Costume Designer

Set Designer

“Blame it on the champagne, tra la la la la !” That’s the half-truth that the protagonists in Johann Strauss’s THE BAT sign up to at the end of a drink-fuelled night of mistaken identities and erotic escapades. But alcohol is only partly to blame; the confusion is largely due to the wiles of the humiliated Dr Falke, who was once exposed to small-town ridicule dressed in the costume of a bat and is now seizing his chance to avenge himself on his ‘good pal’, bon vivant Gabriel von Eisenstein. And so it is that the maid disguises herself as an actress, the wife as a Hungarian countess and Eisenstein himself as a French marquess and off they trot to Prince Orlofsky’s masked ball. That they end up bewailing their fate in jail early the next morning is less down to champagne than to the natural course of events. In THE BAT Johann Strauss pulled off a work that proved to be the prototypical Viennese operetta, bursting with waltzes and polkas and oozing wicked irony. Inspired by Offenbach’s opéras buffes from Paris, Strauss’s work was merciless in the way it held up a mirror to the bourgeois salon-going public - and many audience members recognised themselves in the absurd antics onstage.

Die Fledermaus

Deutsche Oper Berlin

He was touted as the new star in Italy’s operatic firmament around 1910. Publisher Tito Ricordi had big plans for the young Riccardo Zandonai and was sparing no cost to achieve the same triumphs with him as Giulio Ricordi had done a generation earlier with the young Puccini. For a huge fee, Ricordi secured the rights to a scandalous contemporary play - Gabriele D’Annunzio’s 5-act drama “Francesca da Rimini” – which had created a stir with its bloody civil-war scenes, cruel passions and adulterous couple. D’Annunzio’s fin-de-siècle-esque “poem of blood and lust” was all the rage in artist circles. The 31-year-old Riccardo Zandonai spied his chance to pen a florid opera of grandiose scale in a musical language fusing a raft of styles and epochs. And sure enough, Zandonai ploughs his individual European furrow of musical theatre, encompassing Italian bel canto, hints of Renaissance madrigals, gritty verismo, pre-Fascist marches, Wagner’s TRISTAN as a point of reference and a French Impressionism à la Debussy.

Francesca da Rimini

Following triumphant Met turns in Roméo et Juliette, La Traviata, and Lucia di Lammermoor, Nadine Sierra summits another peak of the soprano repertoire as Amina, who sleepwalks her way into audiences’ hearts in Bellini’s poignant tale of love lost and found. In his new production, Rolando Villazón—the tenor who has embarked on a brilliant second career as a director—retains the opera’s original setting in the Swiss Alps but uses its somnambulant plot to explore the emotional and psychological valleys of the mind. Tenor Xabier Anduaga returns after his acclaimed 2023 Met debut in L’Elisir d’Amore, co-starring as Amina’s fiancé Elvino, alongside soprano Sydney Mancasola as her rival, Lisa, and bass Alexander Vinogradov as Count Rodolfo. Riccardo Frizza takes the podium for one of opera’s most ravishing works.

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La Sonnambula

Lincoln Center

Amfortas, leader of the Knights of the Grail, was wounded when he lost the Holy Spear to Klingsor, a wound, that won’t close.

As long as he does his duty and reveals the Grail, Amfortas can’t die. Kundry, a two-faced individual, serves the knights; she procures medicine to alleviate his pain, but it has little effect. Then Parsifal appears, committing sacrilege by shooting down a swan in this hallowed region. Gurnemanz rebukes him, then starts wondering: Could the young hothead be the promised »innocent fool«, who could bring salvation to their community? If so Parsifal would have to become »knowing through compassion« first. He meets Kundry, now a seductive woman, in Klingsor’s magic realm. Can he beat Klingsor and take the speer from him, the only thing that can close Amfortas’ wound?

Parsifal

Oper Frankfurt

Lucia Ashton falls in love with her family’s mortal enemy, Edgardo, and the young couple pledge eternal fidelity. However, Lucia’s brother Enrico is intent on marrying her off to a rich heir. When Lucia finally believes herself entirely abandoned and alone, with even her beloved Edgardo scorning and insulting her, she murders her unwanted husband on their wedding night. With her family grieving at her perceived insanity, Lucia sees this terrible act as a form of liberation, believing herself close to achieving happiness with her lover. Based on the bestselling novel by Sir Walter Scott, »Lucia di Lammermoor« pearl of bel canto opera. Composed by Gaetano Donizetti in 1835, it is a huge challenge for every singer, both musically and dramatically. In his staging for Dresden, Dietrich W. Hilsdorf illuminates the psychological states of the protagonists by focusing on the central human relationships. The ghostly sounds of the glass harmonica underscore the sensitive inner world of an oppressed woman in her fight against the rest of the world.

Lucia di Lammermoor

Semperoper Dresden

The naive Siegfried grows up as an orphan with the loveless and greedy blacksmith Mime, with only the remains of a sword left by his unknown father. At some point, his curiosity about his own origins and identity becomes too great, and after fearlessly and naively reforging his father's wonderfully strong sword, he sets off. Mime had convinced him that he must learn to fear in order to survive in the world - preferably from the dragon worm Fafner, who lives in a forest cave on a valuable treasure, including the powerful, eponymous ring. But with his carefree nature, Siegfried masters the episode effortlessly and wins the treasure. What's more: after he accidentally comes across the dragon's blood, he can suddenly understand the language of animals! This is how he comes to a rock surrounded by fire, where he finds a sleeping woman, Brünnhilde, who can only be awakened by the most fearless and free hero. For the first time, Siegfried feels fear – but it quickly turns into love!

Siegfried

Opernhaus Dortmund

With the sadistic police chief Scarpia, Giacomo Puccini enriched opera literature with one of its most abysmal characters.
The painter Cavaradossi falls into his clutches when he helps a political prisoner to escape.
But for Scarpia, Cavaradossi is just a decoy through which he can finally win the celebrated singer Tosca.

Tosca

German Oper am Rhein

“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

Staatsoper Hamburg

Based on a play by Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), Salome is one of the most intense and powerful operas ever created. Sensational in its time, Salome was received with both wonder and shock, thanks to its theme combining religion and eroticism and its groundbreaking musical language.

Salome

Finnish National Opera and Ballet

Vincenzo Bellini's opera »La sonnambula«, which premiered in Milan in 1831, is considered to be his most important work, alongside »Norma«, which was released just six months later. The ›semiseria‹, composed in an elegiac, soft style, shows the idyll of a remote Alpine village in which superstition and backwardness almost cost the young orphan Amina her happiness in life, because Amina sleepwalks. So she ends up in the room of a strange man at night, is accused of infidelity by her lover Elvino and left. Only Rodolfo, the apparent seducer and none other than the deceased count's son who has returned home, can use his knowledge to explain the phenomenon, confirm Amina's innocence and lead the story to its happy ending. Director Rolando Villazón stages Amina's story as an escape from the confines of her village to another

La sonnambula (The Sleepwalker)

Semper Opera Dresden

The mermaid Rusalka loves the prince and wants to become a human being in order to be with him forever. With her voice, she pays the witch Ježibaba for the transformation and leaves home and family. Rusalka's appearance with the people initially depresses the prince, but the magical, voiceless being remains a foreign body in the human world and finally the lover turns away from her – which means death for him and banishment for her. In his fairytale opera, premiered in Prague in 1901, Dvořák set to music the contrasting worlds of the ghostly flowing underwater kingdom and the distanced stiff royal court with great music-dramatic verve. With the parable-like material about the value of one's own identity, the meaning of the human soul and the transformation of the main character Rusalka from a romantic mermaid to a loving person capable of suffering without a real home, the internationally working director Christoph Loy makes his debut in the Semperoper.

Rusalka

Gaul has been entirely conquered by the Romans. The Gauls would have revolted against their occupiers long ago if it weren’t for the priestess Norma, who, evoking Irminsul, the god of war, continually demands that the uprising be postponed. In fact, Norma wishes to prevent war because she is the secret lover of the Roman proconsul Pollione, to whom she has borne two children. But Pollione’s imminent recall forces action, and when Norma discovers that the Roman has long since fallen in love with the young Druid priestess Adalgisa, she declares war against Rome. Then she reveals her own treachery to the Gauls. But what is Norma’s plan? – First performed in Milan in 1831, »Norma« is the most famous opera by Italian composer Vincenzo Bellini. In his Dresden production, stage director Peter Konwitschny exposes the political core of this story of a woman who shakes the very foundations of her state.

Norma

Things are heating up in the Faninal household! The nouveau riche is eagerly awaiting the wedding of his daughter Sophie - it is to be a noble groom. However, it is not the intended candidate, the Baron Ochs, who will win Sophie's heart, but the bearer of the silver engagement rose: the young Count Octavian. Before his secret lover, the Feldmarschallin, releases Octavian for the union, Baron Ochs is publicly disgraced in a suburban pub ...

The Rosenkavalier

Volksoper Wien

Director Christof Loy has already helped four little-known operas from the early 20th century make a successful comeback at the Deutsche Oper Berlin: Erich Wolfgang Korngold's DAS WUNDER DER HELIANE and Riccardo Zandonai's FRANCESCA DA RIMINI were followed by other long-forgotten operatic treasures: Franz Schreker's DER SCHATZGRÄBER in 2022 and finally Ottorino Respighi's LA FIAMMA in 2024.

The Treasure Hunter (Der Schatzgräber)

The relationship between Cio-Cio-San, called »Butterfly«, and US American marine officer Benjamin F. Pinkerton begins as a proforma wedding – with unexpected consequences: the young Japanese woman cuts herself off from her family, hoping to leave her impoverished origins behind; Pinkerton, on the other hand, despite his overwhelming desires, doesn’t feel committed to this »provisional marriage«. When he’s ordered home Cio-Cio-San’s left behind, expecting his baby. She waits unwaveringly for his return; her only rock is her faithful servant Suzuki. But when Pinkerton’s ship re-docks in Nagasaki, the illusion shatters: He married another woman in America. When Butterfly realises they intend to take her child as well, she sees no other way out; she commits ritual suicide, as her father before her. Doing away with superficial clichés, the director R.B. Schlather focuses on the human tragedy, for which Puccini, Master of Melody found such heart-rending music.

Madama Butterfly

Richard Wagner revolutionised music with his version of theTristan story, popular since the Middle Ages. His opening Tristan chord paved the way for modern music and encapsulates the core of this tragic love story – an insatiable longing, ceaselessly striving for relief. »Only in the face of death are the lovers able to give themselves unrestrainedly to each other«, said Katharina Thoma, focussing on the subconscious, their past lives, loss and the meaning for life of both protagonists. She explores the reasons for loneliness, which go beyond societal difficulties and external influences in Johannes Leiacker’s clear, focussed space.

Tristan und Isolde

Turandot refuses to marry by setting an impossible condition: Whoever wants her for his wife must solve three riddles. Anyone who can’t, is publicly executed. Prince Calaf, a refugee stranded in Peking, falls hopelessly under Turandot’s spell. The Princess is shaken to the core when he manages to answer all three. Turandot unleashes a clear struggle for power, which ultimately claims innocent victims.

Turandot

He commands a world empire and yet he is deeply unsettled. Philip II of Spain not only fears losing command but also feels betrayed and deserted by his wife Elizabeth von Valois: she and his son Carlo are in love. Over all this hangs the threatening shadow of the Inquisition. In vain, King Philip seeks trust in a hostile world.

Don Carlo

Bebelplatz

With the sadistic police chief Scarpia, Giacomo Puccini enriched opera literature by one of its most abysmal characters. The painter Cavaradossi falls into his hands when he helps a political prisoner to escape. But for Scarpia, Cavaradossi is just a decoy through which he hopes to finally make the celebrated singer Tosca submissive. A perfidious game of cat and mouse begins for the life of her lover. In an unleashed frenzy of sound, Puccini mercilessly drives his protagonists through a hurricane of emotional states of emergency that has lost none of its power to this day.

Costume Designer, Set Designer

Johannes Leiacker

Events

Upcoming events

Dec 20, 2025 - Jan 3, 2026

Die Fledermaus · Deutsche Oper Berlin

Jan 29 - Feb 14, 2026

The Rosenkavalier · Volksoper Wien

Jan 30 - Feb 12, 2026

The Treasure Hunter (Der Schatzgräber) · Deutsche Oper Berlin

Feb 6 - Mar 20, 2026

Madama Butterfly · Oper Frankfurt

Mar 22 - Apr 11, 2026

Tristan und Isolde · Oper Frankfurt

Past events

Dec 20, 2025 - Jan 3, 2026

Die Fledermaus · Deutsche Oper Berlin

Oct 24 - Nov 14, 2025

Francesca da Rimini · Deutsche Oper Berlin

About

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