Conductor

The Rosenkavalier

Staatstheater Hannover

An offer for children and young people from grades 5 to 8 — but also for other curious people who have time in the morning: The approximately one-hour program features selected works from a symphony concert, explained and performed by General Music Director Stephan Zilias and the Lower Saxony State Orchestra Hannover.

First youth concert

“It was actually an opera that I tried to compose, but ultimately couldn’t compose.”
Pascal Dusapin on Waves
At first, Pascal Dusapin considered writing a musical theater work based on Virginia Woolf's novel The Waves . It ultimately evolved into a kind of organ concerto, a "duo for organ and orchestra." Dusapin explains: "Very abstract questions occupied me while working on Waves , questions of tectonics—how different surfaces shift against and into each other." The forces of these tectonic plates, turned into music, initially unfold through the interaction and interaction of "normal" trumpets and signal trumpets. The signal trumpets are positioned to the left and right of the organ. They sound "as if from the organ," in the same boat. The organ itself also begins with these notes, with a characteristic rhythm; everything blends together, magnificently orchestrated. 

First Symphony Concert

Robert Schumann's Violin Concerto is characterized by turbulent emotions. This gives the music an incredible appeal. The composer himself was never able to experience the impressive impact of his work, as the concerto was not premiered until many decades after his early death. This meant that he was fatefully linked to his role model Franz Schubert: Schumann himself initiated the premiere of his so-called "Great" Symphony in C major - unfortunately long after the composer's death. With its depth and heartfelt and radiant sounds, Schubert's symphony became an innovative inspiration for romantic composers such as Robert Schumann.

8th Symphony Concert: Connectedness

Opernplatz

Have you ever made up a story? Maybe even a story with music? Would you like to do just that? This concert is your turn! The Lower Saxony State Orchestra has once again invited the illustrator Ernesto Lucas and prepared a great piece of music by Zoltán Kodály. But while we usually provide you with information about the music, this time we're doing it the other way round! You tell us what fantasies and scenes you imagine to go with the music being played. Ernesto Lucas then turns these scenes into drawings and pictures - and together we'll invent your very own colorful and exciting music story in this concert.

3rd Children's Concert: Inventive!

When social roles and values ​​are renegotiated, existential questions arise: Who am I? Who can I be? And what can I do to be a good person? In The Greek Passion , the residents of a Greek village are painfully confronted with this after they have assigned the roles for the upcoming passion play. When a group of refugees appears and asks for help, the overwhelming feeling grows. The Greek Passion deals with the most important themes of our coexistence: humanity and charity. With Greek folklore, Orthodox liturgy and large choral tableaux, it tells the story in a musically folk-like way, making it one of the most magnificent and haunting operas of the 20th century.

The Greek Passion

Sous le ciel de Paris – under the sky of Paris we dream, sing and stroll into the new year. The music that has always been created between the Seine and Montmartre is as beautiful, dazzling and diverse as this much-sung city. Experience moving moments with arias from the works of the French opera masters Ambroise Thomas, Jules Massenet and Jacques Offenbach. Let yourself fall into the picturesque orchestral sounds of Camille Saint-Saëns, Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel. And indulge in holiday memories and longings while listening to the most beautiful Parisian chansons. As you rave about and enjoy the sounds that Stephan Zilias, members of the opera ensemble and the Lower Saxony State Orchestra Hannover conjure up on stage, presenter Matthias Brodowy will keep you in the best company as a city guide with new perspectives on the Eiffel Tower and Notre-Dame as well as charming anecdotes from the city of love.

New Year's Concert

This year's Christmas concert of the Lower Saxony State Orchestra in the magnificent hall of the Herrenhausen Gallery Building is characterized by pleasantly deep sounds. These can not only be a strong foundation for the music, but can also conjure up beautiful melodies. Solo bass voices will therefore lead the concert. Daniel Eggert from the State Opera Ensemble and Bors Balogh, solo double bassist of the State Orchestra, demonstrate the multifaceted nature of the depth with its changeable timbres - whether in a powerful aria, a dreamy double bass solo or a playful bass duet. The program is framed by the wonderful Haydn symphonies Le soir ( The Evening ) and Le matin ( The Morning ). Stephan Zilias will be conducting the State Orchestra this year.

Christmas concert in Herrenhausen

One of the most famous pieces of music by composer Peter Tchaikovsky is his ballet The Nutcracker . We ask ourselves: What makes this music so special, what about it seems familiar to us and what surprises does it have in store? What sound worlds, timbres and science fiction elements can we discover in it? And does the fantastic atmosphere work even without ballet dancers on stage?

1st Youth Concert: Crisp

The 3rd Symphony Concert: Automatic was originally planned as a concert in our more than music series , which expands the boundaries of the traditional concert experience through performance. The program included a joint world premiere by composers Marko Nikodijević and Robert Henke - a concert for automatic percussion and orchestra. The two popular and experimental composers like to explore the dream of an automated life in their music. In real life, however, not everything always runs automatically, let alone according to plan - for organizational reasons, this world premiere in our concert unfortunately has to be canceled. Instead, we will hear another work by Marko Nikodijević that premiered just over a year ago: Gospodi vozvah for solo viola and orchestra. We are delighted that we were able to persuade Canadian violist Sarah McElravy to rehearse the work at short notice and thus welcome her to our concert stage for the first time. The viola concerto is accompanied by Sergei Rachmaninoff's symphonic poem The Isle of the Dead and excerpts from Peter Tchaikovsky's ballet The Nutcracker . As if in a dream, The Isle of the Dead

3rd Symphony Concerto: Automatic

Suffused with the spirit of the French Revolution, FIDELIO explores issues of individual and collective freedom in the face of tyrannical suppression. For his one venture into opera Beethoven chose a political event rooted in the French tradition of rescue opera. It tells the story of a fearless woman, Leonore, who triggers the end of the old order by having her husband released from prison, where he has been detained on a whim. Far from evincing Beethoven’s inability to compose a coherent opera, this mixed bag of genre elements – German light opera, heartfelt arias, exquisite orchestral interludes and a symphonic close – reflects his revolutionary idea of dramaturgical opposites and subversion of form. The further Leonore descends into the depths of the dungeon, the clearer the existential core of the drama becomes. In an explosive choral and symphonic finale, which, with its quote from Schiller’s “Ode to Joy”, foreshadows Beethoven’s “Ninth”, the uncompromising affirmation of liberty, human rights and humanist ideals bursts forth. The work has repeatedly been appropriated for political ends - on both sides of the spectrum – with Leonore acquiring iconic status. Yet Beethoven’s musical vision of a humanist society still manages to thwart all attempts to encapsulate the opera in simplified interpretations.

Fidelio

Deutsche Oper Berlin

Music can be like water for us: sometimes it ripples along quietly, but often a tiny impulse is enough to set it in motion. Then high waves appear as if by themselves and suddenly break over us. Or a raging storm develops. Selected musical works that describe such timeless natural phenomena are poetically combined in this concert program. We recognize the fascination with nature in the classical sounds of Joseph Haydn, as well as in the powerful words of a slam poetry text or the noisy, dynamic music of a contemporary composer such as Brett Dean. The concert thus becomes a homage to the existential and changeable element of life that connects us all, in all its beautiful, terrible, inspiring and worthy of preservation manifestations.

2nd Symphony Concerto: Wavelength

Lieutenant Pinkerton is attached to an American ship currently moored in Nagasaki harbour. He has been courting a 15-year-old geisha girl named Cio-Cio-san, known as Butterfly, who is from a poor but genteel family and takes love very seriously. Pinkerton wants to enter into a “time-limited marriage” – not uncommon between European men and geishas at the time – and is even being helped by Goro, the marriage agent, to find a cottage in which they can spend their honeymoon. The US consul, Sharpless, warns him against such a step, but Pinkerton brushes him off and even toasts the day when he will take an American to be his “real” wife.

Madame Butterfly

"Not a pretty sight. Modernity begins."
Christa Wolf on Kleist's Penthesilea
A woman and a man, united by a politically senseless war, obsessed with defeating the other: the Amazon Penthesilea and the Greek Achilles. When Heinrich von Kleist transformed this ancient myth into a play in 1808, he reversed the story's gruesome ending: It wasn't Achilles who slays Penthesilea and then falls in love with the dead woman's body, but Penthesilea who falls in love with Achilles, kills him, and mauls his corpse.
Kleist's tragedy irritated his contemporaries: eroticism and aggression appear interchangeable, women fight like men, hunters become prey, and Penthesilea becomes an animal. This was not how Kleist's contemporaries imagined either antiquity or the theater. It didn't help that the most gruesome scenes weren't shown on stage, but merely reported: Penthesilea was never performed during the author's lifetime. It wasn't until the second half of the 20th century that this idiosyncratic work garnered interest and understanding.

Penthesilea

“You’re so lucky: the cheese fell right on the macaroni!”
Figaro
Figaro is not only the barber, but also the life coach, matchmaker, and information center of Seville. At least, that's how he introduces himself, but what we experience in Rossini's opera casts doubt on this self-characterization: His strategies for the enamored Count Almaviva to establish contact with Rosina, jealously guarded by her guardian, fail from the outset—and when Figaro intervenes, things only get worse. A good premise for a turbulent comedy, which director Nicola Hümpel magnifies with two live cameras: The production presents us with a group of egotists trying to manipulate one another. Eager to always present themselves in the best possible light, they compete for the best positions in front of the cameras, which mercilessly magnify every errant facial expression and every hidden tension.

Conductor

Stephan Zilias

Events

Upcoming events

Nov 9 - Dec 17, 2025

The Rosenkavalier · Staatstheater Hannover

Dec 12, 2025 - Feb 23, 2026

Madame Butterfly · Deutsche Oper Berlin

Mar 5 - Apr 19, 2026

Penthesilea · Staatstheater Hannover

May 17 - Jun 24, 2026

The Barber of Seville · Staatstheater Hannover

Past events

Nov 9 - Dec 17, 2025

The Rosenkavalier · Staatstheater Hannover

Sep 29, 2025

First youth concert ·

Future and recently performed repertoire

Conductor in Ariodante by Handel

Staatstheater Hannover

Conductor in String Quartet No. 1 by Tchaikovsky

Staatstheater Hannover

Conductor in Per questa bella mano by Mozart

Staatstheater Hannover

Conductor in Symphony No. 39 by Haydn

Staatstheater Hannover

Conductor in Madame Butterfly by Puccini

Deutsche Oper Berlin

Conductor in The Nutcracker by Tchaikovsky

Staatstheater Hannover

Conductor in Symphony No. 8 by Schubert

Staatstheater Hannover

Conductor in Symphony No. 8 by Haydn

Staatstheater Hannover

Conductor in Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage by Mendelssohn

Staatstheater Hannover

Conductor in Six Metamorphoses after Ovid by Britten

Staatstheater Hannover

Conductor in Violin Concerto by Schumann

Staatstheater Hannover

Conductor in Fidelio by Beethoven

Deutsche Oper Berlin

Conductor in The Isle of the Dead by Rachmaninov

Staatstheater Hannover

Conductor in Dumbarton Oaks by Stravinsky

Staatstheater Hannover

Conductor in Slam Poetry by Behrendt

Staatstheater Hannover

Conductor in Water music by Dean

Staatstheater Hannover

Conductor in Gospodi vozvah by Nikodijević

Staatstheater Hannover

Conductor in The Magic Harp by Schubert

Staatstheater Hannover

Conductor in Symphony No. 6 by Haydn

Staatstheater Hannover

Conductor in The Barber of Seville by Rossini

Staatstheater Hannover

Conductor in The Rosenkavalier by Strauss

Staatstheater Hannover

Conductor in Penthesilea by Dusapin

Staatstheater Hannover

About

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