Costume Designer

Three masterpieces – two centuries – one narrative. There is Schumann's song cycle "Frauenliebe und -leben ," in which the feelings of the nameless protagonist revolve around the needs of a man. There is Duke Bluebeard's Castle , in which two mysterious strangers are magically attracted to each other. And there is the bourgeois, liberal marriage construct of Oscar Wilde's Florentine Tragedy . These raise the question: Do people desire the same throughout all ages?

Women's Love and Death

Hamburg State Opera

Musical theater on the current state of affairs: As avatars of themselves, the exceptional artists Olga Neuwirth and Elfriede Jelinek send two "vampires" on a journey around the world and observe the decline of humanity. But what kind of world is this, one that can only be saved by a monster named Gorgonzilla? Tobias Kratzer stages this brand-new political grotesque as a contemporary Grand Guignol.

Monster’s Paradise

In his »erotic mystery/enigma« Otto Borngräber envisaged the first people driven out of paradise as a nuclear family left to their own devices: Chawa longs for her husband to want her as he used to, but Adahm’s more concerned about eking out an existence. Their pubescent son Kajin charges around in the wilderness looking for a woman, while his brother Chabel seeks redemption by praying to a God. When Kajin catches his mother and Chabel in ecstatic union, he kills his brother, then sees the »future blood of future mankind« in a terrifying vision.

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The First People

Oper Frankfurt

Iris ter Schiphorst's opera for children was premiered in Vienna in 2010. Together with her librettist Helga Utz, the Hamburg-born composer created a touching and captivatingly imaginative work of music theater from the Grimm fairy tale. A princess, accompanied by her maid, sets off from the protection of her parental home to meet her bridegroom. Despite a difficult journey and numerous obstacles, everything turns out well in the end and she is able to marry her prince. Tobias Kratzer is staging Die Gänsemagd as part of the opening of the opera stabile's artistic direction and season one day after Das Paradies und die Peri, the opening production on the main stage. Musical theater for the youngest generations is not a niche product for him, but a top priority. Here, young audiences experience it at close quarters: As a flock of geese, the children become part of the action, immersing themselves in the story together with the musicians and ensemble singers - opera as a lively, accessible art form full of enchanting melodies that shows how valuable resilience, self-confidence and trust in others are on the journey through life.

The Goose Girl

Opera Stabile Werk/Wirkbühne der Staatsoper

The Peri - an angelic mythical creature. Fallen from paradise and thrown into the world, she is denied a return to heaven. It takes three attempts before the gates open for her again: It takes more than the drop of blood of a young man, martyred in war, and the last sigh of a girl who died because she did not want to leave her lover, who was sick with the plague, alone. Only the last gift, the tear of an old man who bitterly regrets his own life's sins at the sight of a child, will enable Peri to enter the kingdom of heaven. Robert Schumann's secular oratorio Paradise and the Peri is based on the oriental epic poem by the Irish poet Thomas Moore. In Hamburg, the Persian myth narrative becomes a panopticon of the very recent past.

Paradise and the Peri

Staatsoper Hamburg

In Das Rheingold, the “eve” of Richard Wagner’s operatic tetralogy, Der Ring des Nibelungen, the course is set for the apocalypse. It will be unleashed by two entirely opposing worldviews exploding into one another. The tragedy of Alberich, who, being mortal, believes he must take everything within his own lifetime. And the drama of Wotan, who in his, real or illusory, immortality must recognise the emptiness and sameness of being eternal.

Das Rheingold

Max-Joseph-Platz

Audiences exiting the theatre after the world premiere of Richard Strauss’s eighth opera INTERMEZZO felt wrong-footed and out-of-sorts. Instead of drawing on classical material or mythology, the composer had served up a straight story with him and his wife as characters, showing contempt for the boundary between private life and literary work. What they hadn’t realised was that Strauss had once again demonstrated that he was not only hip to musical-theatre trends but could also make them his own: for INTERMEZZO is Strauss’s response to 1920s audiences’ desire for “modern” opera subjects and can be seen as part of a line of avant-garde works by the likes of Arnold Schönberg (VON HEUTE AUF MORGEN) and Paul Hindemith (NEUES VOM TAGE). Unlike them, however, Strauss remains true to his classical sound and creates another of his famous soprano roles, shimmering with cantilenas, in the form of the main character, Christine, the fictional composer’s wife.

Interlude

Deutsche Oper Berlin

Vienna, circa 1860. The financially strapped Count Waldner is lodging with his family in a Viennese hotel. His only path to solvency is for him to secure an advantageous marriage for one of his two daughters – and the family can only afford to present Arabella, the eldest, in the upper circles of society. To conceal the family’s indigence, the parents have raised Zdenka as a boy, dressing her accordingly. Arabella is not short of suitors but has resolved to wait for ‘Mr Right’. When Mandryka, an aristocrat from a distant region, arrives, he and Arabella are instantly smitten. Arabella only asks to be able to bid farewell to her friends and suitors at the Fasching ball that evening.

Arabella

According to Hugo von Hofmannsthal in a 1911 letter to Richard Strauss, in which he set out his idea for another collaboration between the two men, their next opera would be to THE MAGIC FLUTE what THE KNIGHT OF THE ROSE had been to FIGARO. And the work that premiered a full eight years later did indeed have strong echoes of Mozart’s »grand opéra«: there is the clash of different social classes, the fairytale-like, highly symbolic storyline and above all the strong feeling that ground-breaking change is underway which is challenging accepted orthodoxy and forcing issues of human interaction and values to the top of the political agenda. And in both cases enlightenment is gained only through ordeal and adversity. Here the shadow has a pivotal function as a metaphor for female fertility: the barren Empress and her nurse bargain with the dyer’s wife for her shadow. Only when the Empress rebels against achieving marital happiness and maternal contentment at someone else’s expense does a path to social harmony open up.

The Woman Without a Shadow

It’s Princess Donna Clara’s 18th birthday and she’s getting showered with presents from all sides, but one gift in particular, from the Turkish Sultan, stands out from the crowd: a real-life dwarf! Amidst all the splendour and beauty the misshapen man attracts her special attention, charming her with his singing and fascinating her all the more for seeming to be blissfully unaware of his physical appearance. The dwarf falls madly in love with the princess and is blind to the coquettish game that she is playing. But then he comes face-to-face with his reflection for the first time in his life. Realising the truth of his situation, he falls down dead. Alexander Zemlinsky’s THE DWARF is based on Oscar Wilde’s fairy tale “The Birthday of the Infanta” and received its world premiere in 1922. Following Zemlinsky’s death in 1942 in American exile the work quickly slipped from public awareness, not to be rediscovered until the 1970s. Since then it has been drawing crowds as a subtle, vibrant seismogram of a highly complex and psychological constellation.

Der Zwerg (The Dwarf)

Richard Wagner wrote Die Walküre as the second of four parts of the powerful musical theatre epic, Der Ring des Nibelungen, which is based on the Medieval Nibelungenlied and old Norse god sagas. Wotan, the highest god, has fathered twins with a mortal woman – Siegmund and Sieglinde. These two in turn have a child, in which Wotan sees his dominion consolidated. His wife Fricka defies his plans and, as protector of the traditional marriage rites, demands Siegmund’s death. Wotan reluctantly agrees, although it will cause a split with his favourite daughter.

Costume Designer

Rainer Sellmaier

Events

Upcoming events

Apr 12 - May 22, 2026

Women's Love and Death · Staatsoper Hamburg

Jun 25 - Jul 8, 2026

Die Walküre · Bayerische Staatsoper

Past events

Apr 12 - May 22, 2026

Women's Love and Death · Staatsoper Hamburg

1 - 19 Feb, 2026

Monster’s Paradise · Staatsoper Hamburg

About

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