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"It is a simple and tremendous problem of life: that of fidelity", is how Hugo von Hofmannsthal described the core of their third opera together, Ariadne auf Naxos, in a letter to Richard Strauss. To live does not mean to persevere and hold on to what has been lost. If you want to live, you have to let go, forget, get over yourself - constantly transform yourself. This is what a young opera composer experiences in this work when he is confronted with the stubborn wishes of his patron; just like the protagonist of his opera, Ariadne, who, abandoned by her lover, Theseus, expects only death.

Ariadne on Naxos

Hamburg State Opera

Under the face of the wandering moon, spirit and body quarrel in all their greatness and wretchedness until the blood of two bodies flows. Strauss remains close to Wilde's re-creation of the biblical material, which leads Salome from her mother's tool to autonomy. It is she who, in her unfulfilled desire for the liberatingly different, the body of the prophet Jochanaan, seeks revenge and demands his head - a price the male-dominated society around Herod is willing to pay for their dance. Now that Salome holds his severed head in her hands, she can kiss Jochanaan, possess him if not alive, then dead. As if under a burning glass, Strauss pours Oscar Wilde's demonic dramaturgy into sound like an eruption of the psyche, accompanying his protagonist from her failed escape from the decadence of her existence to her death.

EPSG:4326

Salome

Staatsoper Hamburg

The International Opera Studio of the Hamburg State Opera presents a varied programme. The seven singers introduce themselves with solo arias and demonstrate their skills in selected opera scenes. The concert marks the end of a special anniversary season: the studio has been training the stars of tomorrow at the State Opera for 30 years. Today’s opera stars such as Olga Peretyatko, Christiane Karg or Christoph Pohl and Alexander Tsymbalyuk have emerged from this programme. The latest cohort also combines outstanding voices and captivating stage presence. Selected from thousands of young talents, they are among the best of their generation. They can regularly be seen on the big stage in performances at the opera house on Dammtorstraße.

International Opera Studio of the Hamburg State Opera

Elbphilharmonie Hamburg

International Opera Studio

During times of historical upheaval, the victors are filled with euphoric jubilation while fear spreads on the side of the losers. When cheerfulness grips the figures in Mozart’s piece, it is the swan song, full of schadenfreude, of dying structures, ancient privileges and traditional manners – including those between man and woman. Mozart (and Beaumarchais) hold the balance on the threshold between eras – as artists en route to self-marketing, as portraitists of their times, by precisely rendering a society whose balance is shifting, making Almaviva a ridiculous figure. His class is losing political power, and he compensates for this loss by becoming a slave to his sexual desire. The wind is blowing from the past, giving wing to Walter Benjamin’s angel of history. It is a storm for the winners, and for the losers a mere melancholy breeze. The angel sees nothing but ruins.

Le Nozze di Figaro

The outsider Herman loves Liza, who is engaged to Prince Yeletsky. Herman is a passionate gambler: he is desperate to win a fortune and reputation in order to win Liza’s heart. When he learns that her grandmother knows the secret of the three winning cards, fate takes its course.

Pique Dame

Violetta is the most sought-after courtesan of the Parisian demimonde. However, her encounter with Alfredo makes her pleasure-seeking life seem questionable: they fall in love and try to build a life for themselves, far from the fast pleasures of the city. Her past, however, catches up with Violetta. Alfredo’s father persuades her that a separation is the only way to restore his family honour. Alfredo, unaware of the true reasons for her decision, insults Violetta in public. When they are finally reunited, Violetta has run out of time.

La Traviata

Never one to miss an opportunity to make fun of others, the hunchback jester Rigoletto is employed by the Duke of Mantua. His only joy in life is his daughter Gilda. When Rigoletto must witness how she falls for the calculated vows of love of the unscrupulous Duke, he is out for revenge: he hires the contract killer Sparafucile to murder the seducer. Gilda, however, sacrifices herself for her lover. Rigoletto realises that he has driven his daughter to death and destroyed his own life.

Rigoletto

Young Tatyana falls in love with Eugene Onegin, and confesses her love for him, against all convention. When he pretends that marriage is not for him, she weds Prince Gremin in haste. After many years, Tatyana and Onegin meet again, but their belated confession of mutual love cannot bring them back together.

Eugene Onegin

A coming-of-age story, recurring conflicts with parents, and first love, Manon is a young girl full of hopes, dreams, and an irrepressible desire for life. Manon is to enter a convent and sees her desire for a free, self-determined life fading. However, she falls head over heels in love and flees to Paris, the city of love and opportunity.

Manon

This opera is the world in a theatrical nutshell: it deals with growing older, with trials and tribulations, with intransparent decisions. One person searches for individuality, another is too lazy to do so. Others postulate that the community is the only adequate place for the individual. Power has either been legitimised by long tradition or usurped by new regimes. Values such as assimilation and loyalty are set against self-assertiveness and independence. There is loving and dreaming, cheating and trusting. Suicides are prevented, tests passed, adventures survived. Who is right? Who has been wronged? The world of the magic flute is opaque, and everyone is looking for a pathway: within it, into it or out of it. Who holds the reigns? Who can be trusted? Could it be music?

Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute)

“How ice-cold is this little hand” – a hand held by the poet Rodolfo in the darkness of his artists’ commune! The ice-cold hand belongs to the seamstress Mimì – with whom he proceeds to throw himself into the Christmas season in Paris. Only a few months later, though, she finds living with Rodolfo torturous. It is not jealousy, however, which explains Rodolfo’s behaviour: he knows that Mimì will not last the year. "La Bohème" was based on Henri Murger’s extremely successful novel "Les scènes de la vie de bohème", which had entranced Puccini when he first read it. His wish to set the tale to music was so strong that he even risked ruining his friendship with Ruggero Leoncavallo, who was also working on a opera version of it. Today, the opera premiered in 1896 is considered one of the most popular stage works of all times – thanks to an overabundance of melodies and Puccini’s genius for character portraits.

La Bohème

A voice, a room, a girl shortly before her 16th birthday. A pile of discarded dolls. Then voice messages from outside, the shrill laughs of a sitcom, the vacation posts of an avatar and the girl's attempt to be her, to become someone else, to disguise herself, to change. We enter a fluffy world where anything is possible. In which dolls come to life and the neighbor becomes a doll. In which flesh wants to become plastic and objects begin to speak. Dollhouse tells of the empowering power of cuteness and play. We become part of a search for belonging and identity, beyond normative (family) structures. "The light alarm clock simulates the first sunrise, flight mode off, first messages arrive" - the story begins.

Dollhouse

Opera Stabile Werk/Wirkbühne of the State Opera

Scarpia, Rome’s chief of police, desires Tosca. Since her lover, the painter Cavaradossi, is among the government’s political enemies, Scarpia has him imprisoned. He orders Cavaradossi’s execution and hopes to force Tosca into granting him one night with her, in exchange for Cavaradossi’s release. She, however, thwarts his plans…

Tosca

They’re starving for everything but love. Rodolfo loves Mimi, Marco loves Musetta, Colline loves philosophy, Schaunard loves music, and they all love their eccentric Bohemian life in the garrets of Paris’ 19th century Latin Quarter. Starving artists all, this crazy cadre of young friends bear their poverty with laughter and grace, until it devastates them with unspeakable tragedy.  With beloved favorites like “Che gelida manina,” “Quando m’en vo, ”and “Donde lieta uscire,” Puccini’s divinely romantic score memorably illustrates the joys, struggles, loves, quarrels, triumphs, and tragedies of six  friends and lovers as they embody the true vie de bohème.

La bohème

Au-Rene Theater at Broward Center For The Performing Arts

Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts

The hottest party girl in town is hiding a terrible secret. Violetta Valéry is the most sought-after courtesan in Paris. Only the ardent Alfredo sees through her mask of gaiety to the real woman and her well-disguised suffering. But the love that could save her life is threatened by the demands of Alfredo’s furious father Germont, who insists on a devastating sacrifice to save his own family from disgrace and ruin. Even a heart of gold can shatter under such a strain. From the defiant coloratura flights of “Sempre libera” to the sobbing violins of “Addio del passato,” Alexander Dumas, fils’ semi-autobiographical story and Giuseppe Verdi’s timeless score will alternately lift your spirits and break your heart.

Thousands lived to sleep…it’s not a fairy tale, but the incredible true story of Dr. Sacks, a young neurologist faced with treating victims of a mysterious sleeping-sickness epidemic of the early 20th century, a phenomenon of history nearly forgotten. Awakenings visits Sacks’ journey of perseverance and compassion that brought his ‘frozen’ patients back to being – but not to the world they left behind. With our current trials, this distinct retelling of the possibility of new life is even more resonant today.

Awakenings

Huntington Theatre

Elsa of Brabant is suspected of having killed her younger brother Gottfried in the forest. When King Henry the Fowler asks Elsa to defend herself, she pleads for an imaginary knight to come to her aid. Suddenly, Lohengrin, the Knight of the Swan, appears. He promises to fight for Elsa, but makes her promise beforehand never to question him about his identity or provenance.

Lohengrin

In Wagner's interpretation, the medieval myth about the tragic love between the Irish king's daughter Isolde and Tristan, King Mark's henchman, to whom Isolde was married against her will, becomes a key work of musical theater at the beginning of a new era. This season, the Hamburg State Opera is bringing Ruth Berghaus' legendary production from 1988 back into the repertoire.

Actor, Singer

Keith Klein

Events

Upcoming events

Oct 13, 2024 - Jan 1, 2026

Tosca · Staatsoper Hamburg

Dec 21, 2024 - Jan 3, 2026

Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute) · Staatsoper Hamburg

Apr 29, 2025 - Mar 13, 2026

Pique Dame · Staatsoper Hamburg

Feb 7 - Mar 13, 2026

Pique Dame · Staatsoper Hamburg

Mar 22 - Apr 11, 2026

Lohengrin · Staatsoper Hamburg

Past events

Nov 16 - Dec 4, 2025

Ariadne on Naxos · Staatsoper Hamburg

5 - 12 Oct, 2025

Salome · Staatsoper Hamburg

Future and recently performed repertoire

Sciarrone in Tosca by Puccini

Staatsoper Hamburg

Narumoff in Pique Dame by Tchaikovsky

Staatsoper Hamburg

5. Jude in Salome by Strauss

Staatsoper Hamburg

Alcindoro in La bohème by Puccini

Staatsoper Hamburg

Guardsman 2 in Manon by Massenet

Staatsoper Hamburg

4. Brabantian Nobleman in Lohengrin by Wagner

Staatsoper Hamburg

A helmsman in Tristan und Isolde by Wagner

Staatsoper Hamburg

Doctor Grenvil in La traviata by Verdi

Staatsoper Hamburg

The Count of Ceprano in Rigoletto by Verdi

Staatsoper Hamburg

Second Armored Man in Die Zauberflöte by Mozart

Staatsoper Hamburg

A captain in Eugene Onegin by Tchaikovsky

Staatsoper Hamburg

Antonio in Le nozze di Figaro by Mozart

Staatsoper Hamburg

doll father in Dollhouse by Thomas

Staatsoper Hamburg

Drunken guest (lackey) in Ariadne on Naxos by Strauss

Staatsoper Hamburg

Narumoff in Pique Dame by Tchaikovsky

Staatsoper Hamburg

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