Share

Hollywood in the 1920s. A new, exotic and opulent film is being produced in the dream factory. The subject: La Bayadère - the story of the beautiful temple dancer, which was celebrated at its premiere in St. Petersburg in 1877, is to find its way onto the cinema screens of the world. Everyone is working with great enthusiasm to ensure the success of the project, which is believed to be certain. The aim is to help the tragically beautiful story, set in ancient India, achieve international brilliance in the cinemas of the 1920s.

Accompanied by a slowly swelling E-flat major chord, in the prelude to Das Rheingold a mythical cosmos rises from the depths of the Rhine, from whose waves a world populated by gods, giants and dwarves arises: Cursing love, the Nibelung Alberich procures the legendary gold of the Rhine maidens in order to forge a ring from it that gives its owner limitless power. When Wotan and Loge cunningly steal the valuable piece from him, Alberich places a curse on the ring, the fateful consequences of which ignite the further events of Der Ring des Nibelungen ...

It is about a pair of siblings who have lost each other and then find each other again. It is about incestuous love, adultery and affairs. It is about power and intrigue. But it is also about love, trust and the search for happiness. And it is about a ring that represents the future of the world. Richard Wagner's Die Walküre begins as a simple love triangle in which two people fall in love and a third suffers. But as the opera progresses, the deeper dimension of this entanglement becomes apparent and the perspective broadens beyond the purely human. It is nothing less than a part of the global epic The Ring of the Nibelung , which Richard Wagner created with Die Walküre .

The naive Siegfried grows up as an orphan with the loveless and greedy blacksmith Mime, with only the remains of a sword left by his unknown father. At some point, his curiosity about his own origins and identity becomes too great, and after fearlessly and naively reforging his father's wonderfully strong sword, he sets off. Mime had convinced him that he must learn to fear in order to survive in the world - preferably from the dragon worm Fafner, who lives in a forest cave on a valuable treasure, including the powerful, eponymous ring. But with his carefree nature, Siegfried masters the episode effortlessly and wins the treasure. What's more: after he accidentally comes across the dragon's blood, he can suddenly understand the language of animals! This is how he comes to a rock surrounded by fire, where he finds a sleeping woman, Brünnhilde, who can only be awakened by the most fearless and free hero. For the first time, Siegfried feels fear – but it quickly turns into love!

Mara and Tara have just become friends when someone new appears: Kirsa. But the boy behaves differently than all the other children the two girls know. Because Mara and Tara don't like his behavior, they don't want to have anything to do with Kirsa. When Kirsa notices this, he withdraws into himself. But Mara can't stop thinking about the encounter with him. She has become curious and wants to find out more about this new and yet so interesting boy.

After Siegfried and Brünnhilde have happily found each other, the hero sets out on "new deeds". Brünnhilde, who remains behind, receives the Ring of the Nibelung as a token of love from her lover. But Hagen, a descendant of the Gibichung family, also wants to get his hands on the cursed ring that his father Alberich once forged. Siegfried's naivety plays into his hands: he cunningly gives Siegfried a potion that makes him forget everything, causing him to lose all his memories of Brünnhilde. In this state, he cruelly abuses his former wife, who then seeks revenge. Hagen is prepared to murder Siegfried in order to finally get his hands on the ring...

Everyone is familiar with the phenomenon of something seeming as if it had just happened and at the same time happened half an eternity ago. We have only just experienced it and a decade - or more - has already passed between us and our fond memories. The moments that define our personality and have made us the people we are today often remain particularly vivid in our mind's eye.

Presenter and show star Götz Alsmann invites the Dortmund audience to a festive opera and operetta gala that focuses entirely on composers named Strauss: And there are, as we know, many of them in music history! The Strauss family, including father Johann (1804 - 1849) and his sons Johann (1825 - 1899), Josef (1827 - 1870) and Eduard (1835 - 1916), formed a veritable dynasty of composers. The best known of this group - famous as the "Waltz King" Johann Strauss (son) - will celebrate three anniversaries in the calendar years 2024 and 2025: the 125th anniversary of his death (June 3, 2024), his 200th birthday (October 25, 2025) and the 150th anniversary of the premiere of his probably most famous stage work Die Fledermaus (April 3, 2024), the "Queen of Operettas".

Germany is a welfare state whose citizens form a community of solidarity that looks after one another and takes responsibility. But what is care and welfare actually worth to us? - "Emergency" is the word of the hour that best describes the precarious situation in most care professions today. Too few staff in care facilities, hospitals and daycare centers, too high workloads and poor working conditions for people who care for others. And even those who privately care for the sick, the elderly or children quickly feel abandoned by society. Because high physical, emotional and financial burdens expose those affected to the immediate effects of this described "emergency" - often women, many of them with only a low income or a migrant background. This situation ultimately raises the question for everyone involved in our community of solidarity: "Who Cares?"