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Sandra presents the results of her research on the melting polar ice caps in the form of stand-up comedy and hopes in this way to sensitize people to the alarming situation of our planet. While on the one hand applauded for her efforts, she is also constantly confronted with skeptical questions. Her warnings go unheard even in her own family, as is true of the mythical figure Cassandra who predicts the destruction of Troy in flames. The God Apollo grants her visionary powers, but because she refuses to give into his attempts to seduce her, he ensures that no one believes her prophecies.

A three-part ballet evening with music by three composers who counted among the avant-garde artists of their day: Hector Berlioz, Claude Debussy und Igor Stravinsky. From Roméo et Juliette, the unexpectedly successful "Symphonie dramatique" that Berlioz completed in 1839, Sasha Waltz has choreographed the major love scene between the protagonists, which features delicate sound and multifarious orchestration. Debussy is represented with his Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, about which Pierre Boulez said, "the flute of the faun brought new breath to the art of music"

Violetta Valéry is a noble courtesan in Paris who has "strayed from the path of virtue" and leads a life that oscillates between splendour and misery. For her everything is a game – even love – until Alfredo Germont awakens true feelings in her. But this rare happiness only lasts fleetingly for Violetta, who suffers from tuberculosis, and who is first publicly humiliated before passing away.

In the early 1930s, for Richard Strauss — approaching 70 — it was an auspicious moment when Stefan Zweig, a renowned author known for his artful, profound novels and plays, proposed writing a new libretto. In a mutually inspiring collaboration, they created a truly “comic opera” based on a play by Ben Jonson from the Shakespeare period filled not only with striking characters, tempo, and wit, but profound reflection as well. “The opera is a perfect, but perhaps for the twenty-first century,” according to Strauss himself, who in a difficult, dark time created a work of creative compositional virtuosity and a relaxed sense of humor, a story of people longing for rest or who lose themselves in busyness. This will be director Jan Philipp Gloger’s debut and it will be Christian Thielemann’s first new production as general music director, a position once held by Strauss himself.