Actor

Singer

Forget everything you think you know about Wagner! Kent Nagano, the Dresden Festival Orchestra, and Concerto Köln are setting new standards with their performance of the Ring cycle. For the first time ever, this monumental project is being heard in a historically informed interpretation. Just as in Wagner’s own day, the string players use gut strings; the wind instruments are reconstructed based on 19th-century models; the orchestra’s tuning is lower; and the text is at times declaimed rather than traditionally “sung.” Suddenly everything becomes intelligible — and at times it almost recalls the delivery of art song. Working with an international research team, Nagano has brought surprising insights to light. The result is striking. “Light and airy” is how Jan Brachmann described this Wagner in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung; in particular, the winds impress “with sharper definition in their individual colors: they creak, belch, and grunt with a kind of unruly physicality.” With Götterdämmerung, the Ring comes full circle this summer. And once more we have the chance to experience Wagner’s music as he himself most likely heard it.

EPSG:4326

Dresden Festival Orchestra | Concerto Köln | Dresden Festival Choir of the Richard Wagner Academy | Kent Nagano | Soloists

KKL Luzern Concert Hall

Few works have slipped from the programmes of German-language opera houses to the extent experienced by the operas of Albert Lortzing. Where works such as THE POACHER, THE ARMOURER and UNDINE were still fixtures in the repertoire only thirty years ago, they have now all but vanished from the calendars of theatre venues. Not even Lortzing’s greatest triumph, his comedy of errors CSAR AND CARPENTER (1837), has escaped the neglect – and this despite old chestnuts like the “Clog Dance” and the aria “Lebe wohl, mein flandrisch Mädchen.” Doubly surprising if you consider that this tale of Tsar Peter the Great, who strikes up a friendship with an army deserter with the exact same name while acquiring the skills of a carpenter incognito in a Dutch shipyard, was arguably one of the best musical comedies of its time, with Lortzing’s protagonists retaining all their relatable flaws and yearnings in the face of all their ups and downs. The young deserter, who just wants a quiet life, the feisty Marie, who’s determined to decide her own path, the Tsar with his thinly veiled leanings to violent domination, and van Bett as the mayor and a loveable caricature of a German bigwig… all these characters confer a timeless humanity on the comedy.

Csar and Carpenter

Deutsche Oper Berlin

Artistic Director Elisabeth Linton and Principal Conductor Marie Jacquot lead a new production of Richard Strauss’s lavish opera.

In Der Rosenkavalier, satire, comedy, melancholy, and romance merge with dazzling music. The Royal Danish Opera’s Artistic Director, Elisabeth Linton, stages the production, with Principal Conductor Marie Jacquot leading the orchestra.

Der Rosenkavalier

Royal Danish Opera

Verdi's most monumental work, full not only of sadness but also of Italian drama, is one of the most demanding vocal-instrumental works, requiring truly top performers such as conductor Tomáš Brauner, soprano Krassimira Stoyanova, Ester Pavlů or Pavel Černoch.

Verdi – Requiem

Municipal House

In a villa by the sea in a summer resort, where Figaro is on holiday, emotions run high, old grudges are settled, and intrigues spun. At the end of this "great day", however, there is forgiveness. Once again, love triumphs and everyone is happy – the Count and Countess, Figaro and Susanna, Bartolo and Marcellina, and even Cherubino, who had hitherto stirred everything up.

The Marriage of Figaro

Bebelplatz

The opera DER ROSENKAVALIER leads into the bedroom of a princess and straight into the intimate conversation with her youthful lover. Inspired by the ancient tragedy ELEKTRA, Richard Strauss and the poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal envisioned something entirely new: a comedy for music. Cheerful, light, and elegant, conciliatory yet profound in its emotions and thoughts – and, of course, Austrian in its burlesque wit while at the same time touched by melancholy reflection. Thus the authors created the famous figure of the Field Marshal's wife, Princess Werdenberg who bears the first name Marie-Thérèse for good reason and entrusted her with the leading role in the opera DER ROSENKAVALIER, premiered in 1911.

Actor, Singer

Patrick Zielke

Events

Upcoming events

Sep 27 - Dec 20, 2026

Der Rosenkavalier · Oper Köln

Past events

Sep 10, 2026

Dresden Festival Orchestra | Concerto Köln | Dresden Festival Choir of the Richard Wagner Academy | Kent Nagano | Soloists · Lucerne Festival

Jun 20 - Jul 11, 2026

Csar and Carpenter · Deutsche Oper Berlin

Future and recently performed repertoire

Hagen in Götterdämmerung by Wagner

Lucerne Festival

Singer in Requiem by Verdi

Prague Symphony Orchestra

Baron Ochs in Der Rosenkavalier by Strauss

Royal Danish Opera

Baron Ochs of Lerchenau in Der Rosenkavalier by Strauss

Oper Köln

van Bett in The Czar and the Carpenter by Lortzing

Deutsche Oper Berlin

About

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