“No human dies for himself alone. One dies for others. Maybe some die instead of others. Who knows?“ (Sœur Constance in Dialogues des Carmélites). Few operas focus on the confrontation with one’s own mortality as much as Francis Poulenc’s opera about an order of Carmelite nuns in the turmoil of the French Revolution, which premiered in 1957. The story revolves around the young Blanche, who – plagued by severe anxiety since birth – finds shelter in a convent. But the time of security ends abruptly when the Revolutionary Committee breaks up the convent and forbids the community from practicing its rites. The sisters swear themselves to martyrdom, but Blanche’s fear of death drives her to flee. Eventually she manages to overcome herself: As she follows her sisters to the scaffold, her fear is extinguished in the face of death. In her production of this hybrid of thriller, discourse opera and holy mass, director Ewelina Marciniak, known for her feminist readings, focuses on the dynamics of a community of women struggling for communication and humanity in the midst of terror. And even if the supernatural “Salve Regina“ of the Carmelite nuns on the scaffold leaves no doubt that this opera is a fervent profession of faith by the Catholic Poulenc, the nuns’ willingness to make sacrifices raises questions: where are the boundaries between solidarity, faith and fundamentalism? How lonely is it to die in our secularized contemporary world? Under the musical direction of Cornelius Meister, Poulenc’s powerful music becomes a unique event.

Dialogues des Carmélites

Stuttgart Opera

In the midst of the French Revolution, a group of nuns fight for their self-determination, their faith and against the fear of death.

Semperoper Dresden

In the fairytale forest, we encounter the familiar figures of the poor siblings who have lost their way as well as the Gingerbread Witch. The story comes to a head in the famous edible house, which is sweet on the outside but a death trap within. In 1893 Engelbert Humperdinck transformed the tale by the Brothers Grimm into a work which is probably the most famous fairy-tale opera in the repertoire.

Hansel and Gretel

RISE AND FALL OF THE CITY OF MAHAGONNY in Benedikt von Peter's production will take place in the foyers and on the stage - guests can move freely between the venues and video screens. There will be free choice of seating, including on mattresses.

Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny

Deutsche Oper Berlin

Opera in three acts by Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897–1957)
Libretto by Paul Schott (Julius and Erich Wolfgang Korngold) after the novel
«Bruges la morte» by Georges Rodenbach

EPSG:4326

Die tote Stadt

Opernhaus Zürich

Long after the Paris world premiere in 1896 Oscar Wilde’s tragedy “Salomé” remained a thorn in the flesh of the establishment across Europe. In Wilhelminian Germany and the Danube Monarchy, too, official art adjudicators considered the subject “repulsive” and the text “an insult to morality”. In the minds of the guardians of public morals the New Testament story of Herod’s daughter was as ill-suited to the stage as it was to pictorial representation, which was experiencing a boom at the time. Salomé’s stepfather, Herod, the Roman’s client king of Judea, Galilee and Samaria who is said to have ordered the massacre of the innocents around Bethlehem, persuades her to dance for him. Encouraged by her mother, she demands to be given the head of John the Baptist as a reward.

Salome

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

Bebelplatz

In the early 1930s, for Richard Strauss — approaching 70 — it was an auspicious moment when Stefan Zweig, a renowned author known for his artful, profound novels and plays, proposed writing a new libretto. In a mutually inspiring collaboration, they created a truly “comic opera” based on a play by Ben Jonson from the Shakespeare period filled not only with striking characters, tempo, and wit, but profound reflection as well. “The opera is a perfect, but perhaps for the twenty-first century,” according to Strauss himself, who in a difficult, dark time created a work of creative compositional virtuosity and a relaxed sense of humor, a story of people longing for rest or who lose themselves in busyness. This will be director Jan Philipp Gloger’s debut and it will be Christian Thielemann’s first new production as general music director, a position once held by Strauss himself.

Evelyn Herlitzius

Events

Upcoming events

9 - 29 May, 2026

Die schweigsame Frau · Staatsoper Berlin

Past events

Mar 29 - Apr 18, 2026

Dialogues des Carmélites · Staatsoper Stuttgart

Jan 31 - Feb 23, 2026

Dialogues des Carmélites · Semperoper Dresden

Future and recently performed repertoire

The Knusperhexe in Hansel and Gretel by Humperdinck

Semperoper Dresden

Madame de Croissy in Dialogues of the Carmelites by Poulenc

Staatsoper Stuttgart

Herodias in Salome by Strauss

Deutsche Oper Berlin

Leokadja Begbick in Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny by Weill

Deutsche Oper Berlin

The Knusperhexe in Hansel and Gretel by Humperdinck

Semperoper Dresden

Madame de Croissy in Dialogues des Carmélites by Poulenc

Semperoper Dresden

Seine Haushälterin in Die schweigsame Frau by Strauss

Staatsoper Berlin

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