians

Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg

Chor der Hamburgischen Staatsoper

Christian Günther

Alice Meregaglia

New Arrivals

These Opera concerts became visible lately at Concert Pulse.

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This season

In Berlin

Symposium: Cheek, ignorance and vice!

Sat, Jun 21, 2025, 10:00

Deutsche Oper Berlin, Foyer (Berlin)

On 21st December 1931 the Theater am Kurfürstendamm hosted the Berlin premiere of Bertolt Brecht’s and Kurt Weill’s RISE AND FALL OF THE CITY OF MAHAGONNY. These were febrile times, both politically and artistically. Tensions between radical groups on the fringes of the Weimar Republic boiled over frequently. The legendary Kroll Opera under the direction of Otto Klemperer, always a thorn in the flesh of right-wing political parties because of its openness to modernist works, was forced to close in July 1931. This despite Klemperer of all people declining to mount the world premiere of the piece in 1929 due to MAHAGONNY’s “crassness”. It was Ernst Josef Aufricht, one of the driving forces behind THE THREEPENNY OPERA, who brought the work to Berlin on his own initiative, hiring former Kroll conductor Alexander Zemlinsky as musical director and Caspar Neher to direct the onstage action and take charge of set design. Actors were cast in place of almost all the singers, which forced Weill into a number of re-writes and caused friction with Brecht at rehearsals. Such complications did not prevent the production from notching up almost fifty performances – one of the last great theatre runs of the Weimar Republic prior to the turning point of 1933. Today there is again talk of a turning point in the political landscape, so the opera is once again being tested for present-day relevance. In resonating with current political goings-on, does RISE AND FALL OF THE CITY OF MAHAGONNY have the same capacity to scandalise as it did in 1931? Or has Brecht’s “brazen, Berlin-style jostling of capitalism” (in the words of Hugo Leichtentritt, writing in Die Music magazine) now lost its sting? These are the kinds of questions that the symposium at the Deutsche Oper Berlin aims to address. The event sprang from a collaboration with the “Opera in Berlin 1925-1944” project, which is being hosted by the Humboldt University in Berlin and is part-funded by the German Research Foundation (Director: ...

Info & Ticket (deutscheoperberlin.de)

Artistic depiction of the event

This season

In Berlin

Symposium: Cheek, ignorance and vice!

Sun, Jun 22, 2025, 11:00

Deutsche Oper Berlin, Foyer (Berlin)

On 21st December 1931 the Theater am Kurfürstendamm hosted the Berlin premiere of Bertolt Brecht’s and Kurt Weill’s RISE AND FALL OF THE CITY OF MAHAGONNY. These were febrile times, both politically and artistically. Tensions between radical groups on the fringes of the Weimar Republic boiled over frequently. The legendary Kroll Opera under the direction of Otto Klemperer, always a thorn in the flesh of right-wing political parties because of its openness to modernist works, was forced to close in July 1931. This despite Klemperer of all people declining to mount the world premiere of the piece in 1929 due to MAHAGONNY’s “crassness”. It was Ernst Josef Aufricht, one of the driving forces behind THE THREEPENNY OPERA, who brought the work to Berlin on his own initiative, hiring former Kroll conductor Alexander Zemlinsky as musical director and Caspar Neher to direct the onstage action and take charge of set design. Actors were cast in place of almost all the singers, which forced Weill into a number of re-writes and caused friction with Brecht at rehearsals. Such complications did not prevent the production from notching up almost fifty performances – one of the last great theatre runs of the Weimar Republic prior to the turning point of 1933. Today there is again talk of a turning point in the political landscape, so the opera is once again being tested for present-day relevance. In resonating with current political goings-on, does RISE AND FALL OF THE CITY OF MAHAGONNY have the same capacity to scandalise as it did in 1931? Or has Brecht’s “brazen, Berlin-style jostling of capitalism” (in the words of Hugo Leichtentritt, writing in Die Music magazine) now lost its sting? These are the kinds of questions that the symposium at the Deutsche Oper Berlin aims to address. The event sprang from a collaboration with the “Opera in Berlin 1925-1944” project, which is being hosted by the Humboldt University in Berlin and is part-funded by the German Research Foundation (Director: ...

Info & Ticket (deutscheoperberlin.de)

Upcoming Concerts

Opera concerts in season 2024/25 or later

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Tonight

In Hamburg

Falstaff

Thu, Apr 3, 2025, 19:30

Hamburgische Staatsoper, Großes Haus (Hamburg)

Finnegan Downie Dear (Musical Director), Christian Günther (Chorleitung), Christopher Purves (Falstaff), Simon Keenlyside (Ford), Seungwoo Simon Yang (Fenton), Jürgen Sacher (Dr. Cajus), Daniel Kluge (Bardolfo), Tigran Martirossian (Pistola), Danielle de Niese (Alice Ford), Olivia Warburton (Nannetta), Anna Kissjudit (Mrs. Quickly), Kady Evanyshyn (Meg Page), Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg (Orchestra), Chor der Hamburgischen Staatsoper (Chorus)

Sir John Falstaff is an anarchist who obeys only the reign of his own enjoyment, an egoist who feeds only his power-hunger and his own flesh, and who would prefer to raze the small-minded morals of his contemporaries like the walls of a fortress – by seducing two women at the same time. Needless to say, his plan is thwarted, but those trying to expose him also fail to emerge unruffled from the confusion they unleash around him – which only the audience can keep track of, barely. “Tutto nel mondo è burla,” but these jokes are only funny because falling into the abyss actually does pose quite a serious risk. Arrigo Boito, the librettist of “Otello”, distilled a sophisticated, ingenious libretto from Shakespeare’s original, driving Verdi to highly complex compositional heights. Director: Calixto Bieito Set Designer: Susanne Gschwender Costume Designer: Anja Rabes Dramaturgy: Bettina Auer Lighting Designer: Michael Bauer Premiere: January 19th 2020

Info & Ticket (www.staatsorchester-hamburg.de)

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Tomorrow

In Berlin

The Magic Flute

Fri, Apr 4, 2025, 19:30

Deutsche Oper Berlin (Berlin)

About the work It’s the most performed opera in the German-speaking region, an unusual – and masterly – blend of Viennese folk theatre and fairy tale, mythology and freemasonry mystique: Mozart’s THE MAGIC FLUTE remains a puzzle to this day. Did Mozart and his librettist Schikaneder switch horses from the Queen of the Night to Sarastro half way through? Is the message not one of distrust towards a supposedly infallible priesthood and its simplistic good-versus-evil ideology? Are some Mozart experts right when they talk of a disconnect between text and music? Whatever the answer, it’s the music that allows us to relate to the story’s contradictions. Far from denouncing the characters, it confers an existentiality on their conflicts. Tamino is rescued from a dragon by three mysterious women, who show him a picture of Pamina, daughter of the Queen of the Night, who has been kidnapped by Sarastro, high priest of the Temple of the Sun. Besotted with the picture, Tamino is instructed by the Queen to team up with Papageno to rescue her. For a talisman he is given a magic flute, Papageno some magic bells. When they fail to steal Pamina back, the three of them are subjected to a series of perilous ordeals. Firstly, the men must prove they can keep silent. With Tamino not speaking to her, Pamina is about to stab herself but is saved by the three boy spirits, who lead her to Tamino. The pair then pass the remaining ordeals by fire and water. Meanwhile Papageno has acquired a lady friend, with whom he dreams of living happily ever after. Tamino and Pamina are inducted into the brotherhood of the Enlightened and embrace the ideals of nature, wisdom and reason. About the production The Günter Krämer production focuses on the antithesis between two worlds, represented in THE MAGIC FLUTE by sun versus moon and dark versus light but also by the oppositions of nature versus culture and male versus female. These double-sided coins are visualised on stage as the contrast between black ...

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Tomorrow

In Hamburg

La Fanciulla del West (The Girl of the West)

Fri, Apr 4, 2025, 19:30

Hamburgische Staatsoper, Großes Haus (Hamburg)

Antonino Fogliani (Musical Director), Christian Günther (Chorleitung), Anna Pirozzi (Minnie), Claudio Sgura (Jack Rance), Gregory Kunde (Dick Johnson), Andrew Dickinson (Nick), Han Kim (Ashby), Tigran Martirossian (Sonora), Paul Kaufmann (Trin), Nicholas Mogg (Sid), Charles Rice (Bello), Mziwamadoda Sipho Nodlayiya (Harry), Ziad Nehme (Joe), William Desbiens (Happy), Grzegorz Pelutis (Larkens), Mateusz Ługowski (Billy Jackrabbit), Aebh Kelly (Wowkle), David Minseok Kang (Jake Wallace), Keith Klein (Josè Castro), Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg (Orchestra), Chor der Hamburgischen Staatsoper (Chorus)

California in 1850: hundreds of thousands have fallen for the gold rush – and some of them also for the barkeeper Minnie, at whose saloon various fortune seekers meet every evening. Among them is Sheriff Jack Rance. Minnie, however, falls in love with the stranger Dick Johnson. It soon turns out that Johnson is a wanted robber: the sheriff wants to see him hang and have Minnie to himself. A round of poker is to decide about Dick’s life: is there yet another trump up Minnie’s sleeve? Puccini certainly held a trump with his Fanciulla, and even considered the piece his best: after world hits such as La Bohème and Madama Butterfly he had reinvented himself with this “spaghetti western”. In La Fanciulla del West, he combined ragtime rhythms, allusions to gospel singing and the music of the native Americans with Italian melodiousness, resulting in a lushly orchestrated broadband sound. This did not fail to affect the audience at the first performance at New York’s Metropolitan Opera in 1910. And yet, compared to Puccini’s major hits, the piece languished in the shadows for a long time – until the musical gold diggers set out to reclaim it… Director: Vincent Boussard Set Designer: Vincent Lemaire Costume Designer: Christian Lacroix Lighting Designer: Guido Levi Premiere: 01.02.2015

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In a few days

In Berlin

Tannhäuser und der Sängerkrieg auf Wartburg

Sat, Apr 5, 2025, 17:00

Deutsche Oper Berlin (Berlin)

About the work Repelled by the dispassion of the Wartburg society of minnesingers, Tannhäuser, a singer-knight, removes to the interior of the Venusberg in search of fulfilment. Eventually his longing for Elisabeth leads him to leave again. Back at the Wartburg castle, Tannhäuser takes part in a singing contest whose theme is the nature of love, but when he sings that love is ideally about sensual satisfaction, he is cast out and sent to Rome to seek papal absolution. He returns from Rome without the hoped-for indulgence and resolves to return to the Venusberg. Then a miracle occurs and he finds redemption after all. Of all Richard Wagner’s operas, this is arguably the one most closely associated with the composer’s own biography and his conception of himself as an artist. The tale of the song contest in the Wartburg castle contains all the themes common to Romantic conflict in art: the quest for social acceptance on the one hand pitted against a questioning of conventions on the other; the search for sensual fulfilment – and its irreconcilability with an idealised, de-sexualised concept of womanhood; and not least the conflict between self-expression in life as in art and the guilt engendered by this egomania. About the production In her production for the Deutsche Oper Berlin Kristen Harms focuses on the complicated relationship between Tannhäuser and Elisabeth, a young Thuringian noblewoman, who represents the ideal of pure, pristine love. Harms sees TANNHÄUSER as “a tale of two people, each with two souls in their breast”. This accounts for her casting of a single singer to play both Elisabeth and Venus, who fuse at the end of the opera into a single person, one who has found redemption. As for Tannhäuser, Harms presents him and his mild-mannered friend Wolfram von Eschenbach as two character sides of the same coin. By the same token the Venusberg, Tannhäuser’s abode at the start of the opera, is deemed by Harms to be “not a den of vice but a realm in which ...

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In a few days

In Hamburg

Il trovatore

Sat, Apr 5, 2025, 19:00

Hamburgische Staatsoper, Großes Haus (Hamburg)

Paolo Arrivabeni (Musical Director), Christian Günther (Chorleitung), George Petean (Luna), Marco Berti (Manrico), Olga Peretyatko (Leonora), Kristina Stanek (Azucena), Hubert Kowalczyk (Ferrando), Marie Maidowski (Inez), Aaron Godfrey-Mayes (Ruiz), Chor der Hamburgischen Staatsoper (Chorus), Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg (Orchestra)

For Leonora, the song of the troubadour Manrico holds the promise and glow of love; Manrico's rival Count Luna perceives in it threat and danger. Verdi's opera is a celebration of Italian opera singing at its best - so it is no coincidence that the title character is a singer himself. And yet for the composer, Azucena, Manrico's mother, was the real protagonist. Il trovatore is rich in dramatic intricacies and intense emotions, which Verdi abruptly juxtaposes in images and scenes. Tragedy relentlessly unfolds before our eyes and ears until the truth is revealed in the opera's final seconds. Stage: Alex Eales Costumes: Herbert Murauer Lighting: James Farncombe Video: Philipp Contag-Lada Dramaturgy: Ralf Waldschmidt Chorus: Christian Günther

Info & Ticket (www.staatsorchester-hamburg.de)

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Next week

In Berlin

Lohengrin

Sun, Apr 6, 2025, 17:00

Deutsche Oper Berlin (Berlin)

About the work King Henry I, “the Fowler”, is in Brabant to hold the Assizes and assert the nobles’ duty to provide militias to assist in military campaigns. Since the death of the Duke of Brabant, however, the succession has been a source of conflict. His children, Gottfried and Elsa, are wards of Count Telramund, but Gottfried has vanished and Telramund suspects Elsa of having killed him. A duel between her accuser and Elsa’s champion is organised to decide the issue. At the last moment a knight appears in a boat drawn by a swan, ready to defend Elsa’s honour. He is also prepared to take her as his wife on condition that she never ask him his name or where he hails from. Elsa agrees and the knight defeats Telramund. It was Ortrud, wife of Telramund and daughter of Radbod, the last Frisian prince, who poisoned her husband’s opinion of Elsa, with a view to regaining the position she had once held. Now she sets about blocking Elsa’s marriage to the stranger and sowing mistrust in her mind. But Elsa remains steadfast and refuses to ask her husband-to-be where he comes from. But once in their bridal chamber, she regrets that she doesn’t know his identity and expresses her desire to be able to speak his name. Swearing to keep his secret, she asks the forbidden question. Telramund bursts into the room with his noblemen and is promptly killed by the knight, who then formally reproaches Elsa for breaking her oath. He announces that he is Lohengrin, a knight of the Holy Grail and son of Parsifal, and now has to leave, since his secret has been revealed. Ortrud is convinced that she has got what she wanted, but then Gottfried, Elsa’s absent brother, turns up, having been kidnapped by Ortrud and turned into …a swan. Lohengrin appoints Gottfried as heir to the throne and the swan bears Lohengrin away again. Elsa dies of a broken heart. For a considerable period LOHENGRIN remained Wagner’s best received opera worldwide. That the opera has been the subject of so many different ...

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Next week

In Hamburg

Falstaff

Sun, Apr 6, 2025, 19:00

Hamburgische Staatsoper, Großes Haus (Hamburg)

Finnegan Downie Dear (Musical Director), Christian Günther (Chorleitung), Christopher Purves (Falstaff), Simon Keenlyside (Ford), Seungwoo Simon Yang (Fenton), Jürgen Sacher (Dr. Cajus), Daniel Kluge (Bardolfo), Tigran Martirossian (Pistola), Danielle de Niese (Alice Ford), Olivia Warburton (Nannetta), Anna Kissjudit (Mrs. Quickly), Kady Evanyshyn (Meg Page), Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg (Orchestra), Chor der Hamburgischen Staatsoper (Chorus)

Sir John Falstaff is an anarchist who obeys only the reign of his own enjoyment, an egoist who feeds only his power-hunger and his own flesh, and who would prefer to raze the small-minded morals of his contemporaries like the walls of a fortress – by seducing two women at the same time. Needless to say, his plan is thwarted, but those trying to expose him also fail to emerge unruffled from the confusion they unleash around him – which only the audience can keep track of, barely. “Tutto nel mondo è burla,” but these jokes are only funny because falling into the abyss actually does pose quite a serious risk. Arrigo Boito, the librettist of “Otello”, distilled a sophisticated, ingenious libretto from Shakespeare’s original, driving Verdi to highly complex compositional heights. Director: Calixto Bieito Set Designer: Susanne Gschwender Costume Designer: Anja Rabes Dramaturgy: Bettina Auer Lighting Designer: Michael Bauer Premiere: January 19th 2020

Info & Ticket (www.staatsorchester-hamburg.de)

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Next week

In Berlin

The Barber of Seville

Tue, Apr 8, 2025, 19:30

Deutsche Oper Berlin (Berlin)

About the work It’s a rambunctious tale: an old curmudgeon is set on marrying his own ward of court with a view to snapping up her considerable inheritance. He leaves no stone unturned in his efforts to keep the fair Rosina cloistered from the outside world and thus from any potential young suitors. A pity, then, that Count Almaviva has fallen head over heels for her. Assisted by Figaro, an enterprising barber, he plans to outwit the old man, win over Rosina – and ensure that it’s love that attracts her to him rather than his rank and wealth. Not an easy job for Figaro, seeing as the opposite camp is scheming with equal tenacity … Love wins out in the end, and it turns out that all precautions were useless! Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais [1732 –1799] dreamt up the character of the mischievous barber and wrote an entire comic trilogy about him, the first two instalments of which (LE BARBIER DE SÉVILLE OU LA PRÉCAUTION INUTILE [1775] and LA FOLLE JOURNÉE OU LE MARIAGE DE FIGARO [1778]) are world famous. Part 3, L’AUTRE TARTUFFE OU LA MÈRE COUPABLE [1792], was not such a hit, perhaps due to the upheavals of the Revolution. Although the revolutionary potential was especially palpable in the second part, with its brilliant soundtrack courtesy of Mozart [THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, 1786], the barber of the first part oozes disrespect, which inevitably makes him the central protagonist in this comic opera. Giovanni Paisiello had a runaway success with his musical version of BARBIERE in 1782, meaning that Rossini was up against a seemingly unassailable precursor when he resolved to compete directly with Paisiello in writing a comic opera based on the same material. And he pulled it off: 34 years after his rival’s own hit show he delivered arguably the wittiest and peppiest opera buffa in the history of the genre. About the production The action centring on the famous hair stylist, whose brainwaves solve all the challenges in the end, is transposed by Katharina Thalbach ...

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Next week

In Hamburg

La Traviata

Tue, Apr 8, 2025, 19:30

Hamburgische Staatsoper, Großes Haus (Hamburg)

Stefano Ranzani (Musical Director), Christian Günther (Chorleitung), Ruzan Mantashyan (Violetta Valery), Ida Aldrian (Flora Bervoix), Claire Gascoin (Annina), Oleksiy Palchykov (Alfredo Germont), Alexey Markov (Giorgio Germont), Peter Galliard (Gastone), Mateusz Ługowski (Il Barone Douphol), William Desbiens (Il Marchese d'Obigny), Keith Klein (Il Dottore Grenvil), Aaron Godfrey-Mayes (Giuseppe), Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg (Orchestra), Chor der Hamburgischen Staatsoper (Chorus)

Violetta is the most sought-after courtesan of the Parisian demimonde. However, her encounter with Alfredo makes her pleasure-seeking life seem questionable: they fall in love and try to build a life for themselves, far from the fast pleasures of the city. Her past, however, catches up with Violetta. Alfredo’s father persuades her that a separation is the only way to restore his family honour. Alfredo, unaware of the true reasons for her decision, insults Violetta in public. When they are finally reunited, Violetta has run out of time. Giuseppe Verdi was on the lookout for such a provocative, innovative tale when he encountered the novel La Dame aux Camélias by Alexandre Dumas the Younger. In the spring of 1852 he saw the “Lady of the Camellias” as a play adapted by the writer himself at the Vaudeville Theatre in Paris. The impression this made on him strengthened his resolve to use the tale for his next opera; the story gave him an opportunity to reformulate his grand theme: love defeated by the resistance of society. Director: Johannes Erath Stage Designer: Annette Kurz Costume Designer: Herbert Murauer Lighting Designer: Olaf Freese Dramaturgy: Francis Hüsers Premiere: 17.02.2013

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Next week

In Hamburg

Il trovatore

Wed, Apr 9, 2025, 19:00

Hamburgische Staatsoper, Großes Haus (Hamburg)

Paolo Arrivabeni (Musical Director), Christian Günther (Chorleitung), George Petean (Luna), Marco Berti (Manrico), Olga Peretyatko (Leonora), Kristina Stanek (Azucena), Hubert Kowalczyk (Ferrando), Marie Maidowski (Inez), Aaron Godfrey-Mayes (Ruiz), Chor der Hamburgischen Staatsoper (Chorus), Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg (Orchestra)

For Leonora, the song of the troubadour Manrico holds the promise and glow of love; Manrico's rival Count Luna perceives in it threat and danger. Verdi's opera is a celebration of Italian opera singing at its best - so it is no coincidence that the title character is a singer himself. And yet for the composer, Azucena, Manrico's mother, was the real protagonist. Il trovatore is rich in dramatic intricacies and intense emotions, which Verdi abruptly juxtaposes in images and scenes. Tragedy relentlessly unfolds before our eyes and ears until the truth is revealed in the opera's final seconds. Stage: Alex Eales Costumes: Herbert Murauer Lighting: James Farncombe Video: Philipp Contag-Lada Dramaturgy: Ralf Waldschmidt Chorus: Christian Günther

Info & Ticket (www.staatsorchester-hamburg.de)

Artistic depiction of the event

Next week

In Hamburg

Falstaff

Thu, Apr 10, 2025, 19:30

Hamburgische Staatsoper, Großes Haus (Hamburg)

Finnegan Downie Dear (Musical Director), Christian Günther (Chorleitung), Christopher Purves (Falstaff), Simon Keenlyside (Ford), Seungwoo Simon Yang (Fenton), Jürgen Sacher (Dr. Cajus), Daniel Kluge (Bardolfo), Tigran Martirossian (Pistola), Danielle de Niese (Alice Ford), Olivia Warburton (Nannetta), Anna Kissjudit (Mrs. Quickly), Kady Evanyshyn (Meg Page), Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg (Orchestra), Chor der Hamburgischen Staatsoper (Chorus)

Sir John Falstaff is an anarchist who obeys only the reign of his own enjoyment, an egoist who feeds only his power-hunger and his own flesh, and who would prefer to raze the small-minded morals of his contemporaries like the walls of a fortress – by seducing two women at the same time. Needless to say, his plan is thwarted, but those trying to expose him also fail to emerge unruffled from the confusion they unleash around him – which only the audience can keep track of, barely. “Tutto nel mondo è burla,” but these jokes are only funny because falling into the abyss actually does pose quite a serious risk. Arrigo Boito, the librettist of “Otello”, distilled a sophisticated, ingenious libretto from Shakespeare’s original, driving Verdi to highly complex compositional heights. Director: Calixto Bieito Set Designer: Susanne Gschwender Costume Designer: Anja Rabes Dramaturgy: Bettina Auer Lighting Designer: Michael Bauer Premiere: January 19th 2020

Info & Ticket (www.staatsorchester-hamburg.de)

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Next week

In Berlin

Lohengrin

Fri, Apr 11, 2025, 17:00

Deutsche Oper Berlin (Berlin)

About the work King Henry I, “the Fowler”, is in Brabant to hold the Assizes and assert the nobles’ duty to provide militias to assist in military campaigns. Since the death of the Duke of Brabant, however, the succession has been a source of conflict. His children, Gottfried and Elsa, are wards of Count Telramund, but Gottfried has vanished and Telramund suspects Elsa of having killed him. A duel between her accuser and Elsa’s champion is organised to decide the issue. At the last moment a knight appears in a boat drawn by a swan, ready to defend Elsa’s honour. He is also prepared to take her as his wife on condition that she never ask him his name or where he hails from. Elsa agrees and the knight defeats Telramund. It was Ortrud, wife of Telramund and daughter of Radbod, the last Frisian prince, who poisoned her husband’s opinion of Elsa, with a view to regaining the position she had once held. Now she sets about blocking Elsa’s marriage to the stranger and sowing mistrust in her mind. But Elsa remains steadfast and refuses to ask her husband-to-be where he comes from. But once in their bridal chamber, she regrets that she doesn’t know his identity and expresses her desire to be able to speak his name. Swearing to keep his secret, she asks the forbidden question. Telramund bursts into the room with his noblemen and is promptly killed by the knight, who then formally reproaches Elsa for breaking her oath. He announces that he is Lohengrin, a knight of the Holy Grail and son of Parsifal, and now has to leave, since his secret has been revealed. Ortrud is convinced that she has got what she wanted, but then Gottfried, Elsa’s absent brother, turns up, having been kidnapped by Ortrud and turned into …a swan. Lohengrin appoints Gottfried as heir to the throne and the swan bears Lohengrin away again. Elsa dies of a broken heart. For a considerable period LOHENGRIN remained Wagner’s best received opera worldwide. That the opera has been the subject of so many different ...

Info & Ticket (deutscheoperberlin.de)

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Next week

In Berlin

Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg

Sat, Apr 12, 2025, 16:00

Deutsche Oper Berlin (Berlin)

About the work DIE MEISTERSINGER VON NÜRNBERG was Richard Wagner’s only light-hearted opera and remains one of his most popular works. This notwithstanding, MEISTERSINGER is also the musical manifesto of a German national art movement and, as such, has accumulated so much baggage over the years that people are apt to lose sight of the opera’s essence – a jolly and coherent comedy with its helter-skelter storyline centring on illusion and reality, love, ageing and the plying of one’s art – and this despite the core theme of a life dominated by music determining not only the cast of characters but also the action of the piece. The members of the master-singers guild have convened to make music in accordance with their strict rulebook. One of the singers, the wealthy Veit Pogner, has granted his daughter Eva the freedom to choose which suitor she will marry – with the proviso that it be a master singer, in other words the winner of a public singing competition. A pity, then, that Eva is in love with Walther von Stolzing, who is talented but devoid of formal training. Nonetheless he takes part in the competition, aided and abetted by master singer Hans Sachs, who has to forego his love for Eva in the process. About the production Richard Wagner’s DIE MEISTERSINGER VON NÜRNBERG comes to the Deutsche Oper Berlin courtesy of a production trio made up of Jossi Wieler, Anna Viebrock and Sergio Morabito, whose slant on the material focuses on a “music-oriented society”, with Nuremberg’s late mediaeval guild of master singers transposed to the hermetic setting of a college of music. The institution is controlled by powerful professors and attended by their “lads” and “lassies”. The staff includes reformers like Hans Sachs and also pedants, one of whom, Sixtus Beckmesser, is likewise keen to win Eva’s hand in marriage. When new boy Walther von Stolzing, the only non-musical pupil, arrives in this ultra-regulated but at times oddball environment, the entire college is soon ...

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This month

In Berlin

Tannhäuser und der Sängerkrieg auf Wartburg

Sun, Apr 13, 2025, 17:00

Deutsche Oper Berlin (Berlin)

About the work Repelled by the dispassion of the Wartburg society of minnesingers, Tannhäuser, a singer-knight, removes to the interior of the Venusberg in search of fulfilment. Eventually his longing for Elisabeth leads him to leave again. Back at the Wartburg castle, Tannhäuser takes part in a singing contest whose theme is the nature of love, but when he sings that love is ideally about sensual satisfaction, he is cast out and sent to Rome to seek papal absolution. He returns from Rome without the hoped-for indulgence and resolves to return to the Venusberg. Then a miracle occurs and he finds redemption after all. Of all Richard Wagner’s operas, this is arguably the one most closely associated with the composer’s own biography and his conception of himself as an artist. The tale of the song contest in the Wartburg castle contains all the themes common to Romantic conflict in art: the quest for social acceptance on the one hand pitted against a questioning of conventions on the other; the search for sensual fulfilment – and its irreconcilability with an idealised, de-sexualised concept of womanhood; and not least the conflict between self-expression in life as in art and the guilt engendered by this egomania. About the production In her production for the Deutsche Oper Berlin Kristen Harms focuses on the complicated relationship between Tannhäuser and Elisabeth, a young Thuringian noblewoman, who represents the ideal of pure, pristine love. Harms sees TANNHÄUSER as “a tale of two people, each with two souls in their breast”. This accounts for her casting of a single singer to play both Elisabeth and Venus, who fuse at the end of the opera into a single person, one who has found redemption. As for Tannhäuser, Harms presents him and his mild-mannered friend Wolfram von Eschenbach as two character sides of the same coin. By the same token the Venusberg, Tannhäuser’s abode at the start of the opera, is deemed by Harms to be “not a den of vice but a realm in which ...

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This month

In Hamburg

La Traviata

Sun, Apr 13, 2025, 18:00

Hamburgische Staatsoper, Großes Haus (Hamburg)

Stefano Ranzani (Musical Director), Christian Günther (Chorleitung), Ruzan Mantashyan (Violetta Valery), Ida Aldrian (Flora Bervoix), Claire Gascoin (Annina), Oleksiy Palchykov (Alfredo Germont), Alexey Markov (Giorgio Germont), Peter Galliard (Gastone), Mateusz Ługowski (Il Barone Douphol), William Desbiens (Il Marchese d'Obigny), Keith Klein (Il Dottore Grenvil), Aaron Godfrey-Mayes (Giuseppe), Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg (Orchestra), Chor der Hamburgischen Staatsoper (Chorus)

Violetta is the most sought-after courtesan of the Parisian demimonde. However, her encounter with Alfredo makes her pleasure-seeking life seem questionable: they fall in love and try to build a life for themselves, far from the fast pleasures of the city. Her past, however, catches up with Violetta. Alfredo’s father persuades her that a separation is the only way to restore his family honour. Alfredo, unaware of the true reasons for her decision, insults Violetta in public. When they are finally reunited, Violetta has run out of time. Giuseppe Verdi was on the lookout for such a provocative, innovative tale when he encountered the novel La Dame aux Camélias by Alexandre Dumas the Younger. In the spring of 1852 he saw the “Lady of the Camellias” as a play adapted by the writer himself at the Vaudeville Theatre in Paris. The impression this made on him strengthened his resolve to use the tale for his next opera; the story gave him an opportunity to reformulate his grand theme: love defeated by the resistance of society. Director: Johannes Erath Stage Designer: Annette Kurz Costume Designer: Herbert Murauer Lighting Designer: Olaf Freese Dramaturgy: Francis Hüsers Premiere: 17.02.2013

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This month

In Berlin

The Fairy Tale of the Magic Fute

Mon, Apr 14, 2025, 18:00

Deutsche Oper Berlin (Berlin)

Prince Tamino falls head over heels in love with Princess Pamina when he receives her picture as a gift. Pamina's love for the Prince is awakened when she hears the tales of Papageno, the bird catcher, with whom she then sings a love duet, Papageno standing in for Tamino. However, these two children of royal blood have a few obstacles to surmount before they can be united. Fortunately there's always music in the meantime: Tamino is given a magic flute that can tame wild animals, and Papageno has a musical instrument, a glockenspiel of magic chimes. This abbreviated version of Mozart's MAGIC FLUTE is intended not only for children but for all music and theatre lovers keen to spend an hour learning the sights and sounds of opera.

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This month

In Berlin

The Fairy Tale of the Magic Fute

Tue, Apr 15, 2025, 18:00

Deutsche Oper Berlin (Berlin)

Prince Tamino falls head over heels in love with Princess Pamina when he receives her picture as a gift. Pamina's love for the Prince is awakened when she hears the tales of Papageno, the bird catcher, with whom she then sings a love duet, Papageno standing in for Tamino. However, these two children of royal blood have a few obstacles to surmount before they can be united. Fortunately there's always music in the meantime: Tamino is given a magic flute that can tame wild animals, and Papageno has a musical instrument, a glockenspiel of magic chimes. This abbreviated version of Mozart's MAGIC FLUTE is intended not only for children but for all music and theatre lovers keen to spend an hour learning the sights and sounds of opera.

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This month

In Hamburg

La Traviata

Wed, Apr 16, 2025, 19:30

Hamburgische Staatsoper, Großes Haus (Hamburg)

Stefano Ranzani (Musical Director), Christian Günther (Chorleitung), Ruzan Mantashyan (Violetta Valery), Ida Aldrian (Flora Bervoix), Claire Gascoin (Annina), Oleksiy Palchykov (Alfredo Germont), Alexey Markov (Giorgio Germont), Peter Galliard (Gastone), Mateusz Ługowski (Il Barone Douphol), William Desbiens (Il Marchese d'Obigny), Keith Klein (Il Dottore Grenvil), Aaron Godfrey-Mayes (Giuseppe), Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg (Orchestra), Chor der Hamburgischen Staatsoper (Chorus)

Violetta is the most sought-after courtesan of the Parisian demimonde. However, her encounter with Alfredo makes her pleasure-seeking life seem questionable: they fall in love and try to build a life for themselves, far from the fast pleasures of the city. Her past, however, catches up with Violetta. Alfredo’s father persuades her that a separation is the only way to restore his family honour. Alfredo, unaware of the true reasons for her decision, insults Violetta in public. When they are finally reunited, Violetta has run out of time. Giuseppe Verdi was on the lookout for such a provocative, innovative tale when he encountered the novel La Dame aux Camélias by Alexandre Dumas the Younger. In the spring of 1852 he saw the “Lady of the Camellias” as a play adapted by the writer himself at the Vaudeville Theatre in Paris. The impression this made on him strengthened his resolve to use the tale for his next opera; the story gave him an opportunity to reformulate his grand theme: love defeated by the resistance of society. Director: Johannes Erath Stage Designer: Annette Kurz Costume Designer: Herbert Murauer Lighting Designer: Olaf Freese Dramaturgy: Francis Hüsers Premiere: 17.02.2013

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This month

In Hamburg

Parsifal

Fri, Apr 18, 2025, 16:00

Hamburgische Staatsoper, Großes Haus (Hamburg)

Patrick Hahn (Musical Director), Christoph Pohl (Amfortas), Han Kim (Titurel), Kwangchul Youn (Gurnemanz), Benjamin Bruns (Parsifal), Mark Stone (Klingsor), Iréne Theorin (Kundry), Jürgen Sacher (1. Gralsritter), Hubert Kowalczyk (2. Gralsritter), Marie Maidowski (1. Knappe), Aebh Kelly (2. Knappe), Ziad Nehme (3. Knappe), Mziwamadoda Sipho Nodlayiya (4. Knappe), Yeonjoo Katharina Jang (Blumenmädchen I), Yeonjoo Katharina Jang (1), Hongping Ruan (Blumenmädchen 1), Hongping Ruan (2), Ida Aldrian (Blumenmädchen I. 3), Na'ama Shulman (Blumenmädchen II. 1), Gabriele Rossmanith (Blumenmädchen II. 2), Marta Świderska (Blumenmädchen II. 3), Ida Aldrian (Stimme aus der Höhe), Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg (Orchestra), Chor der Hamburgischen Staatsoper (Chorus)

Achim Freyer's visually powerful realization of Richard Wagner's stage festival play Parsifal is itself a fascinating synthesis of the arts. The director, stage and costume designer shows us a world of colors and symbols that emerge from the spirit of the music. Wagner's farewell to the world revolves around the central idea of compassion, compassion for other people and for nature. The use of Christian symbols mixed with Buddhist and philosophical ideas is to be understood symbolically. Wagner's last score takes us on a journey into the innermost depths of existence and musically points far into the future. Director, Set-, Costume- and Lightdesign: Achim Freyer Artistic Collaboration: Sebastian Bauer Set Design Collaboration: Moritz Nitsche Costume Design Collaboration: Petra Weikert Light Design Collaboration: Sebastian Alphons Video: Jakob Klaffs/Hugo Reis Dramaturgy: Klaus-Peter Kehr Premiere: 16.9.2017

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This month

In Berlin

Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg

Sat, Apr 19, 2025, 16:00

Deutsche Oper Berlin (Berlin)

About the work DIE MEISTERSINGER VON NÜRNBERG was Richard Wagner’s only light-hearted opera and remains one of his most popular works. This notwithstanding, MEISTERSINGER is also the musical manifesto of a German national art movement and, as such, has accumulated so much baggage over the years that people are apt to lose sight of the opera’s essence – a jolly and coherent comedy with its helter-skelter storyline centring on illusion and reality, love, ageing and the plying of one’s art – and this despite the core theme of a life dominated by music determining not only the cast of characters but also the action of the piece. The members of the master-singers guild have convened to make music in accordance with their strict rulebook. One of the singers, the wealthy Veit Pogner, has granted his daughter Eva the freedom to choose which suitor she will marry – with the proviso that it be a master singer, in other words the winner of a public singing competition. A pity, then, that Eva is in love with Walther von Stolzing, who is talented but devoid of formal training. Nonetheless he takes part in the competition, aided and abetted by master singer Hans Sachs, who has to forego his love for Eva in the process. About the production Richard Wagner’s DIE MEISTERSINGER VON NÜRNBERG comes to the Deutsche Oper Berlin courtesy of a production trio made up of Jossi Wieler, Anna Viebrock and Sergio Morabito, whose slant on the material focuses on a “music-oriented society”, with Nuremberg’s late mediaeval guild of master singers transposed to the hermetic setting of a college of music. The institution is controlled by powerful professors and attended by their “lads” and “lassies”. The staff includes reformers like Hans Sachs and also pedants, one of whom, Sixtus Beckmesser, is likewise keen to win Eva’s hand in marriage. When new boy Walther von Stolzing, the only non-musical pupil, arrives in this ultra-regulated but at times oddball environment, the entire college is soon ...

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This month

In Hamburg

La Traviata

Sat, Apr 19, 2025, 19:00

Hamburgische Staatsoper, Großes Haus (Hamburg)

Stefano Ranzani (Musical Director), Christian Günther (Chorleitung), Ruzan Mantashyan (Violetta Valery), Ida Aldrian (Flora Bervoix), Claire Gascoin (Annina), Oleksiy Palchykov (Alfredo Germont), Alexey Markov (Giorgio Germont), Peter Galliard (Gastone), Mateusz Ługowski (Il Barone Douphol), William Desbiens (Il Marchese d'Obigny), Keith Klein (Il Dottore Grenvil), Aaron Godfrey-Mayes (Giuseppe), Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg (Orchestra), Chor der Hamburgischen Staatsoper (Chorus)

Violetta is the most sought-after courtesan of the Parisian demimonde. However, her encounter with Alfredo makes her pleasure-seeking life seem questionable: they fall in love and try to build a life for themselves, far from the fast pleasures of the city. Her past, however, catches up with Violetta. Alfredo’s father persuades her that a separation is the only way to restore his family honour. Alfredo, unaware of the true reasons for her decision, insults Violetta in public. When they are finally reunited, Violetta has run out of time. Giuseppe Verdi was on the lookout for such a provocative, innovative tale when he encountered the novel La Dame aux Camélias by Alexandre Dumas the Younger. In the spring of 1852 he saw the “Lady of the Camellias” as a play adapted by the writer himself at the Vaudeville Theatre in Paris. The impression this made on him strengthened his resolve to use the tale for his next opera; the story gave him an opportunity to reformulate his grand theme: love defeated by the resistance of society. Director: Johannes Erath Stage Designer: Annette Kurz Costume Designer: Herbert Murauer Lighting Designer: Olaf Freese Dramaturgy: Francis Hüsers Premiere: 17.02.2013

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This month

In Berlin

Lohengrin

Sun, Apr 20, 2025, 16:00

Deutsche Oper Berlin (Berlin)

About the work King Henry I, “the Fowler”, is in Brabant to hold the Assizes and assert the nobles’ duty to provide militias to assist in military campaigns. Since the death of the Duke of Brabant, however, the succession has been a source of conflict. His children, Gottfried and Elsa, are wards of Count Telramund, but Gottfried has vanished and Telramund suspects Elsa of having killed him. A duel between her accuser and Elsa’s champion is organised to decide the issue. At the last moment a knight appears in a boat drawn by a swan, ready to defend Elsa’s honour. He is also prepared to take her as his wife on condition that she never ask him his name or where he hails from. Elsa agrees and the knight defeats Telramund. It was Ortrud, wife of Telramund and daughter of Radbod, the last Frisian prince, who poisoned her husband’s opinion of Elsa, with a view to regaining the position she had once held. Now she sets about blocking Elsa’s marriage to the stranger and sowing mistrust in her mind. But Elsa remains steadfast and refuses to ask her husband-to-be where he comes from. But once in their bridal chamber, she regrets that she doesn’t know his identity and expresses her desire to be able to speak his name. Swearing to keep his secret, she asks the forbidden question. Telramund bursts into the room with his noblemen and is promptly killed by the knight, who then formally reproaches Elsa for breaking her oath. He announces that he is Lohengrin, a knight of the Holy Grail and son of Parsifal, and now has to leave, since his secret has been revealed. Ortrud is convinced that she has got what she wanted, but then Gottfried, Elsa’s absent brother, turns up, having been kidnapped by Ortrud and turned into …a swan. Lohengrin appoints Gottfried as heir to the throne and the swan bears Lohengrin away again. Elsa dies of a broken heart. For a considerable period LOHENGRIN remained Wagner’s best received opera worldwide. That the opera has been the subject of so many different ...

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This month

In Hamburg

Parsifal

Mon, Apr 21, 2025, 15:00

Hamburgische Staatsoper, Großes Haus (Hamburg)

Patrick Hahn (Musical Director), Christoph Pohl (Amfortas), Han Kim (Titurel), Kwangchul Youn (Gurnemanz), Benjamin Bruns (Parsifal), Mark Stone (Klingsor), Iréne Theorin (Kundry), Jürgen Sacher (1. Gralsritter), Hubert Kowalczyk (2. Gralsritter), Marie Maidowski (1. Knappe), Aebh Kelly (2. Knappe), Ziad Nehme (3. Knappe), Mziwamadoda Sipho Nodlayiya (4. Knappe), Yeonjoo Katharina Jang (Blumenmädchen I), Yeonjoo Katharina Jang (1), Hongping Ruan (Blumenmädchen 1), Hongping Ruan (2), Ida Aldrian (Blumenmädchen I. 3), Na'ama Shulman (Blumenmädchen II. 1), Gabriele Rossmanith (Blumenmädchen II. 2), Marta Świderska (Blumenmädchen II. 3), Ida Aldrian (Stimme aus der Höhe), Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg (Orchestra), Chor der Hamburgischen Staatsoper (Chorus)

Achim Freyer's visually powerful realization of Richard Wagner's stage festival play Parsifal is itself a fascinating synthesis of the arts. The director, stage and costume designer shows us a world of colors and symbols that emerge from the spirit of the music. Wagner's farewell to the world revolves around the central idea of compassion, compassion for other people and for nature. The use of Christian symbols mixed with Buddhist and philosophical ideas is to be understood symbolically. Wagner's last score takes us on a journey into the innermost depths of existence and musically points far into the future. Director, Set-, Costume- and Lightdesign: Achim Freyer Artistic Collaboration: Sebastian Bauer Set Design Collaboration: Moritz Nitsche Costume Design Collaboration: Petra Weikert Light Design Collaboration: Sebastian Alphons Video: Jakob Klaffs/Hugo Reis Dramaturgy: Klaus-Peter Kehr Premiere: 16.9.2017

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This month

In Berlin

Der fliegende Holländer

Mon, Apr 21, 2025, 16:00

Deutsche Oper Berlin (Berlin)

About the work The Dutchman is a cursed man, an outsider, a driven individual. Richard Wagner came upon the character of the famous drifter via Heinrich Heine, who lent the Romantic material his typically ironic touch. Wagner’s interest was tweaked not by Heine’s packaging of the story, which relegated the Dutchman-based action to the margins, but by the tale of the enigmatic mariner, which led to him writing his first opera about the man’s quest for a woman who could offer him redemption. The Dutchman, restlessly plying the borderlands between life and death, encounters Senta, who appears equally ill-at-ease and rootless and yearns for a masculine character, the Dutchman, a figment of her imagination. Written in 1841 and performed for the first time in Dresden in 1843, Wagner’s opera, following on the heels of RIENZI, a work in the grand opéra tradition, harks back to the German idea of Romantic opera as exemplified by Weber or Marschner. THE FLYING DUTSCHMAN also marks the beginning of a new and characteristically Wagnerian style, a new form of musical drama. This is the first of many works by Wagner to place the theme of redemption through love in death at the core of the piece. About the production Director and choreographer Christian Spuck, artistic director of the Staatsballett Berlin since 2023, has given us a realm of dream images and fantastical visions, of obsession and projection – a world that has lost touch with reality. Most affected by this is Erik, the huntsman, who seems to be the only figure capable of true love. But he can no longer get through to a Senta who is wrapped up in her dreams. Erik is in the nightmarish situation of watching Senta increasingly cut herself off from him until she eventually commits suicide.

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This month

In Berlin

Antikrist

Thu, Apr 24, 2025, 19:30

Deutsche Oper Berlin (Berlin)

About the work The Antichrist makes his entrance into a godless world. Sent by Lucifer into the world, he adopts many guises. Mankind is tested and tempted by pride, lust, lies, despondency and hatred in an “all-against-all altercation”. Langgaard’s opera is suffused with fin de siècle atmosphere and pessimism, warning of catastrophe and denouncing the vices of the modern age: egotism, arrogance, frivolity. Langgaard, though, was also an optimist, convinced of the transformative, transcendental power of art and the importance of music as a thread connecting people to the godhead. So it is that the world is freed of all evil and sorrow in the culminating chorus scene in ANTIKRIST. The work, composed in the early 1920s, drastically revised up until 1930 and referred to by Langgaard as his “church opera”, is a monument within the oeuvre of the Danish composer, which itself is dotted with striking and unusual compositions. Based on John’s Book of Revelation, it is a mystery play dominated by apocalyptic references which does little to conceal the turn-of-the-century mood – and the associative libretto can be analysed from today’s historical perspective. A spark of hope in the darkness is provided by the dazzling music, a score that is Late Romantic and orchestral in influence but constantly collapsing or distilling into austere details. This is the solitary artist Langgaard discovering his personal style, one that, albeit reminiscent of Strauss and Wagner, is also a nod to his contemporaries Hindemith and Schönberg. The symbolism of the text, the switching and changing music and the muscularity of the whole makes ANTIKRIST one of the most remarkable experiments in 1920s opera. About the production In the eyes of multi-award-winning director Ersan Mondtag, Langgaard’s opera foretelling a doomsday frenzy is a parable of our own times. His visually arresting production touches on issues such as social fragmentation, the roughening of public discourse and the increasingly ...

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This month

In Berlin

Der fliegende Holländer

Sat, Apr 26, 2025, 18:00

Deutsche Oper Berlin (Berlin)

About the work The Dutchman is a cursed man, an outsider, a driven individual. Richard Wagner came upon the character of the famous drifter via Heinrich Heine, who lent the Romantic material his typically ironic touch. Wagner’s interest was tweaked not by Heine’s packaging of the story, which relegated the Dutchman-based action to the margins, but by the tale of the enigmatic mariner, which led to him writing his first opera about the man’s quest for a woman who could offer him redemption. The Dutchman, restlessly plying the borderlands between life and death, encounters Senta, who appears equally ill-at-ease and rootless and yearns for a masculine character, the Dutchman, a figment of her imagination. Written in 1841 and performed for the first time in Dresden in 1843, Wagner’s opera, following on the heels of RIENZI, a work in the grand opéra tradition, harks back to the German idea of Romantic opera as exemplified by Weber or Marschner. THE FLYING DUTSCHMAN also marks the beginning of a new and characteristically Wagnerian style, a new form of musical drama. This is the first of many works by Wagner to place the theme of redemption through love in death at the core of the piece. About the production Director and choreographer Christian Spuck, artistic director of the Staatsballett Berlin since 2023, has given us a realm of dream images and fantastical visions, of obsession and projection – a world that has lost touch with reality. Most affected by this is Erik, the huntsman, who seems to be the only figure capable of true love. But he can no longer get through to a Senta who is wrapped up in her dreams. Erik is in the nightmarish situation of watching Senta increasingly cut herself off from him until she eventually commits suicide.

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This month

In Berlin

Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg

Sun, Apr 27, 2025, 16:00

Deutsche Oper Berlin (Berlin)

About the work DIE MEISTERSINGER VON NÜRNBERG was Richard Wagner’s only light-hearted opera and remains one of his most popular works. This notwithstanding, MEISTERSINGER is also the musical manifesto of a German national art movement and, as such, has accumulated so much baggage over the years that people are apt to lose sight of the opera’s essence – a jolly and coherent comedy with its helter-skelter storyline centring on illusion and reality, love, ageing and the plying of one’s art – and this despite the core theme of a life dominated by music determining not only the cast of characters but also the action of the piece. The members of the master-singers guild have convened to make music in accordance with their strict rulebook. One of the singers, the wealthy Veit Pogner, has granted his daughter Eva the freedom to choose which suitor she will marry – with the proviso that it be a master singer, in other words the winner of a public singing competition. A pity, then, that Eva is in love with Walther von Stolzing, who is talented but devoid of formal training. Nonetheless he takes part in the competition, aided and abetted by master singer Hans Sachs, who has to forego his love for Eva in the process. About the production Richard Wagner’s DIE MEISTERSINGER VON NÜRNBERG comes to the Deutsche Oper Berlin courtesy of a production trio made up of Jossi Wieler, Anna Viebrock and Sergio Morabito, whose slant on the material focuses on a “music-oriented society”, with Nuremberg’s late mediaeval guild of master singers transposed to the hermetic setting of a college of music. The institution is controlled by powerful professors and attended by their “lads” and “lassies”. The staff includes reformers like Hans Sachs and also pedants, one of whom, Sixtus Beckmesser, is likewise keen to win Eva’s hand in marriage. When new boy Walther von Stolzing, the only non-musical pupil, arrives in this ultra-regulated but at times oddball environment, the entire college is soon ...

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This month

In Hamburg

Parsifal

Sun, Apr 27, 2025, 16:00

Hamburgische Staatsoper, Großes Haus (Hamburg)

Patrick Hahn (Musical Director), Christoph Pohl (Amfortas), Han Kim (Titurel), Kwangchul Youn (Gurnemanz), Benjamin Bruns (Parsifal), Mark Stone (Klingsor), Iréne Theorin (Kundry), Jürgen Sacher (1. Gralsritter), Hubert Kowalczyk (2. Gralsritter), Marie Maidowski (1. Knappe), Aebh Kelly (2. Knappe), Ziad Nehme (3. Knappe), Mziwamadoda Sipho Nodlayiya (4. Knappe), Yeonjoo Katharina Jang (Blumenmädchen I), Yeonjoo Katharina Jang (1), Hongping Ruan (Blumenmädchen 1), Hongping Ruan (2), Ida Aldrian (Blumenmädchen I. 3), Na'ama Shulman (Blumenmädchen II. 1), Gabriele Rossmanith (Blumenmädchen II. 2), Marta Świderska (Blumenmädchen II. 3), Ida Aldrian (Stimme aus der Höhe), Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg (Orchestra), Chor der Hamburgischen Staatsoper (Chorus)

Achim Freyer's visually powerful realization of Richard Wagner's stage festival play Parsifal is itself a fascinating synthesis of the arts. The director, stage and costume designer shows us a world of colors and symbols that emerge from the spirit of the music. Wagner's farewell to the world revolves around the central idea of compassion, compassion for other people and for nature. The use of Christian symbols mixed with Buddhist and philosophical ideas is to be understood symbolically. Wagner's last score takes us on a journey into the innermost depths of existence and musically points far into the future. Director, Set-, Costume- and Lightdesign: Achim Freyer Artistic Collaboration: Sebastian Bauer Set Design Collaboration: Moritz Nitsche Costume Design Collaboration: Petra Weikert Light Design Collaboration: Sebastian Alphons Video: Jakob Klaffs/Hugo Reis Dramaturgy: Klaus-Peter Kehr Premiere: 16.9.2017

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This month

In Berlin

New Scenes VII

Sun, Apr 27, 2025, 20:00

Deutsche Oper Berlin, Tischlerei (Berlin)

What does a future look like in which researchers aren’t just creating with artificial intelligence, but have also learned to copy people at the computer? This scenario was put forth by economist Robin Hanson in his book The Age of Em – Work, Love and Life when Robots Rule the Earth. Composer Zara Ali from Memphis, Tennessee is currently working on bringing Hanson’s physical-digital hybrids to the stage in what she describes as a sort of “spherical installation” that will place the audience in the perceptual world of these “Ems”. Together with author Hannah Dübgen, Ali is one of the three teams working on next-generation musical theatre for the seventh edition of the NEW SCENES. “We want to make something truly special, not the typical opera,” says the 28-year-old composer. Ali, who studied philosophy at Columbia University parallel to her musical education, frequently experiments with electronics, and works on interdisciplinary projects with string quartets and dancers – and now, for the first time, at an opera house. Huihui Cheng, who attended a school for musically gifted children in Beijing at the age of 14, is particularly interested in the performative potential of compositions. She refers to her past works as “theatrically expanded pieces of music”, such as “Me Du Ça” – part of a series on Greek mythology. Cheng worked with a designer to change the Medusa singer’s hair from snakes into tubes that can be played like flutes. Like Ali, Cheng is interested in technological advancements and the possibilities these bring to the stage. She recalls recently seeing a drone at an Offenbach opera, emphasising that the goal of such methods should be “to convey the beauty of the music and the eternity of emotions”. An opera like the Deutsche Oper Berlin, she says, offers the ideal conditions for exploring innovative approaches. Haukur Þór Harðarson, from Iceland and living in Berlin, co-founder of the composition collective Errata, thinks it’s exciting when New Theatre ...

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This month

In Hamburg

Pique Dame

Tue, Apr 29, 2025, 19:30

Hamburgische Staatsoper, Großes Haus (Hamburg)

Graeme Jenkins (Musical Director), Christian Günther (Chorus), Najmiddin Mavlyanov (Herman), Pavel Yankovsky (Graf Tomsky), Alexey Bogdanchikov (Fürst Jeletzky), Paul Curievici (Czekalisnky), David Minseok Kang (Ssurin), Andre Nevans (Tschaplitzky), Roman Astakhov (Narumoff), Elena Zaremba (Gräfin), Elena Guseva (Lisa), Kai Rüütel-Pajula (Pauline), Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg (Orchestra), Chor der Hamburgischen Staatsoper (Chorus)

The outsider Herman loves Liza, who is engaged to Prince Yeletsky. Herman is a passionate gambler: he is desperate to win a fortune and reputation in order to win Liza’s heart. When he learns that her grandmother knows the secret of the three winning cards, fate takes its course. Director: Willy Decker Set and Costume Designer: Wolfgang Gussmann Lighting Designer: Hans Toelstede Premiere: 25.05.2003

Info & Ticket (www.staatsorchester-hamburg.de)