Even a rich prince can be quite poor sometimes. The noble Don Ramiro finds out about this when his search for a bride takes him to the house of the notoriously penniless Don Magnifico. His daughters don't give the visitor, disguised as a simple servant, a second glance. It's a good thing that Ramiro finds a sympathetic heart in the unloved stepsister Angelina, known as Cenerentola... Gioachino Rossini composed some of his most beautiful melodies for his turbulent musical theater version of the charming “Cinderella”. Jean-Pierre Ponnelle's legendary production, which has been enchanting audiences since 1974, is as effervescently cheerful as Rossini's light-hearted score.

Cinderella

German Oper am Rhein

“What is the price of paradise and who has to pay for it?” asks Belgian choreographer Stina Quagebeur in her new creation "Omelas", which is based on a dystopian short story by Ursula K. Le Guin. Intuitive and urgent, in a composition of organ sound and orchestral force, abstract and narrative at the same time, she creates a journey at the pulse of today.

Orgel­Passion

In order to foil Alberich’s bid for power, the ruler of the gods Wotan has fathered nine Valkyries, who have the task of gathering an army of fallen heroes for him and bringing them to Valhalla. His intention is that his son Siegmund, conceived from a relationship with a mortal woman, will be the free-born hero who wins back the ring for him. However, Siegmund unwittingly upsets Wotan’s plan by falling in love with his twin sister Sieglinde, a union that gives birth to Siegfried. When Wotan’s favourite daughter Brünnhilde disobeys her father’s order to seal Siegmund’s downfall out of compassion, he banishes her to the rock of fire from which only the strongest hero will be able to rescue her. This will be Siegfried.

The Valkyrie

Theater Duisburg

At the center of the tripple bill is David Dawson's award-winning classic about an intangible yet hopeful state between the end and a new beginning: “The Grey Area” seems to defy gravity and dynamically celebrates the beauty of the very moment.

Grey Area

Three riddles must be solved by anyone who wants to marry the beautiful and ice-cold Princess Turandot. Anyone who fails them will be punished with death. But Prince Kalaf, who is unknown in the kingdom, passes the trial. Turandot desperately searches for a way to escape marriage to the much-hated man... With “Nessun dorma”, Puccini created one of the most famous tenor arias in opera literature. For the Taiwanese director Huan-Hsiung Li, Puccini's opera is a fairy tale, which he tells in the form of a dream that drifts back to the ancient Yuan dynasty.

Turan­dot

While the grimy back yards of the Weimar Republic were filled with unemployed singers practicing their skills in the hope of earning enough for a warm meal, night after night the revue theatres of the Kurfürstendamm would present glittering golden dreams to an audience of millions hungry for entertainment. Amid the glitz of the roaring 1920s, the fame of the Comedian Harmonists burned especially brightly: modelled on the American vocal quartet The Revelers, the six-strong ensemble made up of Ari Leschnikoff, Erich Abraham-Collin, Harry Frommermann, Roman Cycowski, Robert Biberti and pianist Erwin Bootz thrilled German audiences with mixture of sassy and entertaining lyrics set to the latest music and sung in perfect close harmony. With hits such as “Veronika, der Lenz ist da”, “Ein Freund, ein guter Freund” and “Wochenend und Sonnenschein” they conquered the concert halls of Europe at record speed and thanks to the modern mass medium of gramophone records they soon became a fixture in living rooms across Germany.

Come­dian Harmo­nists – Best of

Tell me, Pinocchio, what are you saying? You've seen people turn into donkeys? You sat in the belly of a whale? And you've met the blue fairy, who is the very best anyway? You're teasing us! Don't you know that lies have short legs? Uh... Pinocchio, wait a minute! That can't be true! You made up all these stories!

Pinoc­chio

An ambitious local politician is talked into building a spaceport by an oligarch – to help his city - and perhaps himself - achieve new greatness. And yet Gabriel von Eisenstein actually has other problems: He is due to start a prison sentence tomorrow for disorderly conduct. But why face reality? Eisenstein prefers to follow the advice of his friend Dr. Falke and have a good time before starting his prison sentence - and thus falls into a net of intrigue in which quite a few honorable personalities stand to lose their good reputation.

The bat

Tradition is meant to be flipped upside down - this is the view of milkman Tevje's three daughters, who would rather take their luck into their own hands than rely on the expertise of a matchmaker Jente. They drive their father to despair and shake up his world; a world in which not only the laws of the family are challenged, but the entire existence in the shtetl is so endangered that escaping and exile become a reality. Jerry Bock contrasts the melancholy of forlornness with a life-affirming verve.

Ana­tevka

Tell me, Pinocchio, what are you saying? You've seen people turn into donkeys? You sat in the belly of a shark? And you've met the blue fairy, who is the very best anyway? You're teasing us! Don't you know that lies have short legs? Uh... Pinocchio, wait a minute! That can't be true! You made up all these stories!

Pinocchio

Katerina Ismailova is wealthily married and lonely, her husband impotent and her father-in-law a tyrant. She is trapped in a world where merciless brutality, despotism and cruelty reign. The woman with a lust for life and love gives way to her raw longing for freedom when Sergei starts working for the Ismailov family. She throws herself into a passionate affair with him and poisons her father-in-law's food. But the increasing radicalism of her desire for self-determination will claim further victims ...

Lady Macbeth von Mzensk

Cenerentola is poor: the ill will of her stepfamily makes her life difficult. But unlike in fairy tales, her transformation from Cinderella to a beautiful lady whom Prince Ramiro chooses as his wife is part of a turbulent comedy in which wit and disguise play a major role. For the prince also disguises himself in his search for a bride in order to win over the lady of his heart without being recognised. "La Cenerentola" is considered a masterpiece in the field of opera buffa, and to this day its scenic elegance and humour shine in splendid beauty, carried by spiritedly dazzling music

La Cenerentola

Violetta Valéry is beautiful, clever, warm-hearted - and terminally ill. Her life as a noble courtesan is preordained. There is no room for private happiness, not even for her love for the young Alfredo Germont, who conquers her heart and wants to save her from the vicious circle of venal love into a carefree private sphere. There she meets her doom in the shape of Alfredo's father Giorgio Germont....

La travi­ata

A chalk circle, a child in the centre. Each child's arm is pulled by a woman who claims to be the mother. "The right mother will have the right strength," says Prince Pao - it will be the one who lets go of her child so as not to tear it apart. By the time Haitang is able to hold her child in her arms again, she has an odyssey of injustice under her belt. Abandoned, sold, mistreated, slandered and convicted of murder, it is nothing short of a miracle that justice unexpectedly receives strong intercession here.

Volker Weinhart

Events

Past events

Apr 26 - Jul 17, 2026

Cinderella · Deutsche Oper am Rhein

Mar 10 - Jun 6, 2026

OrgelPassion · Deutsche Oper am Rhein

About

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