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The Merry Widow is Hanna Glawari. She has inherited a lot and can now live it up and make the salons of the Parisian upper class unsafe. If only it weren't for all her admirers who have their eyes on her fortune! Because now she sees the chance to marry her childhood sweetheart Danilo - but he of all people doesn't want to get the reputation of marrying out of greed.

Fifteen years after the end of the Second World War, the German diplomat Walter and his wife Lisa travel by ship from Europe to Brazil, where he is to take up a new position. Everything seems peaceful until Lisa unexpectedly notices a passenger on board who reminds her of Marta, a prisoner in the Auschwitz concentration camp, where she worked as a guard. Lisa never told her husband anything about this past, and repressed it as best she could. But now images of her own involvement and guilt break out; the sea voyage leads inexorably into her own abysses.

She is a woman whose excessive desires lead to her own extinction: The Theban princess Semele is to marry Prince Athamas at her father's request, but falls in love with the god Jupiter, who appears to her in human form. On her wedding day, Semele therefore willingly allows herself to be abducted into his realm. The love-struck Jupiter swears to his new lover that he will grant her every wish. His jealous wife Juno uses this promise for a devious intrigue: In the guise of Semele's sister Ino, she convinces Semele that she can achieve immortality if she sees Jupiter in his true, divine form. In this way, she tells Semele that she wants Jupiter, without revealing to her that the sight of a god is unbearable for a human being. Semele will burn in the face of the real Jupiter.

The Philharmonic Orchestra of the Hanseatic City of Lübeck welcomes the New Year with sounds and rhythms from America and Europe. Stefan Vladar conducts and plays George Gershwin's rousing "Rhapsody in Blue" as a soloist. Waltz sounds traditionally come from the metropolis of Vienna, but with "La Valse" by Maurice Ravel, they also come from Paris - extremely intoxicating and delicate...

The Lübeck Philharmonic Society is celebrating its 20th anniversary with a special concert in collaboration with the Lübeck Theater and the Lübeck University Orchestra. The program includes works by composers who have received and continue to receive less attention than they deserve due to their origin, gender or skin color. This concert, led by a renowned conductor, thus positions itself artistically for diversity and against discrimination and unequal treatment in the music world.

One of the most impressive works by the French composer Olivier Messiaen was written in 1940/41, while he was a prisoner of war in a labor camp near Görlitz: "Quatuor pour la fin du Temps" (Quartet for the End of Time) - a musical meditation on the Apocalypse of John in eight movements. The instrumentation was based on the forces and instruments available in the camp: a clarinet, a violin, a cello and a broken piano played by Messiaen himself. The premiere took place in January 1941 in the camp's theater barracks.

Nothing is more improbable than the love between Tristan and Isolde: In a fight, Tristan murders her fiancé, then lets her heal his own wounds without being recognized. Tristan soon returns to Isolde and asks for her hand in marriage: not for himself, but in the name of King Marke. But something seems to be smoldering between the two, irreconcilable, on the border between love and hate. When Isolde plans to kill herself and Tristan, Isolde's servant Brangäne exchanges the poison for a love potion - the moment of impending death becomes the birth of a love that transcends everything.

No composer has ever captured the typical scenery of the seasons in music more inventively than Antonio Vivaldi in 1725 with his cycle "Le quattro stagioni", consisting of four violin concertos: from the soundscape of nature, the birdsong and the rumble of thunder, to seasonal pleasures such as ice skating or wine festivals, to the extreme temperatures of summer and winter, whose effect on people Vivaldi describes in drastic sounds.

Charlotte is not a sheep like you would expect from a book, because normal sheep prefer to stand together and are not at all brave. But Charlotte swims in the torrent, climbs trees and is not even afraid of the wild cat. And when one day two sheep disappear, Charlotte bravely sets out on a dangerous search. The orchestra accompanies Charlotte on her great adventure. Listen to a concert to give you courage.