Director

«I saw Wozzeck on stage, before the war, and made such an incredible impression that I decided to set it to music immediately». So wrote Alban Berg to his friend and colleague Anton Webern in 1918, at a time when his name was only known in the small circle of Schoenberg's pupils. International fame and affirmation would arrive a few years later and precisely thanks to Wozzeck, an opera inspired by Georg Büchner's novel of the same name, which would soon become a symbolic work of the early 20th century as well as an emblem of expressionist theatre. In Büchner's text, Alban Berg had in fact identified themes particularly dear to expressionist poetics such as nightmare, mental alienation and brutal murder. The opera in three acts and fifteen scenes premiered at the Berlin Staatsoper on 14 December 1925 to great acclaim. Berg conceived the opera as a system of closed forms where each scene of each act refers to a formal structure of the Western instrumental tradition such as the suite, the rhapsody, the march, the passacaglia, to name but a few, revised through a livid and anguished orchestral writing. On the vocal side, the almost spoken chant in Wozzeck's Sprechgesang stands out, renouncing all melodic artifice to emphasise the protagonist's sorrowful humanity.

Wozzeck

Maggio Musicale Fiorentino Theatre

Tchaikovsky's many moods – tender, grand, melancholic – are given free rein in Eugene Onegin . The opera is based on Pushkin's iconic verse novel. In a similar way, Tchaikovsky took Western European opera traditions and transformed them into an authentic and indisputably Russian work.

At the center of the opera is the young Tatyana, who develops from a sentimental teenager to a perfect woman in one of the most compelling character developments in opera history. Eugene Onegin had its world premiere at the Maly Theatre in Moscow in 1879, with students from the Moscow Conservatory. In 1881, it had its professional premiere at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow.

Opera (live) at the cinema: Eugene Onegin

Umeå Folkets Hus

Internationally acclaimed theatre and opera director Deborah Warner created a musical show based on Franz Schubert’s famous lieder cycle Winterreise (Winter Journey). The Wanderer is embodied by two iconic artists and lied aficionados, tenor Ian Bostridge and pianist Julius Drake, performing these 24 quintessential melodies of German Romanticism. This poignant piece steeped in nostalgia revolves around wandering, loss, memories, and forced loneliness – a winter journey imbued with the desperate love of a heart still burning.

Director

Deborah Warner

Events

Upcoming events

23 - 27 Mar, 2027

Winterreise · Opéra National De Lyon

Past events

Sep 27 - Oct 3, 2026

Wozzeck · Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino

May 2, 2026

Opera (live) at the cinema: Eugene Onegin · Umeå Folkets Hus

About

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