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The Austrian music band Franui sees itself as a "transformer station between classical and folk music, jazz and contemporary chamber music". In order to release that resulting energy in Stuttgart, Franui has taken on the greatest hits of the so-called "silver operetta" – those works whose composers were driven out of Germany by the National Socialists (Nazis). Experiences of exile and loss, dreams and hopes connect the fates of composers like Paul Abraham with the characters in Joseph Roth's novel Hotel Savoy. Displaced persons without hope or money, soldiers, evil profiteers, real and fake artists and prostitutes have taken up residence in the hotel and await the arrival of billionaire Bloomfield from America – as of the Messiah. But Bloomfield has something completely different in mind than saving the hotel or its illustrious guests ...

A coming of age story and a story of love: The Queen of the Night persuades Prince Tamino to rescue her daughter Pamina from captivity under the high priest Sarastro. Tamino, who instantly falls in love with Pamina, is ready to set off. Involuntarily, bird catcher Papageno is also sent along with Tamino - as companion to the prince. After various trials of initiation, courage and perseverance Tamino and Papageno not only find their station in life as adults, but also each the woman to their hearts' content: Tamino gains the hand of Pamina and Papageno lives happily ever after with his Papagena. We show the legendary Magic Flute of the Komische Oper Berlin, which director Barrie Kosky staged with the theater video art collective "1927" in an astonishing video animation world for the whole family.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky was certain that the secret to winning was surprisingly simple: “to control oneself every minute, regardless of the ups and downs of the game, and not to fall into passion.” Despite this knowledge, Dostoyevsky gambled away all his money and that of his lover at the roulette tables of German health resorts - gambling was forbidden elsewhere - which brought them both to the brink of destitution. Nevertheless, he capitalized on his experiences of loss: in 1866, he freed himself from an extortionate publishing contract with the novel The Gambler, which he wrote under great pressure. And on top of that, he delivered a study of his own (gambling) obsessions.

A man in the midst of a personal crisis in his life: Gustav von Aschenbach is very successful professionally, but a vague sense of yearning drives him to search for something new and mysterious – he therefore decides to travel to Venice. In 1973 and based on a libretto by Myfanwy Piper, Benjamin Britten set to music author Thomas Mann‘s famous novella. Piper’s work has masterfully translated the storyline into theatrical images, and with his opera, the British composer surprised with a many-colored and exotic sounding work.

A man in the midst of a personal crisis in his life: Gustav von Aschenbach is very successful professionally, but a vague sense of yearning drives him to search for something new and mysterious – he therefore decides to travel to Venice. In 1973 and based on a libretto by Myfanwy Piper, Benjamin Britten set to music author Thomas Mann‘s famous novella. Piper’s work has masterfully translated the storyline into theatrical images, and with his opera, the British composer surprised with a many-colored and exotic sounding work.

No other version of the popular story where a mermaid falls in love with a human man and has to give up her form and herself for the love she craves, tells so beautifully of the two parallel worlds as Antonín Dvořák's opera Rusalka. And no one knows this world so well as the dazzling drag performers with whom director Bastian Kraft doubles Dvořák's forest and water creatures. They are experts in transformation and beautiful appearances in the spotlight. Through lip-synching, the drag performers make the fairy tale of mermaid and prince their own. Alongside a top-class ensemble of singers, they are on a quest for a life in which who we love and who we are no longer determines whose existence takes place in the light and whose is forced to take place in the dark.

Who has not heard of the robber Hotzenplotz? He first steals grandmother's new coffee grinder which plays such beautiful music whilst grinding. Then Hotzenplotz lures Seppel and Kasperl into a trap taking them both prisoners. What’s more, the villain then sells poor Kasperl to the great and evil magician Petrosilius Zwackelmann – or is it Seppel he is selling? It does not matter. In any case, it takes a fair amount of courage, magic and the combined help by the audience to rescue the two friends. Composer Sebastian Schwab has newly composed Otfried Preußler's enchanting story as a Singspiel for the ensemble of the Staatsoper Stuttgart in time for Preußler’s 100th birthday - with coffee mill and, of course, 7 knives.

Dora is in her mid-twenties and stuck in the sheltered surroundings of her family. Though she still has her whole life ahead of her, she suspects that the future has only the same old worn and well-known ideas to offer than before. Dora, the 21st century’s new heroine of opera, meets her present with total rejection and finds herself in aimless search for something different. Bernhard Lang's rhythm-driven music becomes Dora’s accomplice. In his opera about a longing for something radically new, Lang and librettist Frank Witzel playfully mix varying sounds from different musical epochs whilst laying tracks to centuries old characters, myths and stories.

The survival of the Holy Grail’s community is threatened by King Amfortas‘ wound which he received by the magician Klingsor. The only hope that the men have left now is the arrival of a so-called »innocent fool«, who has to become »knowledgeable by empathy«. Parsifal is the chosen one, but is unaware of his appointment as the redeemer of their plight. The seeress Kundry takes it upon her to show him his destiny.

In 1930 Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht created a new type of grand opera, radical in both, entertainment as well as criticism. With the wit of an epic theater and the musical esprit of old and worn bar songs mixed with music of the avant-garde, Weill and Brecht built the fable of a city in paradise that finally perishes from its own utopias: in the end there is only one mortal sin left – the sin of insolvency. Together with a young ensemble, director Ulrike Schwab explores the one question: Who would still dare to dream of a better future today.