Singer

Tired of the big city and its abundance of parties and women, the dandy Eugene Onegin travels to the countryside, where he meets Tatjana, the daughter of an estate owner. Dreaming of romantic love as described in books, she thinks she has found it in Onegin. However, he is unwilling to be tied down. After brusquely rejecting her, it is only years later that Onegin comes to understand his awful mistake and his lack of courage. Yet the realization comes too late: Tatjana has already become the wife of Prince Gremin. Tchaikovsky based his touching and intimate masterpiece from 1878 on the novel in verse by Alexander Pushkin. The opera not only illuminates the torn inner lives of the protagonists, but also the pitfalls of modern relationships. Markus Bothe breaks up the story's chronology using flashbacks of the various characters to create an allusive series of images in which memory, mood and the drama of the present flow seamlessly into one another.

Eugen Onegin

Semperoper Dresden

It is a finale that marks a new beginning: after four years and the acclaimed productions of Die Walküre , Siegfried and Götterdämmerung , artistic director Aron Stiehl and chief conductor Nicholas Milton will bring the Klagenfurt Ring to a close with Rheingold .

The Rhinegold

Stadttheater Klagenfurt

What would a child’s room say if it could talk? A boy goes on the rampage because he doesn’t want to do his homework; his mother, of course, blows her top. When the child vandalises his room and even torments his beloved cat, things take a surprising turn: suddenly, the mistreated furniture, cups, books and animals start to speak! And the child finds himself in a world in which he is forced to think about others.

Das Kind und der Zauberspuk / L’enfant et les sortilèges

»La traviata«–directly translated as »the one who has lost her way«–is, of course, the Parisian courtesan Violetta Valéry. Already dying from an incurable lung disease, she falls in love with Alfredo Germont. Yet her feelings are in conflict with her way of life and all sense of reason; ultimately, her quest for freedom and happiness is defeated by the moral strictures of bourgeois society. When first performed in Venice in 1853, this story was considered scandalous: an opera about a courtesan who dies of tuberculosis and is also modelled on a real-life woman in Parisian society was an outrageous inno-vation for the time. Focusing on the complex relationship between Violetta, her lover Alfredo and his father Giorgio, Giuseppe Verdi created a captivating and fully-rounded character, expressed through music that shifts between lyrical bel canto passages and powerful musico-dramatic outbursts. Director Barbora Horáková Joly places »La traviata« in the dazzling world of 19th-century vaudeville.

La traviata

What does it feel like when, in an instant, your life is turned upside down? That’s what happens to Christine, the wife of court music director Robert Storch. A misdelivered letter leads her to believe that her husband is betraying her in a most shameful manner. She goes on an emotional rollercoaster ride, and the story seems to be veering towards a tragic end ..

Intermezzo

A rich man has commissioned a young composer to write an opera for a celebration: Ariadne auf Naxos. But because this tragic opera about Ariadne, abandoned by her lover Theseus, isn't entertaining enough for him, he invites a troupe of comedians to perform their farces concurrently with the tragedy. This is an imposition for the composer, but also an opportunity: the grief of the abandoned Ariadne clashes with the joie de vivre of the comedienne Zerbinetta. In his production of the work, which premiered in 1916, David Hermann brings the world of Greek tragedy into contact with the lightness of French Rococo. "Ariadne auf Naxos" is an opera about opera, about fidelity and change, and about the transformative power of love.

Ariadne auf Naxos (Ariadne on Naxos)

»The Nose« is the stroke of genius of the just 22-year-old Dmitri Shostakovich based on the novel of the same name by Nikolai Gogol. While Gogol's novella is a satire on tsarist officials, the opera, which premiered in 1930, brings to the stage an entire society in which an opportunistic official falls into the clutches of bureaucracy, a nose becomes a media sensation, and the police closely monitor its citizens. With dance music, balaleika sounds, Russian church music and the first pure percussion piece in music history, »The Nose« is no less grotesque than the strange occurrences it tells: the nose of college assessor Kovalev suddenly disappeared for no reason.

The Nose

Semper Zwei

Le nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro)

‘The Bald Soprano is a parody of the theatre and thus, of course, a parody of certain human attitudes.

The Bald Soprano

La traviata –directly translated as »the one who has lost her way«–is, of course, the Parisian courtesan Violetta Valéry. Already dying from an incurable lung disease, she falls in love with Alfredo Germont. Yet her feelings are in conflict with her way of life and all sense of reason; ultimately, her quest for freedom and happiness is defeated by the moral strictures of bourgeois society. When first performed in Venice in 1853, this story was considered scandalous: an opera about a courtesan who dies of tuberculosis and is also modelled on a real-life woman in Parisian society was an outrageous inno-vation for the time. Focusing on the complex relationship between Violetta, her lover Alfredo and his father Giorgio, Giuseppe Verdi created a captivating and fully-rounded character, expressed through music that shifts between lyrical bel canto passages and powerful musico-dramatic outbursts. Director Barbora Horáková Joly places »La traviata« in the dazzling world of 19th-century vaudeville.

First performed in Dresden in 1924, Richard Strauss’s Intermezzo provides all manner of insights into his turbulent married life.

“How am I supposed to do that? I'm going mad!” On Fadinard’s wedding day, his horse eats the straw hat of a lady having a bit of fun with her lover in the bushes. But Anaide doesn’t dare return to her jealous husband Beaupertuis without her new Florentine hat: she simply has to get hold of a new one! An odyssey full of hijinks begins, taking Fadinard across the length and breadth of Paris ...

Bass

Martin-Jan Nijhof

Events

Upcoming events

Mar 24 - Apr 1, 2026

The Bald Soprano · Semperoper Dresden

Mar 28 - Apr 28, 2026

La traviata · Semperoper Dresden

23 - 30 Apr, 2026

Intermezzo · Semperoper Dresden

May 31 - Jun 29, 2026

The Italian Straw Hat · Semperoper Dresden

Past events

3 - 11 Jul, 2025

Eugen Onegin · Semperoper Dresden

May 8 - Jun 13, 2025

The Rhinegold · Stadttheater Klagenfurt

Future and recently performed repertoire

Dottore Grenvil in La traviata by Verdi

Semperoper Dresden

A judicial councilor in Intermezzo by Strauss

Semperoper Dresden

Ein Justizrat in Intermezzo by Strauss

Semperoper Dresden

Truffaldin in Ariadne auf Naxos by Strauss

Semperoper Dresden

A Doctor in The Nose by Shostakovich

Semperoper Dresden

Dottore Grenvil in La traviata by Verdi

Semperoper Dresden

WOTAN in Das Rheingold by Wagner

Stadttheater Klagenfurt

Figaro in Le nozze di Figaro by Mozart

Semperoper Dresden

The fire chief in The Bald Soprano by Chailly

Semperoper Dresden

A Corporal in The Italian Straw Hat by Rota

Semperoper Dresden

About

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