The Viennese aristocracy are no strangers to family feuds: boorish Baron Ochs auf Lerchenau interrupts the morning tête-à-tête between his cousin, the Marschallin, and her young lover Octavian, to ask for her help with his wedding plans, which are steered more by financial gain than love. Ochs does not suspect that Octavian himself, who is chosen to deliver the engagement rose, will eventually fall in love with the bride.

Der Rosenkavalier

Bebelplatz

Like a call issuing from a mythical distant past, Richard Strauss’ Elektra summons the magic of eerie gloom and archaic brutality. An almost inevitable 'tremendous increase to the very end' (Strauss) in musical tension plunges the listener deep into Electra’s world, which is shaped by grief, pain, and thirst for vengeance. Humiliated and tormented by her family, Electra, the daughter of the king of Mycenae, devotes her life to a single obsessive goal: day in and day out, she invokes the memory of her father, who was murdered treacherously by her mother Clytemnestra and Clytemnestra’s lover Aegisthus, and she waits for the return of her brother Orestes, who is supposed to avenge his father’s murder. The deed must be paid back in kind. Vacillating between hatred, hysteria, weakness, hubris, deep sadness, obsession and sarcasm, Electra has lost every connection to the people around her. She is unkempt and has rejected her femininity.

Elektra

Librettist Jaroslav Kvapil used various fairy tales and myths as a source for his psychological and symbolist text. Antonín Dvořák’s opulent and dazzling score, which turned out to be his first operatic success, is a true feat of composition whose complex subject matter is open to a wide range of interpretations. Kornél Mundruzcó, who recently staged the opera Sleepless by Peter Eötvös, which was awarded the Staatsoper "Premiere of the Year", emphasises the relevance of the material today in his interpretation. The piece is a drama about a woman’s soul as well as a modern fairy tale that raises questions about identity and physicality.

Undine

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.

EPSG:4326

Falstaff

Staatsoper Hamburg

In the spirit of romanticism, the young Richard Wagner shaped the legend of the Flying Dutchman into an opera of bold music and irrepressible force. It is a dark and mysterious tale, the atmosphere of which Wagner captured so succinctly in his striking score. He unleashes forces of nature in the orchestra, while echoing folkloric music in the chorus, and the solo scenes, duets and ensembles are highly expressive. Dream and reality blur; imagination and reality can barely be distinguished. Since the Dresden premiere in 1843, The Flying Dutchman has sailed across the opera stages of the world, and has often laid anchor in Berlin. This production by Philipp Stölzl presents Wagner’s work as a colourful pirate story and an adventurous spiritual journey with some surprising twists and turns.

Anna Kissjudit

Events

Upcoming events

Jan 19 - Feb 1, 2025

Der Rosenkavalier · Staatsoper Berlin

Jan 26 - Feb 14, 2025

Elektra · Staatsoper Berlin

9 - 27 Feb, 2025

Undine · Staatsoper Berlin

3 - 10 Apr, 2025

Falstaff · Staatsoper Hamburg

4 - 16 May, 2025

Der fliegende Holländer · Staatsoper Berlin

Future and recently performed repertoire

Mrs. Quickly in Falstaff by Verdi

Staatsoper Hamburg

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