The story of Tristan and Isolde has fascinated across geography and generations since the Middle Ages. And of all the love couples in art, Tristan and Isolde are perhaps the most tragic. The story is simple: The knight Tristan is sent across the sea to fetch the princess Isolde, who is to marry the king against her will. On the journey home, they both accidentally drink a love potion. Forbidden love arises – the kind that moves mountains and eats them up from the inside. And now we follow Tristan and Isolde into the deadly power of stormy love.

Tristan & Isolde

Aarhus Theatre

Joseph Haydn is often called the “father of the symphony”, having composed more than 100 symphonies that are inventive, refined, and often laced with wit.

Minkowski, Mozart & Wagner

The Royal Playhouse and The Old Stage

'The Ring' stands as the undisputed giant of operatic literature. Wagner's great divine tale of the creation and destruction of the world takes four evenings to perform, but in composer Henk de Vlieger's arrangement, the glowing orchestral sounds are allowed to shine with undiminished dramatic power, even though the suite only lasts a little over an hour.

EPSG:4326

Hermus & Wagner

DR Koncerthuset

This evening, the Jewish Chamber Orchestra Munich, under the direction of Daniel Grossmann, blends Klezmer, Wagner, and contemporary sounds. Joining them are the charismatic actor Stefan Merki and the captivating singer Ethel Merhaut. 
A poor Jewish musician, barely scraping by with wedding performances, fulfills a dream: with his hard-earned savings, he treats himself to a visit to the Imperial Court Theatre in Vienna. By chance, he hears – without any prior knowledge – Wagner's Lohengrin. The opera transforms his life: back in his shtetl, he insists on playing only Wagner's melodies at Jewish celebrations, no longer the traditional tunes – which naturally leads to conflict.

Mendele Lohengrin

Das MuTh

At the beginning of one of the most famous sunrises in music history: radiant and majestic, maximum light intensity from zero to one hundred within seconds. Richard Strauss's Thus Spoke Zarathustra is a magnificent masterpiece whose splendor no one can escape.

Life puzzles

Cologne Philharmonie

The intensely moving prelude of Wagner’s Parsifal and ethereal beauty of Crafton Beck’s Passage set the stage for an extraordinary interwoven dialogue between Joel Thompson’s powerful and critically-acclaimed Seven Last Words of the Unarmed and Gabriel Faure’s serene and comforting Requiem. Jackson State University Chorale joins MSO in a program that will touch your soul and transform your spirit.

Bravo 3: Transcendent Voices

Thalia Mara Hall

In 2020, the National Opera in Warsaw celebrated the 55th anniversary of the reconstruction of its historic home on Teatralny Square. The ambitious project of raising the theatre from ruins was completed 20 years after the war, with the grand opening of the modernized Grand Theatre on November 19, 1965. Shortly thereafter, the Warsaw Opera ensemble, including its distinguished choir, moved in from its temporary home on Nowogrodzka Street.

Chorus Opera

Teatr Wielki - Polish National Opera

The Dutchman is a cursed man, an outsider, a driven individual. Richard Wagner came upon the character of the famous drifter via Heinrich Heine, who lent the Romantic material his typically ironic touch. Wagner’s interest was tweaked not by Heine’s packaging of the story, which relegated the Dutchman-based action to the margins, but by the tale of the enigmatic mariner, which led to him writing his first opera about the man’s quest for a woman who could offer him redemption. The Dutchman, restlessly plying the borderlands between life and death, encounters Senta, who appears equally ill-at-ease and rootless and yearns for a masculine character, the Dutchman, a figment of her imagination.

Der fliegende Holländer

Deutsche Oper Berlin

Elsa von Brabant is accused of murdering her brother. No one dares prove the young woman’s innocence in this mysterious case. Trapped in a reality that no one seems to share with her, a man enters her life promising to fight for her cause – on one condition: Elsa must trust him blindly and never ask him his name or birthplace.

Lohengrin

Bebelplatz

	
What better way to ring in the New Year than with an exciting program featuring all your favorites from the world of opera performed by members of The Santa Fe Symphony and Chorus. Enjoy overtures and melodies from Mozart, Rossini, Bizet and Leoncavallo alongside dances, choruses and other works from Verdi, Borodin, and Wagner. 

operatic favorites

Lensic Performing Arts Center

The Space Coast Symphony Orchestra’s commitment to artistic growth, new music, and the next generation of talent is on full display in this special program. In addition to Aaron Collins at the podium, the orchestra welcomes guest conductor Andrés Rivas, who will lead several works as part of Aaron’s ongoing effort to highlight and mentor emerging conductors—an initiative that reflects the SCSO’s belief in nurturing the future of the art form alongside celebrating its greatest traditions.

Audience Choice Concert

Holy Trinity Episcopal Academy - Upper School

Community Church of Vero Beach

The city itself is mythical: Venice, with its undulating shores, where the aging writer Gustav von Aschenbach abandons his previous life’s concept. In John Neumeier’s adaptation of the famous Thomas Mann novella, Aschenbach becomes a master choreographer who finds himself in the midst of a deep creative crisis.

Death in Venice 

Ballettzentrum Hamburg – John Neumeier

Senta's dreams are directed towards the sea: will the man who will free her from her restricted life at home come from there? It begins stormily; Wagner's first fully valid opera presents a grandiose, overwhelming vision of the elements already in the overture. The fate of the Flying Dutchman and the woman who is to redeem him takes place in the roar of the waves and the ocean. This "romantic opera" aims to transcend boundaries.

The Flying Dutchman

Hamburg State Opera

The Flying Dutchma

For its first concert of 2026, Cascade Symphony performs Beethoven’s iconic Fifth Symphony along with music by Richard Wagner, Leos Janacek and Edouard Lalo. Cellist Sunnat Ibragimov, an Uzbekistan native and current Seattle Symphony member, previously served as Principal Cellist of the prestigious Tanglewood Festival Orchestra. He has performed with major orchestras in Asia and North America and is pursuing doctoral studies at the renowned Peabody Institute. He joins Cascade Symphony to perform Edouard Lalo’s lyrically romantic cello concerto.

Beethoven’s Fifth

Edmonds Center For the Arts

One of today’s most lauded Wagnerian sopranos, Christine Goerke traverses stunning highlights of the composer’s operatic canon at this not-to-be missed concert. Tristan and Isolde delves into the mysteries of love and death as Isolde sings herself into rapturous oblivion. David Danzmayr also leads the Oregon Symphony in orchestral highlights from The Valkyrie and Twilight of the Gods. In the spine-tingling “Ride of the Valkyries,” the warrior maidens ride their flying steeds as they carry fallen heroes to Valhalla; and you’ll be enthralled by Siegfried’s heroic Rhine Journey and gripping Funeral March. Surrender to the drama and passion of Wagner’s music.

Wagner's Greatest Hits

Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall

Romanticism is the 19th century; it is the magic of nature and great emotion, it is the deaths of love and the bliss of redemption. But this era was also filled with the passionate energy of dances and lavish celebrations.

Epiphany Concert 2026: Salzburg Wind Philharmonic | "Music of the Romantic Period"

Great Festival House

During the Twelfth Night weekend, Norrlandsoperan" class="css-u850">Norrlandsoperan opens its doors for a glittering, high-class opera gala with carefully selected treats for opera connoisseurs and beginners alike. Swedish rising star Rebecka Wallroth makes her debut at Norrlandsoperan and as the male counterpart we hear the well-known tenor Per Lindström.

The evening begins in the good spirit of La Scala with Italian splendor. Rebecka Wallroth sets the tone with the famous Rossini aria “Una voce poco fa” from The Barber of Seville followed by the duet “Un soave non so che” from Cinderella by the same composer. This is followed by another soprano number from the bel canto repertoire, this time from Bellini’s opera I Capuleti ei Montecchi . The first set is rounded off in grand style by Per Lindström with Puccini’s beloved tenor arias “E lucevan le stelle” from Tosca and “Che gelida manina” from La Bohème.

Thirteenth Day Concert

Norrlandsoperan

Beethoven's piano sonatas are one of the absolute monuments, not only in piano literature, but in classical music as a whole. At the concert in Mogens Dahl Concert Hall, Fujita performs Beethoven's first piano sonata, where he still stands on the shoulders of Haydn and Mozart, but heralds what is to come.

Mao Fujita

Mogens Dahl Koncertsal

2025 December Concert

University of New Orleans

Nathalie Stutzmann conducts the overture to Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg , and Nikolai Lugansky is the soloist in Grieg's Piano Concerto in A minor .

Classical Hour Nathalie Stutzmann Nikolai Lugansky

Oslo Concert Hall

More than a decade passed from the time Wagner first took an interest in ‘Tristan and Isolde’ to its premiere. Celebrated as one of the finest in operatic history, it boasts a level of artistry that influenced the birth of modern music. This production features the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra in their first operatic performance in nearly a decade, led by Music Director and Chief Conductor Jaap van Zweden, known for his musical strength and gravitas. The production is directed by Stephan Märki, who has been expanding his Wagner repertoire by staging at Germany’s Staatstheater Cottbus in 2023 and at Switzerland’s Theater Bern during the 2015/16 season.​

Tristan and Isolde

Seoul Arts Center

Edvard Grieg and Pyotr Tchaikovsky met on New Year’s Day in 1888. They admired each other’s music and quickly became close friends. Nathalie Stutzmann conducts Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5, which he composed shortly after his meeting with Grieg, while Nikolai Lugansky is the soloist in Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A minor.

Nathalie Stutzmann Nikolai Lugansky

Welcome to Masterpieces #3 and to an evening where we delve into the symphony orchestra's fascinating universe of timbres, roles and dynamic characters. Here we will experience well-known and popular classical highlights, ranging from the most delicate notes to the most dramatic climaxes, from the effervescent to the heartbreaking – making the symphony orchestra pulsate as if it were a living organism. The program includes captivating ear-hangers by Mozart and Rossini, gripping descriptions of love by Mahler and Wagner, and folk musical intricacies by Grieg, Bartok and Tchaikovsky.

Masterpieces #3

The Conservatory Concert Hall

Haslev-Halls

Stenhus Gymnasium

Ringsted Kongrescenter

We are absolutely delighted to perform for you the world première of a new composition by Dominic McGonigal — ‘Sunset at Sea’. Dominic’s work has been described as having “great textures and a perfect sense of spacing and pacing” and his ‘Ave Maris Stella Takes Flight’ recently won the Palimpsest Competition at Canterbury Cathedral.

After training as a chorister, Dominic read music at King’s College, Cambridge where he sang bass in King’s Chapel Choir. He found his voice as a composer with his 'Missa Et Incarnatus Est', a large work for 8-part choir, soloists and small orchestra. These days he combines a career in the music business with performing and conducting, including appointments as musical director of COMA Voices, Stoneleigh Choral Society, the Church of St Anselm & St Cecilia in Holborn, Opera Spezzata, EJMS Big Band and St Giles Consort …. and as for this piece, you’ll just have to come and hear it for yourself.

Where the Water Flows...

All Saints Ecclesall

Marie-Sophie Janke won the Zukunftsstimmen competition , hosted by Elīna Garanča, who has served as her coach ever since. The mezzo-soprano has been a member of the ensemble at the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe since 2025.

Beyond Talent

Musikverein Wien

In 1948, Richard Strauss sensed the end was nigh. Germany lay in ruins, its major opera houses destroyed by war. As his attempts to ignite a cultural rebirth in his homeland proved futile, Strauss turned to music. His final goodbye was a series of four iconic orchestral songs that, in the words of David Bowie, ‘ache with love for a life quietly fading.’ Lucy Crowe joins the Orchestra for a performance of Strauss’s profoundly moving musical epitaph alongside the Orchestra’s Solo Oboe Gordon Hunt performing Strauss’s tender Oboe Concerto written just a few years earlier.

Four Last Songs

University of Oxford

"In the orchestra – that is where the essence lies, that is the text beneath the text, that is the universal subconscious that connects the Wagnerian characters to one another and links them to the proto-ego of the legend" – this is how conductor Lorin Maazel quotes director Wieland Wagner, with whom he had a long-standing collaboration and whose theory of the Wagner orchestra as the "source" of his musical theater ultimately inspired him to his adaptation of the mighty "Ring," a compilation of the most important instrumental passages from the four operas of the Ring Cycle.

Richard Wagner - The Ring without Words

Bochumer Symphoniker

‘In the evening twilight we went today to the palace were Queen Mary lived and loved’ wrote Felix Mendelssohn from Edinburgh in 1829, after visiting the ruins of Holyrood. ‘I think I have found there the beginning of my ‘Scottish’ Symphony.’ Though much has changed in 196 years, there’s still no more melodious – or poetic – musical portrait of Scotland as seen through the eyes of one of music’s supreme Romantics. Conductor Antony Hermus brings a fresh perspective to Mendelssohn’s highland fling, setting it against the sea spray and howling gales of Wagner’s great musical seascape, and joining the wonderful British contralto Jess Dandy in Elgar’s Sea Pictures – five songs filled with surging waves and surprisingly dark passions. Thought you knew Elgar? Think again…

Mendelssohn, Elgar and Wagner

Cadogan Hall 

“In the evening twilight we went today to the palace were Queen Mary lived and loved,” wrote Felix Mendelssohn from Edinburgh in 1829, after visiting the ruins of Holyrood. “I think I have found there the beginning of my ‘Scottish’ Symphony.” Though much has changed in 196 years, there’s still no more melodious – or poetic – musical portrait of Scotland as seen through the eyes of one of music’s supreme Romantics.

Conductor Antony Hermus brings a fresh perspective to Mendelssohn’s highland fling, setting it against the sea spray and howling gales of Wagner’s great musical seascape, and joining the wonderful British contralto Jess Dandy in Elgar’s Sea Pictures – five songs filled with surging waves and surprisingly dark passions. Thought you knew Elgar? Think again…

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

The 5,500 pipes of The Bridgewater Hall organ sing as Associate Artist Jonathan Scott performs a programme of some of the greatest music from the world of opera.

Jonathan Scott: The Organ at the Opera

The Bridgewater Hall

Discover the OSM soloists in a unique concert featuring Principal Viola Victor Fournelle-Blain and Concertmaster Andrew Wan, who will perform and lead the orchestra. For his wife’s birthday, Wagner composed a heartfelt tribute to love, a piece brimming with warmth and tenderness. These sentiments also resonate in the Andante of Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante. Don’t miss the opportunity to see these two exceptional OSM musicians shine on stage!

Carte Blanche to Andrew Wan

Place des Arts

This season, the hr-Symphony Orchestra, together with Norwegian conductor Tabita Berglund and renowned German cellist Julian Steckel, presents a program rich in myth and utterly captivating in Fulda. Myths fascinate people because they transcend us. This is true of the music Richard Wagner created for Tristan and Isolde, as well as the music with which Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir captures the idea of ​​a "primal energy" in sound. Jean Sibelius, the great symphonist of the North, proved with his Seventh Symphony that one can express the ultimate in just 20 minutes. His last symphony is like an essence, pure and intense. Dmitri Shostakovich contributes his Cello Concerto No. 1, a work full of masks, facades, and ambiguities—both whimsical and serious.

Concerts at Fulda Castle Theatre

Fulda City Palace Theatre

Composed when he was just 18, Mozart’s Symphony No.29 is a musical gem that sparkles with elegance and vitality. Tchaikovsky pays tribute to Mozart in his Variations on a Rococo Theme, and its grace and dashing virtuosity will be brought to life by Li-Wei Qin. To conclude our MACA Symphonic  Series, Asher Fisch leads the Orchestra through highlights from Wagner’s ground-breaking operas, showcasing WASO’s full grandeur and power.

Li-Wei Qin Plays Tchaikovsky

The University of Western Australia

November 2025 Concert

Comsewogue High School

Myths fascinate people because they transcend us. This is also true of the music Wagner created for "Tristan und Isolde," which sounds incredibly grand. Equally impressive is the music with which Anna Thorvaldsdottir captures the idea of ​​a "primal energy" in sound. These are sounds of singular tension and power. But one myth needs to be dispelled: that symphonies must be long to be significant. Sibelius, the great symphonist of the North, proved with his "Seventh" that the ultimate can be expressed in barely 20 minutes. His last symphony is like an essence, pure and intense, getting straight to the point without any embellishment. For all its significance, grandeur, and depth, this program also offers Shostakovich's Cello Concerto No. 1: a work full of masks, facades, and ambiguities, whimsical yet also serious. The contrasts could hardly be sharper between broad Moderato and frantic Allegretto, between light and dark, machine-like music and grace. Alongside this, one hears and sees a soloist who is almost comically busy – Julian Steckel takes on this hyperactive role, a cellist who says of himself: "I can play Shostakovich at 3 a.m." On the podium of the hr Symphony Orchestra is the Norwegian Tabita Berglund, also a trained cellist, who for some years now has concentrated on conducting – particularly on music from the Nordic regions, on these special powerhouses that transcend the ordinary.

Archora

Hessischer Rundfunk

Tchaikovsky pays tribute to Mozart in his Variations on a Rococo Theme and its elegance, grace and dashing virtuosity will be brought to life by Li-Wei Qin. To conclude our Matinee Symphony Series, Asher Fisch leads the Orchestra through highlights from Wagner’s ground-breaking operas, showcasing WASO’s full grandeur and power at Winthrop Hall.

Li-Wei Qin Plays Tchaikovsky - Matinee

The November darkness may be thick, but we get to enjoy a dazzling opera gala with world-renowned tenor Jonas Kaufmann. This unique, generous evening offers familiar opera favourites, together with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra and conductor Jochen Rieder.

Opera Gala with Jonas Kaufmann

Göteborgs Symfoniker

Ettinger Grigorian

San Carlo Theatre

Miami Symphony Orchestra opens its 2025-26 season at the Knight Concert Hall November 16 with a powerful evening of symphonic beauty and emotional depth. Under the direction of Maestro Eduardo Marturet and featuring cellist Anna Litvinenko, this Grand Season Opening sets the tone for a year of unforgettable musical experiences.

Miami Symphony Orchestra: Grand Season Opening

Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts

The Miami Symphony Orchestra opens its 2025–2026 Season at the Knight Concert Hall on November 16 with a powerful evening of symphonic beauty and emotional depth. Under the direction of Maestro Eduardo Marturet and featuring cellist Anna Litvinenko, this Grand Season Opening sets the tone for a year of unforgettable musical experiences.

Grand Season Opening

Wagner’s Ring Cycle is one of the great achievements in Western art. And at its beating heart – packed with passion, violence, rage, betrayal and tragedy – sits the vast and sprawling legend of Siegfried.

Simone Young conducts Siegfried

Sydney Opera House

Between the most mysteriously sensual pages of Wagner and Scriabin, Yuja Wang takes to the keyboard to perform Prokofiev's awesome Concerto No.2 with his usual brio.

Orchestre de Paris / Esa-Pekka Salonen

Philharmonie de Paris

Teodor Currentzis is a charismatic, eccentric, and downright notorious for his interpretations, which reveal entirely new facets of music in terms of tempo and dynamics. Now the audience favorite returns to the Elbphilharmonie with his top-class international orchestra. They bring with them the "Ring Without Words," a kind of best-of of the most beautiful passages from Wagner's opera tetralogy "The Ring of the Nibelung" – entirely without singing.

Utopia / Teodor Currentzis

Elbphilharmonie Hamburg

Get ready for a grand tour of Europe with beloved travel expert Rick Steves as your guide. Rick Steves’ Symphonic Europe is a one-of-a-kind concert event that combines breathtaking symphonic music with stunning video from Rick’s acclaimed PBS travel series—projected above the orchestra in high-definition and synchronized live with the music.

From the noble beauty of Elgar and the rhapsodic sweep of Smetana’s The Moldau to the joyful grandeur of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy and the iconic charm of Strauss’s Emperor Waltz, each piece in this globe-trotting program evokes a different place, tradition, or cultural landmark. Rick Steves appears on screen throughout the concert, sharing personal insights and stories that deepen the audience’s connection to each work and destination.

Rick Steves’ Symphonic Europe

Ford Community & Performing Arts Center

Strauss, who conducted the Philharmonia himself in its early days, wrote to soprano Kirsten Flagstad that the piece ‘should be at your disposal for a world premiere … with a first-class conductor and orchestra’. And it was with the Philharmonia that she gave that first performance in 1950.

Wagner, Strauss & Tchaikovsky: Last Songs

Southbank Centre

Wagner's endlessly unresolved harmonies in Tristan and Isolde influenced composers for decades but it’s the emotional charge they convey that hits home.

Philharmonia Orchestra

The Anvil

Richard Wagner referred to TRISTAN AND ISOLDE as a “storyline in three acts”, signalling a radical break with his previous large-scale romantic operas LOHENGRIN and TANNHÄUSER. The description was also Wagner’s way of serving notice that in his seventh work for the stage he would no longer be serving up grandiose crowd scenes à la grand opéra but rather that he had developed a musical language to express the inner motivation of his characters. This irresolvable knot of the conscious and sub-conscious, which determines the fate of the lovers, is the real theme of TRISTAN AND ISOLDE, its “storyline” being a path whose route is determined by the opposing poles of Eros and Thanatos. Revealing the psychology of protagonists against a minimalist backdrop is also characteristic of the work of Berlin director Michael Thalheimer. His acclaimed production of TRISTAN AND ISOLDE was born of a collaboration with the Grand Théâtre de Genève, where it was performed in September 2024.

Adam Schoenberg’s percussion concerto, Losing Earth, is a thrilling new concerto featuring an amassed number of percussion instruments and featuring our own Terry Longshore as the protagonist. It’s thrilling moments and lyrical moments will dazzle and sustain you. The concerto has an extramusical focus on our terrestrial sphere, an ecological narrative about the dangers of climate change.

Vienna Woods

Southern Oregon University

Collier Center for the Performing Arts

Storm Large, Portland’s "favorite songstress”, wows you as she explores the world of sin! The Seven Deadly Sins, no less. Reprising one of her signature roles, this working girl moves across America to help her greedy family build their little house back in Louisiana, accompanied by the jazzy sounds of the Swinging ‘30s. Plus, hear music from the Oregon Symphony’s first concert in 1896 and new works by Portland composers – including a jazz piano concerto inspired by Langston Hughes and the friendship between the composer and pianist.

Seven Deadly Sins

Willamette University

Tristan och Isolde

125 years Wiener Symphoniker

Vienna Music Society

From a deep E-flat major chord, time and space are lifted, and on the waves of the Rhine, a world unfolds with gods, dwarves, giants and creatures of nature. However, the paradisiacal primordial state does not last long: After the Nibelung Alberich is spurned by the Rhinemaidens, he decides to renounce love forever and seize the gold from the depths of the Rhine. From this, he now forges a ring that grants him world power. But the father of the gods, Wotan, also wants to possess the ring. With the help of the fire god Loge, he actually succeeds in stealing the ring from Alberich. However, Alberich curses the ring: Misfortune shall befall its owner - a prophecy that will soon be fulfilled for the first, but not the last time. Richard Wagner created with DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN a parable about the origin and end of the world and realised his radical idea of a total work of art, in which text, music and stage action form a symbiosis. Wagner's endless melody and his leitmotif technique, which he had already developed in DER FLIEGENDE HOLLÄNDER and LOHENGRIN, reach an as yet unprecedented complexity in THE RING. With the creation of the RING tetralogy, Wagner also solidified the plan for his own festival theatre as a venue. At the request of his patron King Ludwig II, the premiere of RHEINGOLD took place on 22 September 1869 at the National Theatre of Munich. The audience, which was largely composed of professionals and art connoisseurs who had travelled from afar, expressed enthusiastic applause. Wagner's vision of performing the entire DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN  in his own festival theatre finally became a reality in 1876 in Bayreuth. Director Paul-Georg Dittrich, who has already introduced himself to Cologne with his production of DER ZWERG, will stage a new RING. In RHEINGOLD, he embarks on a search for the childlike origin of the world. What happens when free, yet unencumbered imagination is instrumentalised in a power-obsessed society? The musical direction is under the internationally sought-after conductor Marc Albrecht, who returns to the podium of the Gürzenich Orchestra after DIE FRAU OHNE SCHATTEN.

The Rhinegold

Cologne Opera

Two works that create their own musical universes: the Symphonic Suite from Richard Wagner’s »Götterdämmerung« condenses the finale of »Der Ring des Nibelungen«, itself a musical vision of the end of time, steeped in fate, splendour and destruction. Richard Strauss responded a good quarter of a century later with his own vision of the artist as hero. Rather than depicting a myth of ancient times, his symphonic poem »Ein Heldenleben« is an astonishing self-portrait. Nine months after the world premiere, Ernst von Schuch conducted the Dresden premiere in the presence of the composer, who was called to the stage four times. The press spoke of »rapturous applause« and »a sensational concert thanks to Strauss«.

Symphony Concert N° 3

Semperoper Dresden

Klassiker der Filmmusik von Wagner bis »Star Wars«

Klassische Musik und Filmkunst: Seit der Entstehung der laufenden Bilder sind sie immer wieder eine produktive Symbiose eingegangen. Gerade die Musik der Spätromantik prägte die Klangwelt Hollywoods – auch da viele ihrer großen Vertreter vor dem Nationalsozialismus an die amerikanische Westküste geflohen waren. Kaum ein noch lebender Filmkomponist steht so in dieser Tradition wie John Williams, der in seiner durch Korngold und Strawinsky geprägten Musik zu »Star Wars« das wagnerianische Konzept der Leitmotive zu ungeahnter Popularität brachte – und sich dabei mitunter gefährlich nahe an Picassos Motto orientiert, dass »große Künstler stehlen«.

Die »James Bond«-Filme lassen die Unterhaltungsmusik ihrer jeweiligen Entstehungszeit anklingen, während Tōru Takemitsu in seinen »Three Film Scores« die typische Wiener Melange aus Walzerseligkeit und Schwermut aufgreift. Immer wieder fand und findet aber auch klassische Musik ihren Weg in den Film – sei es Schostakowitschs berühmter Walzer Nr. 2 in Stanley Kubricks »Eyes Wide Shut« oder wenn in Francis Ford Coppolas »Apocalypse Now« ein vietnamesisches Dorf zu den Klängen von Wagners »Walkürenritt« bombardiert wird. Das 2. Sinfoniekonzert spürt dieser gegenseitigen Inspiration von Film und Klassik in all ihren Facetten nach.

2. Sinfonie­konzert

Music and Congress Hall

Classical music and film art: Since the creation of moving pictures, they have repeatedly entered into a productive symbiosis. The music of the late Romantic period, in particular, shaped the soundscape of Hollywood—partly because many of its great representatives fled Nazi Germany to the American West Coast. Hardly any living film composer stands as closely in this tradition as John Williams, who, in his music for "Star Wars," influenced by Korngold and Stravinsky, brought the Wagnerian concept of leitmotifs to unprecedented popularity—and in doing so, sometimes veers dangerously close to Picasso's maxim that "great artists steal."

2nd  Symphony Concert

Music and Congress Hall Lübeck

The Viennese have the waltz * On the Beautiful Blue Danube* , the Praguers have the tone poem *The Moldau* , and the New Yorkers have the musical *West Side Story* . But we Nurembergers have Richard Wagner's opera * The Mastersingers of Nuremberg * as the "music of our city" – the greatest tribute to the Franconian metropolis ever composed. The prelude to Act 1, relatively short in duration but monumental in its impact, is a veritable symphonic poem that encompasses all of the opera's central plot motifs. Anton Bruckner's Symphony No. 3, dedicated to Wagner in its original version, is monumental in every respect. Between these two monuments of late Romanticism is a famous masterpiece of early Classical music: Haydn's virtuoso C major concerto featuring the young Japanese rising star of the cello world, Michiaki Ueno. Benjamin Reiners, GMD in Chemnitz and conductor of the Robert Schumann Philharmonic, will be conducting. He has been a guest with us several times since 2012.

Bruckner And The Mastersingers

Meistersinger Hall

The Knights of the Holy Grail are in decline. Their ruler, Amfortas, is ailing from an unhealable wound. While the knight Gurnemanz wistfully recalls the prophecy of a guileless youth who will restore the order, he refuses to believe that the naive, young man before him could be that savior. And so the youth, Parsifal, leaves on what will become a journey that will bring him full circle back to the knights.

For the first time in 25 years, Wagner’s final opera returns in a brand-new San Francisco Opera production. Matthew Ozawa— whose work was last seen in the acclaimed Orpheus and Eurydice—directs this meditation on compassion, focusing on the intersection of Eastern and Western spiritual traditions in a mythical world of knights and sorcerers.

Music Director Eun Sun Kim continues her exploration of Wagner’s works through this sublime score, brought to life with a cast of Wagnerian superstars joined by the San Francisco Opera Orchestra, Chorus, and Dancers.

Parsifal

War Memorial Opera House

Come dressed up for this Halloween-inspired concert with fun and spooky melodies to spark your senses and imagination. This hour-long concert is perfect for kids of all ages.

Spooktacular

Inspiration Hall

Bruckner's popular “Romantic” Symphony takes the listener on an emotional and philosophical journey with themes of humanity’s interactions with nature and a grandiose orchestral landscape. Don’t miss the rare opportunity to hear this popular work conducted by one of the world’s foremost ‘Brucknerians’. The great Canadian composer Jacques Hétu wrote his riveting Organ Concerto for the inauguration of the Winspear’s own Davis Concert Organ in 2002. This concert opens with a celebratory welcome march from Wagner's opera Tannhäuser.

Bruckner, Wagner & Organ

Winspear Centre

Chamber Music in the Brahms-Saal

Musikverein Brahms Hall

In recent years, violinist Renaud Capuçon has also distinguished himself as a conductor. With the OPRL, he takes us into the tender and loving world of Wagner's Siegfried-Idyll , a work dedicated to his wife Cosima, where themes from his opera Siegfried resonate . He also explores this theme of marital intimacy through the Interludes from Richard Strauss's opera Intermezzo , while highlighting, this time with the bow, the inexhaustible freshness of Mozart's violin, without forgetting to present the new creation of Camille Pépin, a young Frenchwoman whose energetic music cultivates joyful atmospheres.

Siegfried Idyll

Grand Théâtre de Provence

Philharmonic Hall of Liege

The brilliant Simone Young and cellist Kian Soltani present a programme rich in Romanticism.

Affirmation

Auckland Town Hall

Michael Fowler Centre

Brian Manker and James Box step out of their usual roles in the orchestra to deliver breathtaking performances as soloists. The program features works shaped by philosophical and spiritual influences, as Strauss, Wagner, Bloch, and Moussa each explore profound themes in their own unique way. Strauss’ piece, a symphonic poem inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophical work Thus Spoke Zarathustra, opens with a majestic introduction made world-famous by Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. An unmissable concert bringing together striking music, deep reflection, and masterful artistry.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra

“Back in My Day” offers a generational 300-year history of the orchestra and western music, with pieces from the early 1700s (e.g. Handel’s Water Music) to popular movie scores of the new millennium. At the performance students will see and hear how the orchestra grew in size and sound, receive interesting facts about the composers and learn how their era and environment impacted their musical works. The finale to Haydn’s “Farewell” Symphony played by candlelight, and the KSO debut of 11-year old violinist, Harin Lee, performing the finale of Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1 are some of the highlights from our historical timeline that ends with John Williams NBC Sunday Night Football Theme .

Back in My Day Education Concert

7 Hills Church

What an opening! The Berlin Symphony Orchestra kicks off the new season and its first symphony concert with the overture to Richard Wagner's opera "The Mastersingers of Nuremberg." The rest of the program more than lives up to its motto "Piano & Forte." Pyotr I. Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 impresses with its famous, expansive opening theme. Sergei V. Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 begins no less impressively, with eight chords reminiscent of the tolling of bells.

Piano & Forte

Berliner Philharmonie

For political reasons, King Marke of Cornwall wants to marry the Irish Princess Isolde to secure peace between the two countries. However, Tristan, Marke's nephew and vassal, and Isolde fall in love. The basic constellation in Richard Wagner's music drama corresponds to a classic tragedy of love and jealousy, in which personal feelings and social obligations conflict. But Tristan and Isolde's love transcends all social norms.

Stadttheater Klagenfurt

A dream made of brass – and a musical encounter of the highest order: Daniel Téllez Gutiérrez, principal trombonist of the Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestra, meets the world-renowned trombone legend Christian Lindberg. Together they present the world premiere of composer Andrea Tarrodi's captivating new double concerto – a work that will captivate and inspire you with the power and richness of sound of two outstanding soloists.
Alpesh Chauhan then guides you through Anton Bruckner's monumental 7th Symphony, which, with its sublime sound architecture, rises before you like an imposing cathedral. 

Bruckner 7

Tonhalle Düsseldorf

repare for a night of fire and fantasy as Paolo Bortolameolli leads the RPO. Wagner’s Overture to The Flying Dutchman evokes the raging sea, ghostly fate, and redemptive love that define the haunting legend. “A special talent that comes along once in a lifetime” (Toronto Star), violinist Blake Pouliot dazzles in Saint-Saëns’ Violin Concerto No. 3, a triumph of soaring melodies. Then, Prokofiev’s thrilling Symphony No. 3 takes center stage, weaving a gripping tale of mystery, intensity, and symphonic fire.

RPO: Fire & Fantasy

Eastman Theatre

Prepare for a night of fire and fantasy as Paolo Bortolameolli leads the RPO. Wagner’s Overture to The Flying Dutchman evokes the raging sea, ghostly fate, and redemptive love that define the haunting legend. “A special talent that comes along once in a lifetime” (Toronto Star), violinist Blake Pouliot dazzles in Saint-Saëns’ Violin Concerto No. 3, a triumph of soaring melodies. Then, Prokofiev’s thrilling Symphony No. 3 takes center stage, weaving a gripping tale of mystery, intensity, and symphonic fire.

Fire & Fantasy

The Opera Orchestra's Midis Musicales are always a great success with audiences. These short concerts (from 45 minutes to 1 hour) are presented in a warm and friendly atmosphere and will surprise you with the richness of the offerings!

Richard Wagner

Events

Upcoming events

Sep 26, 2025 - Jun 5, 2026

Opera Workshop · Staatsoper Hamburg

Jan 18 - Feb 7, 2026

Lohengrin · Staatsoper Berlin

Jan 22 - Apr 29, 2026

Chorus Opera · Polish National Opera

Feb 3 - Mar 11, 2026

Tristan & Isolde · Aarhus Teater

Feb 7 - Mar 22, 2026

The Mastersingers of Nuremberg · Staatsoper Stuttgart

Past events

Feb 3 - Mar 11, 2026

Tristan & Isolde · Aarhus Teater

Jan 30, 2026

Minkowski, Mozart & Wagner · Royal Danish Orchestra

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