Singer

Jay Scheib translates Wagner's religious masterpiece into a contemporary, often abstract visual language, questioning traditional rituals and symbolism.

EPSG:4326

Parsifal

Bayreuth Festival Theatre

Storm and thunder, unbridled passion, incest and divine wrath - all of this is already brewing in the first bars of the orchestral prelude to DIE WALKÜRE and gives a hint of what is to follow. In DIE WALKÜRE, the first day of the stage festival play DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN, Wagner focuses on the generation of Wotan's descendants: On the sibling pair Siegmund and Sieglinde, who, after many years of separation, meet fatefully and fall in love with each other. And on the Valkyries, Brünnhilde and her eight sisters, whose task it is to bring the heroes fallen in battle to Valhalla. When Wotan's wife Fricka learns of the incestuous relationship between Siegmund and Sieglinde, she demands that Wotan put an end to it. So Wotan orders his favourite daughter Brünnhilde to overthrow Siegmund in his battle against his rival Hunding. But Brünnhilde protects Siegmund against Wotan’s command. As punishment, Wotan puts Brünnhilde into a deep sleep and ignites a circle of fire around her, which only one without fear can pass through...

Die Walküre

Cologne Opera

Senta's dreams are directed towards the sea: will the man who will free her from her restricted life at home come from there? It begins stormily; Wagner's first fully valid opera presents a grandiose, overwhelming vision of the elements already in the overture. The fate of the Flying Dutchman and the woman who is to redeem him takes place in the roar of the waves and the ocean. This "romantic opera" aims to transcend boundaries.

The Flying Dutchman

Hamburg State Opera

The Flying Dutchma

From a deep E-flat major chord, time and space are lifted, and on the waves of the Rhine, a world unfolds with gods, dwarves, giants and creatures of nature. However, the paradisiacal primordial state does not last long: After the Nibelung Alberich is spurned by the Rhinemaidens, he decides to renounce love forever and seize the gold from the depths of the Rhine. From this, he now forges a ring that grants him world power. But the father of the gods, Wotan, also wants to possess the ring. With the help of the fire god Loge, he actually succeeds in stealing the ring from Alberich. However, Alberich curses the ring: Misfortune shall befall its owner - a prophecy that will soon be fulfilled for the first, but not the last time. Richard Wagner created with DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN a parable about the origin and end of the world and realised his radical idea of a total work of art, in which text, music and stage action form a symbiosis. Wagner's endless melody and his leitmotif technique, which he had already developed in DER FLIEGENDE HOLLÄNDER and LOHENGRIN, reach an as yet unprecedented complexity in THE RING. With the creation of the RING tetralogy, Wagner also solidified the plan for his own festival theatre as a venue. At the request of his patron King Ludwig II, the premiere of RHEINGOLD took place on 22 September 1869 at the National Theatre of Munich. The audience, which was largely composed of professionals and art connoisseurs who had travelled from afar, expressed enthusiastic applause. Wagner's vision of performing the entire DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN  in his own festival theatre finally became a reality in 1876 in Bayreuth. Director Paul-Georg Dittrich, who has already introduced himself to Cologne with his production of DER ZWERG, will stage a new RING. In RHEINGOLD, he embarks on a search for the childlike origin of the world. What happens when free, yet unencumbered imagination is instrumentalised in a power-obsessed society? The musical direction is under the internationally sought-after conductor Marc Albrecht, who returns to the podium of the Gürzenich Orchestra after DIE FRAU OHNE SCHATTEN.

The Rhinegold

King Henry I, “the Fowler”, is in Brabant to hold the Assizes and assert the nobles’ duty to provide militias to assist in military campaigns. Since the death of the Duke of Brabant, however, the succession has been a source of conflict. His children, Gottfried and Elsa, are wards of Count Telramund, but Gottfried has vanished and Telramund suspects Elsa of having killed him. A duel between her accuser and Elsa’s champion is organised to decide the issue. At the last moment a knight appears in a boat drawn by a swan, ready to defend Elsa’s honour. He is also prepared to take her as his wife on condition that she never ask him his name or where he hails from. Elsa agrees and the knight defeats Telramund.

Lohengrin

Deutsche Oper Berlin

Long after the Paris world premiere in 1896 Oscar Wilde’s tragedy “Salomé” remained a thorn in the flesh of the establishment across Europe. In Wilhelminian Germany and the Danube Monarchy, too, official art adjudicators considered the subject “repulsive” and the text “an insult to morality”. In the minds of the guardians of public morals the New Testament story of Herod’s daughter was as ill-suited to the stage as it was to pictorial representation, which was experiencing a boom at the time. Salomé’s stepfather, Herod, the Roman’s client king of Judea, Galilee and Samaria who is said to have ordered the massacre of the innocents around Bethlehem, persuades her to dance for him. Encouraged by her mother, she demands to be given the head of John the Baptist as a reward.

Salome

According to Hugo von Hofmannsthal in a 1911 letter to Richard Strauss, in which he set out his idea for another collaboration between the two men, their next opera would be to THE MAGIC FLUTE what THE KNIGHT OF THE ROSE had been to FIGARO. And the work that premiered a full eight years later did indeed have strong echoes of Mozart’s »grand opéra«: there is the clash of different social classes, the fairytale-like, highly symbolic storyline and above all the strong feeling that ground-breaking change is underway which is challenging accepted orthodoxy and forcing issues of human interaction and values to the top of the political agenda. And in both cases enlightenment is gained only through ordeal and adversity. Here the shadow has a pivotal function as a metaphor for female fertility: the barren Empress and her nurse bargain with the dyer’s wife for her shadow. Only when the Empress rebels against achieving marital happiness and maternal contentment at someone else’s expense does a path to social harmony open up.

The Woman Without a Shadow

One of the most renowned works from famous British composer Benjamin Britten. Set in a fishing village on the east coast of England, this is the story of a lonely fisherman, Peter Grimes, suspected of killing his young apprentice. It offers an intensely emotional depiction of isolation and group mentalities, hope and despair.

Peter Grimes

New National Theatre

Mendelssohn - Elias

Maggio Musicale Fiorentino Theatre

Two characters in search of redemption: within a mythical, medieval world, Parsifal discovers that only compassion and unconditional love lead to true fulfilment and healing. In his »sacred festival play« Parsifal, Richard Wagner celebrates striving for true insight as the means to redeem the human soul. Similarly, in a milieu of criminality and prostitution, the setting of Béla Bartók’s dance pantomime The Miraculous Mandarin, a mysterious Chinese character only finds release and peace in love. The world premiere of what must be considered Bartók’s most uncompromising masterwork, in Cologne in 1926, was a theatre scandal – including in the broader terms of the freedom of artistic expression: Konrad Adenauer, the mayor of Cologne at the time, swiftly banned further performances. Today, The Miraculous Mandarin is widely esteemed as one of the greatest, ground-breaking compositions of the 20th century. Andrés Orozco-Estrada and an exquisite ensemble of soloists embark upon a journey through the realms of darkness and light.

Redemption

Cologne Philharmonie

In times when the world seems complicated and the economic situation is dire, the longing for someone who supposedly offers simple solutions to difficult problems becomes overwhelming. The 20th century provides ample evidence of this, and the present day offers similar examples. In Richard Wagner’s Lohengrin, it is a mysterious knight who promises to fight for Elsa of Brabant; in doing so, he becomes a projection screen for the yearning of a fractured people for a charismatic leader. Wagner, himself a revolutionary in the mid-19th century, artistically expressed his political utopia of a different world order in Lohengrin – a utopia of saving the world through art, but here doomed to failure. Eric Cutler, a youthful heroic tenor trained in bel canto, sings the title role, while the Finnish soprano Miina-Liisa Värelä provides the necessary counterweight as Ortrud. Her compatriot, conductor Susanna Mälkki, is making her debut with both the Deutsche Oper Berlin orchestra and the work itself.

A young hero enters a world full of dangers – without fear, without knowledge of his origins, armed only with a shattered sword as his father’s final legacy. Siegfried grows up far from humankind, raised by the cunning dwarf Mime. When he succeeds in reforging the broken sword Nothung, he becomes a hero of destiny: he slays the dragon Fafner, gains possession of the mighty ring, and drinks the monster’s blood. This grants him an extraordinary gift – he can now understand the language of birds. From them he learns of Brünnhilde, who has been cast into a deep sleep by Wotan. To reach her, Siegfried must pass a ring of blazing fire – a trial that only the truly fearless can endure.

Baritone

Jordan Shanahan

Events

Upcoming events

Jul 31 - Aug 25, 2026

Parsifal · Bayreuther Festspiele

Nov 23 - Dec 5, 2026

Peter Grimes · Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra

Dec 19, 2026

Mendelssohn - Elias · Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino

17 - 19 Jan, 2027

Redemption · Gürzenich-Orchester Köln

Feb 14 - Mar 7, 2027

Lohengrin · Deutsche Oper Berlin

Past events

Jul 31 - Aug 25, 2026

Parsifal · Bayreuther Festspiele

Mar 29 - May 3, 2026

Die Walküre · Oper Köln

Future and recently performed repertoire

Balstrode in Peter Grimes by Britten

Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra

Barak, the Dyer in Die Frau ohne Schatten by Strauss

Deutsche Oper Berlin

Jochana in Salome by Strauss

Deutsche Oper Berlin

Telramund in Lohengrin by Wagner

Deutsche Oper Berlin

The Dutchman in The Flying Dutchman by Wagner

Staatsoper Hamburg

Amfortas in Parsifal by Wagner

Gürzenich-Orchester Köln

Klingsor in Parsifal by Wagner

Bayreuther Festspiele

Wotan in Das Rheingold by Wagner

Oper Köln

The hiker in Siegfried by Wagner

Oper Köln

Wotan in The Valkyrie by Wagner

Oper Köln

Singer in Elias by Bartholdy

Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino

About

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