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A REDISCOVERY - NATIONAL EPIC OR FAIRYTALE OPERA ABOUT THE FIGHT AGAINST EVIL?

Who is good and who is evil in this fairytale opera - and why? The nucleus of Pushkin's setting of Ruslan and Lyudmila by Mikhail Glinka is the abduction of the princess's daughter Lyudmila from Kiev, the center of both the Russian and Ukrainian founding myths. For Ruslan, the warrior promised to her, this marks the beginning of an adventurous journey through the magical realm of a powerful dwarf. The rescue operation escalates into a showdown between the men fighting for Lyudmila. But she herself increasingly becomes a distant vision of love - the longed-for prize for heroism. In 1842, in the midst of the awakening Russian national sentiment, Glinka conceived the idea of a culturally united tsarist empire, in which he merged Slavic, Finnish and Arabic melos with the bel canto fashion of his time.

Ruslan und Ljudmila

Hamburg State Opera

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

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.

EPSG:4326

Le Nozze di Figaro

Staatsoper Hamburg

Sir John Falstaff is an anarchist who obeys only the reign of his own enjoyment, an egoist who feeds only his power-hunger and his own flesh, and who would prefer to raze the small-minded morals of his contemporaries like the walls of a fortress – by seducing two women at the same time. Needless to say, his plan is thwarted, but those trying to expose him also fail to emerge unruffled from the confusion they unleash around him – which only the audience can keep track of, barely. “Tutto nel mondo è burla,” but these jokes are only funny because falling into the abyss actually does pose quite a serious risk. Arrigo Boito, the librettist of “Otello”, distilled a sophisticated, ingenious libretto from Shakespeare’s original, driving Verdi to highly complex compositional heights.

Falstaff

California in 1850: hundreds of thousands have fallen for the gold rush – and some of them also for the barkeeper Minnie, at whose saloon various fortune seekers meet every evening. Among them is Sheriff Jack Rance. Minnie, however, falls in love with the stranger Dick Johnson. It soon turns out that Johnson is a wanted robber: the sheriff wants to see him hang and have Minnie to himself. A round of poker is to decide about Dick’s life: is there yet another trump up Minnie’s sleeve?

La Fanciulla del West (The Girl of the West)

The poet E. T. A. Hoffmann as the protagonist of his own fantastic tales: In his encounter with three women - Olympia, Antonia, and Giulietta - he searches in vain for love for love and for himself. Will he draw the strength for art from his failure in life? art from his failures in life? Or will he fail in himself, even in alcohol? Like in a kaleidoscope, ever new constellations and shimmering colors constellations and shimmering colors German romanticism and French esprit.

Les Contes d'Hoffmann

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

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

The years between the death of Ivan the Terrible and the ascension of the Romanov family to the throne are known in Russia as the “Time of Troubles”. During this time, Boris Godunov strives to gain power with an iron determination. However, the ghosts of the past catch up with him and he dies a madman, abandoned and betrayed by everyone. In the meantime, the country sinks ever deeper into corruption, putsches and intrigue. A new “Time of Troubles” dawned during Modest Mussorgsky’s lifetime: the old order faltered and could not survive, everyone felt it. During a period of political upheaval and shaken by dramatic developments in his private life, Mussorgsky created a work about the arrogance of power and the eroticism of betrayal – as contradictory and fascinating as his personality itself.

Boris Godunov

Nagasaki, Japan, ca. 1900: Pinkerton, a lieutenant in the American navy, has fallen in love with Cio-Cio-San, also known as “Butterfly”. The Japanese ritual marriage ceremony is merely a farce to him – and shortly thereafter, Pinkerton’s “plaything” is alone again, with their child. Three years later, he returns to Japan, but not because of Butterfly...

Bass

Tigran Martirossian

Events

Upcoming events

Oct 13, 2024 - Jan 1, 2026

Tosca · Staatsoper Hamburg

Nov 9 - Dec 19, 2025

Ruslan und Ljudmila · Staatsoper Hamburg

Apr 16 - May 9, 2026

Madama Butterfly · Staatsoper Hamburg

Past events

Nov 9 - Dec 19, 2025

Ruslan und Ljudmila · Staatsoper Hamburg

Sep 28 - Oct 15, 2025

The Goose Girl · Staatsoper Hamburg

Future and recently performed repertoire

Sacristan / Cesare Angelotti in Tosca by Puccini

Staatsoper Hamburg

Master Luther / Crespel in The Tales of Hoffmann by Offenbach

Staatsoper Hamburg

Sonora in La Fanciulla del West by Puccini

Staatsoper Hamburg

Pistol in Falstaff by Verdi

Staatsoper Hamburg

The Count of Des Grieux in Manon by Massenet

Staatsoper Hamburg

Uncle Bonz in Madama Butterfly by Puccini

Staatsoper Hamburg

Pimen in Boris Godunov by Mussorgsky

Staatsoper Hamburg

Don Bartolo in Le nozze di Figaro by Mozart

Staatsoper Hamburg

king in The Goose Girl (Die Gänsemagd) by Stauch

Staatsoper Hamburg

Swetosar in Ruslan and Ludmila by Glinka

Staatsoper Hamburg

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