Vienna, circa 1860. The financially strapped Count Waldner is lodging with his family in a Viennese hotel. His only path to solvency is for him to secure an advantageous marriage for one of his two daughters – and the family can only afford to present Arabella, the eldest, in the upper circles of society. To conceal the family’s indigence, the parents have raised Zdenka as a boy, dressing her accordingly. Arabella is not short of suitors but has resolved to wait for ‘Mr Right’. When Mandryka, an aristocrat from a distant region, arrives, he and Arabella are instantly smitten. Arabella only asks to be able to bid farewell to her friends and suitors at the Fasching ball that evening.

Arabella

Deutsche Oper Berlin

DIE MEISTERSINGER VON NÜRNBERG was Richard Wagner’s only light-hearted opera and remains one of his most popular works. This notwithstanding, MEISTERSINGER is also the musical manifesto of a German national art movement and, as such, has accumulated so much baggage over the years that people are apt to lose sight of the opera’s essence – a jolly and coherent comedy with its helter-skelter storyline centring on illusion and reality, love, ageing and the plying of one’s art – and this despite the core theme of a life dominated by music determining not only the cast of characters but also the action of the piece. The members of the master-singers guild have convened to make music in accordance with their strict rulebook. One of the singers, the wealthy Veit Pogner, has granted his daughter Eva the freedom to choose which suitor she will marry – with the proviso that it be a master singer, in other words the winner of a public singing competition. A pity, then, that Eva is in love with Walther von Stolzing, who is talented but devoid of formal training. Nonetheless he takes part in the competition, aided and abetted by master singer Hans Sachs, who has to forego his love for Eva in the process.

Albert Pesendorfer

Events

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7 - 20 Mar, 2025

Arabella · Deutsche Oper Berlin

12 - 27 Apr, 2025

The Mastersingers of Nuremberg · Deutsche Oper Berlin

Future and recently performed repertoire

Count Waldner in Arabella by Strauss

Deutsche Oper Berlin

Veit Pogner in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg by Wagner

Deutsche Oper Berlin

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