Which sounds evoke feelings of home in us? What music do we associate with the places where we have lived our lives? Can a rummaged-out LP sleeve, a cassette box, an aging CD bring memories to life across countries and generations? With questions like these in mind, Croatian composer Sara Glojnarić started a “sound archive of the future“ two years ago as a collection of material for her compositions. In personal conversations and listening sessions with people who have settled in the Stuttgart area since the 1950s, she has since uncovered long-forgotten memories and created an intergenerational songbook of the city: “I want to start where the history books stop – to tell the story in all its splendor, humor and realness. From the perspective of an insider who understands this very special feeling of an emotional balancing act between what we call home and where we are now.“ In a team with Bosnian writer Tanja Šljivar and director Anika Rutkofsky, Glojnarić weaves these immigration stories full of nostalgia and dreams, tragedy and comedy, rituals and linguistic diversity into a poetic-surreal mixtape opera. Together, they take us on a kind of road trip along the former Europastraße 5, a nightly transit route that forms a bridge between the cultural identities of Germany and south-eastern Europe and at the same time symbolizes the longing for belonging. An opera about the timeless utopian power of music as cultural memory. An opera about Stuttgart and from Stuttgart, composed for the state orchestra and ensemble of the Staatsoper Stuttgart, including Goran Jurić and Diana Haller, whose personal musical memories of the journey to Stuttgart will be experienced on stage as flashbacks.

Station Paradiso

Stuttgart Opera

“Exuberant, loud and over-the-top: it’s showtime in the orchestra pit“, as one journalist put it after the premiere in December 2024. And the stage design and costumes continue the theme – albeit with slightly ironic opulence. Casanova is the title of a revue operetta by composers Johann Strauss and Ralph Benatzky. Eric Charell, the “revue king“ of his time, staged the world premiere at Großes Schauspielhaus in Berlin in 1928. However, the real hero of the Stuttgart production is not so much Casanova himself, but the character of Barberina, who is embodied on stage by two different artists. She takes over the show and leads us through an evening which centers also on female desire and the lustful play with identities and images of masculinity, femininity and the in-between.

Casanova

Fyodor Dostoyevsky was certain that the secret to winning was surprisingly simple: “to control oneself every minute, regardless of the ups and downs of the game, and not to fall into passion.” Despite this knowledge, Dostoyevsky gambled away all his money and that of his lover at the roulette tables of German health resorts - gambling was forbidden elsewhere - which brought them both to the brink of destitution. Nevertheless, he capitalized on his experiences of loss: in 1866, he freed himself from an extortionate publishing contract with the novel The Gambler, which he wrote under great pressure. And on top of that, he delivered a study of his own (gambling) obsessions.

Stine Marie Fischer

Events

Past events

May 10 - Jun 21, 2026

Station Paradiso · Staatsoper Stuttgart

Apr 2 - Jun 12, 2026

Casanova · Staatsoper Stuttgart

Future and recently performed repertoire

Comedian Harmonists in Casanova by Strauss

Staatsoper Stuttgart

Trude in Casanova by Strauss

Staatsoper Stuttgart

Mlle. Blanche in The Gambler by Prokofiev

Staatsoper Stuttgart

About

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