Stage Director

There are few operas, which from the very first bar endure such intense pressure, few in which the temperature swings from ice-cold calculation to overheating in mere seconds. And scarcely any in which private entanglement and personal tragedy are so interwoven with political attitudes in historical accuracy. Giacomo Puccini’s Tosca has electrified audiences since its world premiere. The shock wave emitted by the opera was so strong that decades later many reactions still tend to point to the bewilderment and overpowering of those affected rather than the qualities of the piece itself and its love triangle surrounding the singer Floria Tosca, the painter Mario Cavaradossi and the chief of police Baron Scarpia. The artistic world of the protagonist couple, Tosca and Cavaradossi, is no colouristic ingredient here, but rather defines the profile of its characters – it justifies Tosca’s eccentricity, just as it does Cavaradossi’s liberality and also explains the singer’s pronounced self-confidence: The heroine of the stage becomes a heroine in real life. Scarpia’s appearance must also be understood as the emergence of his unleashed totalitarian power, and his sexual sadism still today as one of the truly scandalous moments of opera literature. The historical detail is certainly no staffage, but rather forms the, “precondition of the conflict between the representatives of two opposing social systems” (Norbert Christen) in a time of crisis. With his mish-mash of musical recognition motifs, which, with the exception of the rigid Scarpia chords, sensitively adjust to the situations, Puccini achieves a new dimension of through-composed operatic structure – in the intensive cohesion of the score, he nevertheless creates islands in which reflection compacts itself into moments of the highest possible arioso intensity.

TOSCA

Max-Joseph-Platz

Cardillac cannot part with his art. The jeweler must kill anyone who buys jewelry from him. E.T.A. Hoffmann’s novella «Das Fräulein von Scuderi», one of the first German detective stories, served as source material for Paul Hindemith. His 1926 opera is a milestone in the development of music theater. A century years after its premiere, theater and filmmaker Kornél Mundruczó stages this thriller about obsessions, control, and self-alienation. 

Cardillac

Zurich Opera House

For Elina Makropoulos, this dream becomes reality in an involuntary and paradoxical experience. Long ago, her alchemist father tested an elixir of life on her. Since then, she has traveled throughout Europe, constantly changing her identity and her lover. Now 337 years old, an opera singer known as Emilia Marty, she finds herself embroiled in an inheritance dispute. While her beauty and undiminished voice still captivate, her sole objective is to rediscover the formula for the elixir, whose effects are threatening to fade. But is eternal life truly an enviable destiny?

The Makropoulos Affair

Lille Opera

»When it’s out of necessity, anything is permissible, he says. Maybe you’re right, she says.« The place: Bergen, Norway. It’s cold. It’s raining. Asle and the heavily pregnant Alida wander around the coastal city. The young couple are turned away wherever they go. The likes of them are not welcome here. Each pause masks a further drift into a surreal psychological haze. Driven by desperation, they break into a stranger’s house. A series of mysterious encounters in which the past comes to life proves to be a disastrous race against time.

EPSG:4326

Sleepless

Staatsoper Unter den Linden

The story of Káťa Kabanova might seem simple at first glance. A young woman living in an unhappy marriage and suffering abuse from her mother-in-law gets involved in an affair. Hounded by her guilty conscience, she eventually confesses her betrayal to her husband and commits suicide. Although factually accurate, this brief synopsis does not convey the opera's psychological complexity.

Káťa Kabanová

Teatr Wielki - Polish National Opera

The biblical episode is well known: during a banquet, Princess Salome dances for Herod and he promises her anything in return; the young woman asks for and obtains the head of John the Baptist. In 1891, Oscar Wilde turned the story into a drama, enriched with new elements, which enjoyed great success in Germany and consolidated the image of Salome as a combination of innocence and perversion. Richard Strauss, in search of a subject for a new opera, did not let it slip away and set Wilde’s text (translated into German) to music as it stood, with only minor changes.

Salome

Teatro Regio di Torino

Few figures in world literature embody so many tragic contradictions: Otello is both perpetrator and victim, hunter and prey – the bloodthirsty murderer of his beloved Desdemona, yet also at the mercy of the demonic manipulation of his secret adversary, Iago. Verdi’s operatic version further intensifies the gruesome outcome, as the scheming villain escapes. Kornél Mundruczó makes his debut at Deutsche Oper Berlin with this new production of Otello. His meteoric career in the film industry has garnered him awards at the Cannes and Venice Film Festivals and success on Netflix. Since Aviel Cahn discovered him for musical theatre with Herzog Blaubart/Winterreise in 2013, the internationally acclaimed director has increasingly turned his attention to opera. His psychedelic imagery and exceptional integration of film lend new impetus to the genre and are ideally suited to bringing us closer to the delusional inner world of the character Otello: Mundruczó leads us directly into the protagonist’s psychological abyss. When Verdi began his second Shakespearean setting, he had not dedicated himself to a major new composition for over ten years. The collaboration with Arrigo Boito resulted in a work that occupies a special place in Verdi’s oeuvre. The orchestra gains importance for characterisation and atmospheric development, becoming a fundamental driving force of the action. On the podium is Stefano Montanari, a specialist in early Italian opera; he demonstrated his sensitivity to Verdi’s late works with a fresh approach in a celebrated Otello at the Stuttgart State Opera. With the role of Otello, which demands everything from heroic radiance to lyrical tenderness and even violent outbursts beyond mere beauty of sound, Verdi shattered the conventions of traditional vocal categories. Najmiddin Mavlyanov, in demand worldwide for dramatic tenor roles in the Italian and Russian repertoire, brings all of this to the role. Alongside him, Ruzan Mantashyan makes her debut as Desdemona. Luca Micheletti is playing Iago for the first time outside his native Italy.

Stage Director

Kornél Mundruczó

Events

Upcoming events

17 - 30 Jan, 2027

Káťa Kabanová · Polish National Opera

6 - 17 Apr, 2027

Salome · Teatro Regio Torino

Apr 16 - May 2, 2027

Otello · Deutsche Oper Berlin

Past events

6 - 12 Apr, 2026

TOSCA · Bayerische Staatsoper

Feb 15 - Mar 10, 2026

Cardillac · Opernhaus Zürich

About

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