Singer

“Lie to me, I promise, I’ll believe”. Is a seducer always a cheat? Or is he himself being cheated on in return? Don Giovanni is the incarnation of the irresistible lover; a man who lightheartedly rushes from one conquest to another, who refuses to submit to any kind of moral claims on his person and who pays for his freedom with an incapability of forming an honest relationship with a woman or another person. Even his numerous mistresses are not really in love with Don Giovanni himself, but only make use of him as a mirrored image to project their own different needs.

Don Giovanni

Stuttgart Opera

"I no longer have time to think about myself. In no year have I worked as much mentally as in this one," wrote the composer Leoš Janáček while he was working on The Cunning Little Vixen . The composition absorbed him completely, so meticulously did he try to translate the sounds of nature and the animal world into music. Janáček got the inspiration for the story about a young vixen who comes into contact with the human world from a newspaper comic. Nevertheless, The Cunning Little Vixen is not a playful fairytale opera, on the contrary. Two worlds collide, that of the animals and that of the humans. The community around the forester and his family as well as the other villagers is cruel and at the same time full of longing for a better life - but who has the answer to the question of what a real life is like? When the forester and the vixen meet in the forest, nature and apparent civilization come face to face. Thus, The Cunning Little Vixen explicitly shows no cute anecdotes about animals, but a pragmatic, uncompromising world in which it is all about survival. And yet there is room for the love between vixen and fox. Janáček succeeds in sounding out the animal in man and the human in the animal, thus holding up a mirror to us. Almost 101 years to the day after its premiere in Brno in 1924, Stephan Kimmig now turns his attention to an opera full of contrasts and the longing to find a place where one can live free of rules, following Der Prinz von Homburg and Das Rheingold . But does this place even exist?

The Cunning Little Vixen

Gioachino Rossini is famous above all for his operas—from "The Barber of Seville" to "William Tell" to "Cenerentola." However, the Italian composer declared his extremely successful operatic career over when he was barely 40 years old. Numerous short works followed, and, as a kind of crowning achievement, the "Petite messe solennelle." Thomas Hengelbrock and the Balthasar Neumann Ensembles, equally outstanding in opera and sacred music, are the perfect cast for this setting of the mass, which the composer, with typical self-irony, describes as "small."

EPSG:4326

Rossini: Little Solemn Mass / Thomas Hengelbrock

Elbphilharmonie Hamburg

Israel in Egypt – Escape to Exile I

Saanen Church

Opening Concert – Israel in Egypt – Escape to Exile I

"Let us sing, let us laugh, there is no other way. The world and hardship are the same, no one is free from torment," says Mozart's unfinished work, a tragic love story named after the slave Zaide and set in Turkey. In Mozart's great operatic oeuvre, "Turkishness," and thus the confrontation between Orient and Occident, occupies a considerable space. Alongside elements in "Così fan tutte" and "The Magic Flute," exoticisms are particularly prominent in Mozart's first German Singspiels, "The Abduction from the Seraglio" and the preceding "Zaide." But "Turkishness" in his Singspiel certainly does not come from Turkey. Director Jessica Glause, together with a select ensemble of young Mozart voices from the Stuttgart State Opera, explores the extent to which foreignness and inclusion can be influenced by music.

ZAIDE

Ludwigsburg Residential Palace

Not all great works are completed: in 1781, the year of the premiere of his Idomeneo , WA Mozart broke off work on his “serious German Singspiel” Zaide , the first attempt at an exoticizing “Turkish opera”, which was followed by the “ light-hearted” Abduction from the Seraglio . But what exactly does “the Turkish” want in it and where does it come from? (Certainly not from Turkey!) Director Jessica Glause uses the surviving Zaide material in Ludwigsburg's Schlosstheater to ask who actually formulates an “us and the others” against the backdrop of which tradition. The history of European musical theater is closely interwoven with the justifying legends of colonialism and racism, ie the arbitrary division of humanity into superior and inferior. Cultures represented as “foreign” through the supposedly neutral standard of the Central European lens have thus been projected into weak, sexualized female figures or despotic ragers again and again over four centuries.

Zaide

Ludwigsburg Palace

The Austrian music band Franui sees itself as a "transformer station between classical and folk music, jazz and contemporary chamber music". In order to release that resulting energy in Stuttgart, Franui has taken on the greatest hits of the so-called "silver operetta" – those works whose composers were driven out of Germany by the National Socialists (Nazis). Experiences of exile and loss, dreams and hopes connect the fates of composers like Paul Abraham with the characters in Joseph Roth's novel Hotel Savoy. Displaced persons without hope or money, soldiers, evil profiteers, real and fake artists and prostitutes have taken up residence in the hotel and await the arrival of billionaire Bloomfield from America – as of the Messiah. But Bloomfield has something completely different in mind than saving the hotel or its illustrious guests ...

Hotel Savoy

Schauspiel Stuttgart

By the middle of the 19th Century, the figure of Salome, a woman who enforced her erotic desires by using lethal violence, had developed into both – incarnation of female ferocity and symbol for pure eroticism – in short to the most important Christian-mythological female figure within the world of music and literature. It resembles an ecstatic dance on the verge of a precipice which finally evolved into a symbol of decadence: Until today, the opera has not lost any of its equally fascinating and disturbing power.

Salome

The Staatstheater Stuttgart

A material that is as popular as it is ambivalent and evokes countless associations with one word: Casanova! Just one day after Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill had launched probably the theater sensation of the Weimar Republic with the Threepenny Opera in what would later become the Berliner Ensemble, director and choreographer Erik Charell followed suit right next door in the predecessor of the Friedrichstadtpalast. The capital’s press was enthusiastic: “Casanova is a great success. It means the resurrection of the operetta!” (Der Montag). The “electrifying music of Johann Strauss” (Berliner Tageblatt) was not only rearranged by Ralph Benatzky, but also electrified – by “the new instrument vibraphone”, as announced in the program booklet for the premiere.

Casanova

Jean-Philippe Rameau's ballet opera »Platée« is one of the most unusual music theater works of the 18th century. The comedy, which premiered in 1745, tells the story of the nymph Platée, who believes that every man must fall in love with her immediately. The supreme god Jupiter takes advantage of Platée's need for love: in order to convince his own wife Juno of his loyalty, he stages his absurd marriage to the nymph from the swamp. In »Platée«, Rameau parodies the great French opera and at the same time presents the court society of his time as a collection of unscrupulous opportunists. His music with its onomatopoeic effects, rousing dances and unusual sounds is among the best that this composer has written. In Dresden, where »Platée« can be experienced for the first time, star tenor Rolando Villazón has re-staged the work. The conductor Paul Agnew of the French baroque ensemble "Les Arts Florissants" has appeared on stage as a singer countless times as a platée.

Platée (Platea)

Semperoper Dresden

A coming of age story and a story of love: The Queen of the Night persuades Prince Tamino to rescue her daughter Pamina from captivity under the high priest Sarastro. Tamino, who instantly falls in love with Pamina, is ready to set off. Involuntarily, bird catcher Papageno is also sent along with Tamino – as companion to the prince. After various trials of initiation, courage and perseverance Tamino and Papageno not only find their station in life as adults, but also each the woman to their hearts’ content: Tamino gains the hand of Pamina and Papageno lives happily ever after with his Papagena. We show the legendary Magic Flute of the Komische Oper Berlin, which director Barrie Kosky staged with the theater video art collective "1927" in an astonishing video animation world for the whole family.

The Magic Flute

Moritz Kallenberg presents a recital program in the foyer of the opera house, accompanied by Rita Kaufmann on the piano.

Tenor

Moritz Kallenberg

Events

Upcoming events

Nov 9 - Dec 10, 2025

The Cunning Little Vixen · Staatsoper Stuttgart

Dec 4, 2025 - Feb 5, 2026

Don Giovanni · Staatsoper Stuttgart

Jan 4 - Jun 28, 2026

The Magic Flute · Staatsoper Stuttgart

May 18, 2026

5. Song Recital · Staatsorchester Stuttgart

Past events

Dec 4, 2025 - Feb 5, 2026

Don Giovanni · Staatsoper Stuttgart

Nov 9 - Dec 10, 2025

The Cunning Little Vixen · Staatsoper Stuttgart

Future and recently performed repertoire

Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni by Mozart

Staatsoper Stuttgart

Singer in Zaide by Mozart

Staatsoper Stuttgart

Narraboth in Salome by Strauss

Staatsoper Stuttgart

Tamino in The Magic Flute by Mozart

Staatsoper Stuttgart

Singer in Israel in Egypt by Handel

Gstaad Menuhin Festival

Mercure in Platée by Rameau

Semperoper Dresden

Schoolmaster / Mosquito in The Cunning Little Vixen by Janáček

Staatsoper Stuttgart

Von Hohenfels in Casanova by Strauss

Staatsoper Stuttgart

About

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