Singer

Elsa of Brabant is suspected of having killed her younger brother Gottfried in the forest. When King Henry the Fowler asks Elsa to defend herself, she pleads for an imaginary knight to come to her aid. Suddenly, Lohengrin, the Knight of the Swan, appears. He promises to fight for Elsa, but makes her promise beforehand never to question him about his identity or provenance.

Lohengrin

Hamburg State Opera

Your own daughter’s hand as a prize in a singing competition – imagine that! There could hardly be a stronger sign of the belief in the systemic relevance of art. And indeed, goldsmith Veit Pogner, who offers his daughter Eva as a prize, is just one of many masters from Nuremberg for whom their art is more than just a nice-sounding sideline: it is no less than a community-building and society-improving force. In the Meistersinger, we encounter a group of utopians who are not interested in their origins or money, but in innovation and the future. Eva’s own attitude to the whole thing is, as so often, of secondary importance. She already knows who she would like to be sung by and who she would rather not. Wagner initially conceived Die Meistersinger as a comic opera, and so everything ends on a superficially happy note: at the end, Eva’s crush Stolzing wins the competition and the bride – an impoverished squire, of all people. The future comes from the past, not only in terms of the son-in-law’s origins, but also with regard to the end of the utopia: the whole thing culminates in the Meistersinger Hans Sachs, who mentored the Junker Stolzing to victory, being crowned King of Art: “Heil Sachs!” and glory to the holy German art. In Wagner’s works, the monstrous often peeps through the tiniest of cracks. With the Meistersinger, Elisabeth Stöppler and Cornelius Meister also tell a piece of German history and mentality between awakening and restoration and, in this German Midsummer Night's Dream (Elisabeth Stöppler), focus on the relationship between the generations and the question of why what was is perhaps also what will be.

The Mastersingers of Nuremberg

Stuttgart Opera

Rigoletto wants to protect his daughter Gilda from the abusive Duke at all costs – but his revenge turns into the cruelest of all defeats: It's not the Duke, but Gilda who falls victim. Is this the fulfillment of the gruesome curse imposed on Rigoletto at the beginning? Verdi combines the dark force of a revenge thriller with the tragedy of an unconditional, yet one-sided love – and at the same time creates an explosive political drama, which Jossi Wieler and Sergio Morabito bring to the fore in their production.

Rigoletto

Lydia Steier's production shows us three worlds: A dazzling vaudeville atmosphere in which Venus is at home - the first act. Then the cold, restrictive Wartburg world (Act 2) and an illusionless media landscape in Act 3. As a second level, Steier inserts a theatrical journey through time: It begins with the cult that does not separate audience from spectator, then the path leads to sensual baroque theater and ends up in the classic separate spectator-performer situation; finally, Steier leads us into a landscape in which isolation has taken hold and flashing screens draw attention to themselves. Until, in the final moments, she draws a line back to baroque theater.

Tannhäuser

Vienna State Opera

Rigoletto wants to protect his daughter by all means from the advances of the hated, encroaching Duke - but in the end he is struck by the tragic realization that his revenge has failed most horribly: instead of the Duke, his own daughter has fallen victim to him. Tenor Kai Kluge makes his debut as the Duke of Mantua, while Beate Ritter once again takes on the role of Gilda after the acclaimed series in the 2018/19 season. Devid Cecconi sings the title role. The young, internationally acclaimed Italian-Turkish conductor Nil Venditti is at the podium of the Staatsorchester Stuttgart.

EPSG:4326

The Staatstheater Stuttgart

Romantic opera in three acts by Richard Wagner (1813-1883)
Libretto by the composer

Opernhaus Zürich

Everything revolves around Hanna Glawari in Franz Lehár’s operetta Die lustige Witwe: She is emancipated, beautiful, clever and the heiress to 20 million... Vida Miknevičiūtė will bow in the title role in our revival of Barrie Kosky’s opulent production. The Lithuanian soprano began her distinguished career at the International Opernstudio at the Opernhaus Zürich. She can now be heard singing major Wagner and Strauss roles on stages including the Staatsoper Berlin and La Scala di Milano. She appeared as Lehár’s Hanna at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich. Making his Opernhaus debut at the podium of the Philharmonia Zürich is conductor Ben Glassberg, a young British conductor who has been Music Director at the Volksoper Wien since 2024

Die lustige Witwe

When Richard Wagner developed his initial ideas for Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg in the mid-1840s, he had no intention of writing a monumental "festive opera". The work was intended to be a facile comedy, a jovial and humorous satyr play to place alongside his Tannhäuser, since – like Tannhäuser – reflections on art and artists are its focus. More than two decades later, he had a musical score that was one of the most extensive and multi-layered of his entire repertoire, and that aroused controversy.

Baritone

Martin Gantner

Events

Past events

Mar 22 - Apr 11, 2026

Lohengrin · Staatsoper Hamburg

Feb 7 - Mar 22, 2026

The Mastersingers of Nuremberg · Staatsoper Stuttgart

Future and recently performed repertoire

Frederick of Telramund in Lohengrin by Wagner

Staatsoper Hamburg

Wolfram von Eschenbach in Tannhäuser by Wagner

Wiener Staatsoper

Rigoletto in Rigoletto by Verdi

Staatsoper Stuttgart

Hans Sachs in The Mastersingers of Nuremberg by Wagner

Staatsoper Stuttgart

About

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