Singer

The 75th anniversary season comes to an overpowering conclusion with one of the most spectacular and moving acts in all of opera, the finale of Wagner’s Die Walküre. You’ll immediately recognize the iconic Ride of the Valkyries which opens the act. The eight Valkyries are the products of the god Wotan’s affair with the earth’s wisdom goddess Erda. Their job is to carry slain heroes to the afterlife in Valhalla on their flying horses. At the beginning of the act, Wotan’s favorite daughter Brünnhilde is missing. She finally appears, but not with a fallen warrior. Instead, it’s Sieglinde, whom Wotan had fathered with a wolf along with her twin brother Siegmund. The twins committed incest back in Act One, and now Sieglinde is pregnant with the future hero Siegfried. Wotan’s wife Fricka, goddess of marriage, didn’t approve of the situation, and pressured Wotan to arrange for Siegmund to die in Act Two. Brünnhilde tried to intervene to save Siegmund, enraging Wotan. To punish her defiance, Wotan strips Brünnhilde of her godhood and plans to put her into a magical sleep to be available to the first man who finds her. Horrified by this prospect, Brünnhilde convinces Wotan to surround her by fire so that only a brave hero can awaken her.

Festival Orchestra: Spano Conducts Wagner, Ohlsson Plays Liszt

Michael Klein Music Tent

The stress sets in on the way to school. You’re too late, nobody wants to sit next to you, other students make fun of you and you’re bullied for the clothes you wear. Your grades are poor, your teachers are unfair, you’re worried because your parents are unemployed – or you struggle with memories of war and having to flee from your home, and these memories are still stuck with you.

immmermeeehr

Deutsche Oper Berlin

It’s the most performed opera in the German-speaking region, an unusual – and masterly – blend of Viennese folk theatre and fairy tale, mythology and freemasonry mystique: Mozart’s THE MAGIC FLUTE remains a puzzle to this day. Did Mozart and his librettist Schikaneder switch horses from the Queen of the Night to Sarastro half way through? Is the message not one of distrust towards a supposedly infallible priesthood and its simplistic good-versus-evil ideology? Are some Mozart experts right when they talk of a disconnect between text and music? Whatever the answer, it’s the music that allows us to relate to the story’s contradictions. Far from denouncing the characters, it confers an existentiality on their conflicts.

The Magic Flute

The opera gives us scenes from the life of Bystrouska, a young fox. The forester, who has never lost his desire for freedom and love, catches her in the forest one day and takes her home; to him she seems the embodiment of his desire. But Bystrouska manages to escape. In the woods she drives the badger from his set. In her new home she also meets the love of her life: a charming fox courts her and the lovers spend their first night together in the den. They finally wed, surrounded by the animals of the forest. Soon we see the vixen as the proud mother of a crowd of children. But their happiness is shortlived: Bystrouska is shot by the poacher Harasta. Meanwhile the forester and schoolmaster sit in the inn lamenting the onset of old age. The forester reflects bitterly on the death of the vixen. He cannot forget her uninhibited nature, her youthfulness, her urge to be free. In the forest he is enveloped by a quaintly magical atmosphere and falls asleep. As in a vision, a young fox appears to him, the very image of his mother. Life has triumphed over mortality. The wheel has come full circle.

Maria Vasilevskaya

Soprano

Events

Upcoming events

Nov 29 - Dec 30, 2024

immmermeeehr · Deutsche Oper Berlin

Dec 15, 2024 - Jul 12, 2025

The Magic Flute · Deutsche Oper Berlin

Dec 19, 2024 - Jan 5, 2025

The Cunning Little Vixen · Deutsche Oper Berlin

Past events

Aug 18, 2024

Festival Orchestra: Spano Conducts Wagner, Ohlsson Plays Liszt · Aspen Music Festival

Future and recently performed repertoire

Frantik, Grasshopper and Jaybird in The Cunning Little Vixen by Janáček

Deutsche Oper Berlin

1st lady in The Magic Flute by Mozart

Deutsche Oper Berlin

Kalli's mum in immmermeeehr by Kampe

Deutsche Oper Berlin

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