Weill: »Die Sieben Todsünden«

Happy Hour - Klassik um Sieben

This "Happy Hour" concert by the WDR Symphony Orchestra, led by Austrian conductor Manfred Honeck, offers a lively mix of polkas and Viennese waltzes for those who missed the Vienna Philharmonic's New Year's Concert. Soprano Magdalena Lucjan adds to the festivities, portraying Adele from Johann Strauss's "Die Fledermaus".

Happy Hour - Klassik um Sieben

The WDR Symphony Orchestra's "Happy Hour - Classical at Seven" series offers sixty minutes of top-class classical music. This concert, conducted by Roderick Cox, features Samuel Barber's first symphony, a dark, "Nordic" work compared to Sibelius. Sibelius's fifth symphony, inspired by the Finnish landscape and circling swans, will also be performed.

Happy Hour - Klassik um Sieben

The WDR Symphony Orchestra's "Happy Hour" presents Russian contrasts: Anatoly Lyadov's refined soundscape "The Enchanted Lake," depicting cold, fantastical nature, followed by Igor Stravinsky's "Petrushka," a burlesque plunging into the vibrant life of a Russian fair, featuring mysteriously awakened puppets. Marie Jacquot, recently elected chief conductor from 2026/2027, leads the orchestra.

Die Feisten

When »Die Feisten« do what they like to do best, lots of new songs tumble out of their songwriting machine: one for the forcibly shipped, involuntary concert guests who would actually rather be at the football or a heavy metal gig. Another about the best-before date of all of us: »Mein Körper und ich« (My Body and Me) shows how you can laugh about your own decay. It’s going to be funny. All the new stories in good company with the feisty hits.

Die Feisten

When the feisty ones do what they love best, lots of new songs tumble out of their songwriting machine: one for the forced, involuntary concert guests who would actually rather be at the football or a heavy metal gig. Another about the humanly best-before date: »Mein Körper und ich« shows how you can laugh at your own decline. It’s going to be funny. All the new stories in good company with the feisty hits.

Schmidt "Das Buch mit sieben Siegeln" with Fabio Luisi

Schmidt "Das Buch mit sieben Siegeln" with Fabio Luisi

Wagner: Die Walküre

Richard Wagner’s opera »Die Walküre« is a passionate exploration of big themes such as love and betrayal, loyalty and rebellion. The god Wotan wanted to rule through contracts rather than violence but, as a result of broken promises, becomes increasingly entangled in problems until blood begins to flow. Finding no solutions, Wotan finally cries: »One thing alone do I want: the end!« But his daughter Brünnhilde thwarts his plans… At the Hamburg International Music Festival, there is an opportunity to experience the opera in historical original sound for the first time under conductor Kent Nagano. At the festival, Kent Nagano is not conducting »his« orchestra, the Hamburg State Opera, but rather the Dresdner Festspielorchester, Concerto Köln and a top-class cast of soloists, who explore the playing and singing techniques of the 19th century. »More intimate tone colours, a more multi-layered and transparent sound, freed from the ballast of the centuries,« say the performers about the project, which seems to have been tailor-made for the transparent acoustics of the Elbphilharmonie Grand Hall. One of Wagner’s most famous pieces, the »Ride of the Valkyries« – famously used by director Francis Ford Coppola as background music to a helicopter attack in the anti-war film »Apocalypse Now« – thus sounds altogether different.

Novoflot: Die Harmonielehre

The Berlin opera company Novoflot's grand finale takes place at the Cologne Philharmonic. They, along with over 220 Cologne musicians, present Arnold Schönberg's music in a gala setting. After the gala, Novoflot presents "Desert Music," an open music theater installation featuring possible epilogues for Schönberg's unfinished opera "Moses und Aron."

Joseph Haydn: Die Schöpfung

Haydn had been deeply impressed by the spectacular performances of Handel oratorios when he travelled to England in 1791. Such choirs did not exist in the Italian tradition, to which the Viennese oratorios were also rooted. Why shouldn’t he try something of this kind himself? So he brought back a libretto from England, which had probably first been presented to George Frideric Handel: John Milton’s (1608-1674) epic poem »Paradise Lost«.