Prince Tamino falls head over heels in love with Princess Pamina when he receives her picture as a gift. Pamina's love for the Prince is awakened when she hears the tales of Papageno, the bird catcher, with whom she then sings a love duet, Papageno standing in for Tamino. However, these two children of royal blood have a few obstacles to surmount before they can be united. Fortunately there's always music in the meantime: Tamino is given a magic flute that can tame wild animals, and Papageno has a musical instrument, a glockenspiel of magic chimes.

The Fairy Tale of the Magic Fute

Deutsche Oper Berlin

The orchestra's academy students are young musicians who are starting their careers at our orchestra. Enthusiasm and the search for one's own path are characteristics that young people in particular bring with them. This freshness can also be found in the programme for the first chamber concert of the season: works by young composers show that the first steps in a musical career can be full of surprises. But we also show that a "young" or new perspective is not only found in young minds.

Chamber Music I: The young gaze

Imposing choruses and colossal tableaux accompany a story about intrigues, power play and an affair between stepmother and son in Ottorino Respighi’s last grand opera. Surrounded by political struggles, the figures become entangled in personal conflicts inextricably leading towards catastrophe and the cruel ending of a burning at the stake. For LA FIAMMA, Respighi created music going far beyond his illustrative-seeming “Trilogia romana” for which he is known in concert halls today. Yet in essence, the composer remained true to his colourful tonal language – the result is a musical amalgamation of French impressionism, influences of Russian music and a classicistic reimagining of Italian renaissance music. The archaic story and expansive dimensions of the operatic epos are reminiscent of the genre of the historical epic film, which was gaining popularity at the same time the opera was composed. This meant LA FIAMMA hit the nerve of the time, ensuring international success soon after its premiere. Over the course of decades, the work was slowly forgotten, yet the renowned critic and musicologist Paolo Isotta still praised LA FIAMMA in 2015 as a unique symbiosis of historicism and modernism, claiming its place among the 20th century’s masterworks of musical drama.

The flame

Georges Bizet’s titular heroine is as captivating a character as any in the history of opera. The different interpretations of Carmen are legion: we have the seductress, the personification of forbidden yearning, the standard bearer for the “eternally female” in the brutal battle of the sexes, the anarchist unfettered by bourgeois angst and compulsions, the archaic clairvoyante seeing her own death in the cards - yet free, as she does not dread her destiny. Few opera heroines are so open to interpretation and hence so able to serve as a mirror held up to society.

Carmen

After a day full of opera, backstage experiences, children's programmes, stage shows and more, arias and ensembles from premieres and revivals will be performed. You can look forward to our orchestra, the chorus, and many soloists who will get you in the mood for an exciting and musical season 24/25.

Season Opening Concert 24/25

Vienna, circa 1860. The financially strapped Count Waldner is lodging with his family in a Viennese hotel. His only path to solvency is for him to secure an advantageous marriage for one of his two daughters – and the family can only afford to present Arabella, the eldest, in the upper circles of society. To conceal the family’s indigence, the parents have raised Zdenka as a boy, dressing her accordingly. Arabella is not short of suitors but has resolved to wait for ‘Mr Right’. When Mandryka, an aristocrat from a distant region, arrives, he and Arabella are instantly smitten. Arabella only asks to be able to bid farewell to her friends and suitors at the Fasching ball that evening.

Arabella

In a courtyard of the Mycenaean palace servant girls speak disparagingly about Elektra. Elektra has not got over the murder of her father, Agamemnon, and the idea of revenge dominates her thoughts. Only one of the maidservants shows sympathy for her and is punished as a result. Elektra is yearning for the moment when vengeance will be hers and fully believes that it will come about by the actions of her brother, Orest, who was brought up in a distant region. Her sister, Chrysothemis, finds Elektra’s existence hard to bear and attempts to protect her from their mother, who has evil intentions. Chrysothemis wants to leave that awful place along with her sister so that they can live in freedom. Their mother Clytemnestra, who has been plagued by nightmares since she killed her husband, asks her daughter Elektra for help and while their conversation lasts it seems as if the two women might be reconciled. But Elektra’s hatred flares up again when Clytemnestra lies to her daughter over the whereabouts of her son, Orest. Elektra replies ambiguously to Clytemnestra’s question about the remedy for her anguish and fear, telling her mother that once the proper animal has been sacrificed under the axe her bad dreams will cease. Two strangers arrive and report the death of Orest. Elektra expresses her desire to ally with Chrysothemis in committing the deed, but her sister cannot contemplate such a thing. Determined to avenge herself, Elektra resolves: “Fine, then, I’ll do it alone!” One of the strangers moves closer to Elektra; shaken at the sight of her physical and emotional state, he allows her to see who he is: Orest. He exits to do the deed and presently Clytemnestra’s screams can be heard as she dies. Whereupon Elektra lures Aegisthus into the palace and he is killed by Orest as well. Agamemnon has been avenged. Nonetheless, Elektra stays in the palace feeling no sense of relief; she dances herself to death.

Elektra

The Antichrist makes his entrance into a godless world. Sent by Lucifer into the world, he adopts many guises. Mankind is tested and tempted by pride, lust, lies, despondency and hatred in an “all-against-all altercation”. Langgaard’s opera is suffused with fin de siècle atmosphere and pessimism, warning of catastrophe and denouncing the vices of the modern age: egotism, arrogance, frivolity. Langgaard, though, was also an optimist, convinced of the transformative, transcendental power of art and the importance of music as a thread connecting people to the godhead. So it is that the world is freed of all evil and sorrow in the culminating chorus scene in ANTIKRIST.

Antichrist

Strobe lighting is used during the performance. At the end of the performance, a shot with a blank cartridge sounds on stage.

Martina Baroni

Events

Upcoming events

Sep 1, 2024 - Jun 22, 2025

Carmen · Deutsche Oper Berlin

Nov 28, 2024 - Apr 15, 2025

The Fairy Tale of the Magic Fute · Deutsche Oper Berlin

7 - 20 Mar, 2025

Arabella · Deutsche Oper Berlin

Mar 22 - Apr 1, 2025

Elektra · Deutsche Oper Berlin

Apr 24 - May 2, 2025

Antichrist · Deutsche Oper Berlin

Past events

Nov 28, 2024 - Apr 15, 2025

The Fairy Tale of the Magic Fute · Deutsche Oper Berlin

Oct 23, 2024

Chamber Music I: The young gaze · Deutsche Oper Berlin

Future and recently performed repertoire

2nd maid in Elektra by Strauss

Deutsche Oper Berlin

fortuneteller in Arabella by Strauss

Deutsche Oper Berlin

Mercédès in Carmen by Bizet

Deutsche Oper Berlin

Despondency in Antikrist by Langgaard

Deutsche Oper Berlin

Polina in The Queen of Spades by Tchaikovsky

Deutsche Oper Berlin

Lucilla in La fiamma by Respighi

Deutsche Oper Berlin

About

Martina Baroni hasn't added a bio