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With his symphonic poems, Franz Liszt founded a new, pioneering genre of orchestral music around the middle of the 19th century. Over the next few years, Christian Thielemann and the Staatskapelle Berlin will be exploring this musical cosmos, which is itself highly innovative and still seems extremely bold today. They will begin with performances of the famous Bergsinfonie, for which the literary-minded Liszt was inspired by a poem by Victor Hugo, and of Tasso, lamento e trionfo, a musical reflection on the legendary Renaissance poet who took shape through Goethe and Byron. In addition, a second cycle begins - the performance of the complete orchestral songs by Richard Strauss, which illuminates a special facet of this composer of the century, also a cross-seasonal project.

With his symphonic poems, Franz Liszt founded a new, pioneering genre of orchestral music around the middle of the 19th century. Over the next few years, Christian Thielemann and the Staatskapelle Berlin will be exploring this musical cosmos, which is itself highly innovative and still seems extremely bold today. They will begin with performances of the famous Bergsinfonie, for which the literary-minded Liszt was inspired by a poem by Victor Hugo, and of Tasso, lamento e trionfo, a musical reflection on the legendary Renaissance poet who took shape through Goethe and Byron. In addition, a second cycle begins - the performance of the complete orchestral songs by Richard Strauss, which illuminates a special facet of this composer of the century, also a cross-seasonal project.

Johann Sebastian Bach was not only a scholarly composer, but also a popular one. In 1742, he wrote a "Cantate burlesque" in Leipzig, a roughly half-hour-long work later referred to as a peasant cantata . Its distinctive character is not only due to the Saxon dialect in which some sections are written, but also due to the inclusion of dance forms and folk song melodies.

For more than six decades, the chamber concerts by musicians from the Staatskapelle have been a constant feature of the Staatsoper programme. This season, ensembles have come together to select music from different periods, styles and cultures under the theme of ‘playing together’. On eleven dates in the Apollosaal, which with its special atmosphere is an ideal venue for chamber music and communicative interaction between players and listeners, works from the Baroque to the present day will be performed in constellations that are both exciting and harmonious, in which tangible contrasts play just as important a role as a common resonance and the balancing of opposites.