Costume Designer

Hansel and Gretel, children of a poor broom maker and his wife, are sent into the woods one day by their mother to pick berries – as punishment for larking around instead of doing their chores. When their father arrives home bearing a bag full of treats after a successful working day, he berates his wife, because the woods are home to an evil witch. The parents set off to look for the kids, who have meanwhile filled their baskets but then eaten all the berries themselves out of sheer hunger. They also realise darkness has fallen and they’re lost, so they lie down for the night and say their prayers, falling asleep and having a strange and wonderful dream. In the morning they wake to see a cottage made of gingerbread and other sweetmeats. Nibbling at the house, they are surprised by the witch, who takes them captive, planning to bake the children in her oven. Instead, they play a trick on her and push her into her own oven. The spell is broken and all the children who had been transformed into gingerbread by the witch regain their human form. The pair’s parents appear and the reunited family returns home.

Hansel and Gretel

Deutsche Oper Berlin

Opéra-fantastique in five acts by Jacques Offenbach (1819-1880)
Libretto by Jules Paul Barbier after the drame fantastique of the same name
by Barbier and Michel Florentin Carré

EPSG:4326

Les Contes d’Hoffmann

Opernhaus Zürich

The outsider Herman loves Liza, who is engaged to Prince Yeletsky. Herman is a passionate gambler: he is desperate to win a fortune and reputation in order to win Liza’s heart. When he learns that her grandmother knows the secret of the three winning cards, fate takes its course.

Pique Dame

Staatsoper Hamburg

Romantic opera in three acts by Richard Wagner (1813-1883)
Libretto by the composer

Lohengrin

Never one to miss an opportunity to make fun of others, the hunchback jester Rigoletto is employed by the Duke of Mantua. His only joy in life is his daughter Gilda. When Rigoletto must witness how she falls for the calculated vows of love of the unscrupulous Duke, he is out for revenge: he hires the contract killer Sparafucile to murder the seducer. Gilda, however, sacrifices herself for her lover. Rigoletto realises that he has driven his daughter to death and destroyed his own life.

Rigoletto

While La Bohème consists only of poetry and not of action, it is said that with Tosca it is the other way around: only action, no poetry. Even the librettist Giuseppe Giacosa considered Sardou's original completely unsuitable for an opera. “What made Puccini come to terms with such a real and dealing with a brutal subject whose actors are little more than puppets entangled in a highly intelligent, cleverly designed plot? ”asked the music critic Mosco Carner. Maybe just that? For over 20 years Willy Decker's classic production of Puccini's Sex and Crime masterpiece has been a repertory perennial.

Tosca

The Staatstheater Stuttgart

Finnish soprano Camilla Nylund thrilled as Brünnhilde in the new Zurich Ring des Nibelungen, and now she returns to Zurich as Senta. Her stage partner here is Tomasz Koniezcny, who will sing the title role in this revival and who celebrated his own triumph in the Zurich Ring when he took the stage as Wotan. General Music Director Gianandrea Noseda, meanwhile, showed with the Zurich Ring that he is a fantastic Wagner conductor. He now takes over the musical direction of this revival production.

Der fliegende Holländer

This quote from Franz Kafka would be an apt subtitle for Britten's Billy Budd. The satanic officer Claggart succeeds in making the angelic and therefore guileless sailor Billy Budd, who is loved by everyone, innocently guilty and thus destroyed.









Billy Budd

Vienna State Opera

When the Norns weave the thread of fate at the beginning of Richard Wagner's "Götterdämmerung," the end of the world of the gods is already certain. The hero Siegfried falls victim to an intrigue at the court of the Gibichungs, and Brünnhilde resolves to return the Ring to the Rhinemaidens. The male principle, in its insane quest for power and dominance, has destroyed itself. Only the female can oppose the impending apocalypse and develop the saving power for a new beginning. In the final part of "The Ring of the Nibelung," Richard Wagner takes up the major threads of the tetralogy once again and combines them into an apotheosis. In Willy Decker's production of Richard Wagner's drama of humanity, everything is "theater within the theater," and so the abdicated god Wotan lets the curtain fall at the end.

Götterdämmerung (The Twilight of the Gods)

Semper Opera Dresden

Siegfried, the son of Sieglinde, who was saved in Die Walküre, and Siegmund, who was killed, grows up on the edge of the world with Alberich's brother Mime. Mime hopes that Siegfried will fight for the powerful ring for him. But the ignorant Siegfried turns against his foster father, and after he has taken the ring from the killed giant Fafner, he also kills Mime. Guided by a forest bird, he awakens the sleeping Brünnhilde. Now the two could save Wotan's world of gods – if love weren't stronger than political reason. »Siegfried« is the most theatrical part of Wagner's tetralogy »The Ring of the Nibelung«. Director Willy Decker therefore created his Dresden stage cosmos as a theater within a theatre. However, those who flaunt themselves on the stage and who take the position of observer

Siegfried

Semperoper Dresden

Nabucco

San Carlo Theatre

Hamburg State Opera

Julies Massenet’s much loved opera Werther moves between ecstasy and resignation, dream and reality, sensual desire and the longing for death. Central to this feverish drama, based on Goethe‘s 1774 epistolary novel, are Werther and his impossible love for Charlotte, who promised her dying mother to marry dependable Albert. Charlotte repeatedly turns Werther down, although she shares his feelings. It ends with Werther taking his life on Christmas Eve.

Costume Designer

Wolfgang Gussmann

Events

Upcoming events

Apr 29, 2025 - Mar 13, 2026

Pique Dame · Staatsoper Hamburg

Dec 11, 2025 - Jan 2, 2026

Hansel and Gretel · Deutsche Oper Berlin

18 - 31 Jan, 2026

Nabucco · Teatro di San Carlo

Feb 7 - Mar 13, 2026

Pique Dame · Staatsoper Hamburg

Mar 6 - Apr 17, 2026

Werther · Oper Frankfurt

Past events

Dec 11, 2025 - Jan 2, 2026

Hansel and Gretel · Deutsche Oper Berlin

Jun 28 - Jul 12, 2025

Les Contes d’Hoffmann · Opernhaus Zürich

About

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