Singer

The war is over, and tragedy takes its course: the mother and her lover murder the father upon his return. The daughter hides her brother, keeping him safe. – Every day, Elektra thinks of her murdered father, plotting blood-stained celebrations of victory and waiting for the moment when her brother, reared as an avenger, returns...

Elektra

Hamburg State Opera

The third episode of the Tetralogy introduces the character of Siegfried, the son of siblings Siegmund and Sieglinde, who grew up in the lair of the treacherous Mime and was called upon to reforge the sword Nothung with which he would slay the dragon Fafner, guardian of the treasure, before freeing Brünnhilde from the spell of fire. A young man unfamiliar with fear, he is the protagonist of a fairytale plot that recurs with the sentiment of Nature and the obstacles to be overcome, culminating in his encounter with the Valkyrie, who renounces her divine nature for him.

EPSG:4326

Siegfried (Der Ring des Nibelungen)

Teatro alla Scala

After ten years, Teatro alla Scala presented a new production of Ring des Nibelungen in the fall of 2024 , conducted by Simone Young and Alexander Soddy, who join the ranks of great maestros such as Toscanini, De Sabata, Krauss, Furtwängler, Cluytens, Muti, and Barenboim. The direction is by David McVicar, one of the most authoritative names on the international stage, who has won acclaim at La Scala in a vast repertoire, from Cavalli to Berlioz, Cilea, and Verdi.

Das Rheingold (Der Ring des Nibelungen)

The tragic drama of an oppressed person from society’s lower classes: Wozzeck, a hardworking but penniless soldier, is increasingly losing control of his life and his mind. He is seized by increasingly violent psychotic episodes, until in a delusion, he stabs and kills his girlfriend Marie.

Wozzeck

Bebelplatz

Under the face of the wandering moon, spirit and body quarrel in all their greatness and wretchedness until the blood of two bodies flows. Strauss remains close to Wilde's re-creation of the biblical material, which leads Salome from her mother's tool to autonomy. It is she who, in her unfulfilled desire for the liberatingly different, the body of the prophet Jochanaan, seeks revenge and demands his head - a price the male-dominated society around Herod is willing to pay for their dance. Now that Salome holds his severed head in her hands, she can kiss Jochanaan, possess him if not alive, then dead. As if under a burning glass, Strauss pours Oscar Wilde's demonic dramaturgy into sound like an eruption of the psyche, accompanying his protagonist from her failed escape from the decadence of her existence to her death.

Salome

Staatsoper Hamburg

A once-in-a-lifetime experience: conductor emeritus Riccardo Chailly leads the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Schönberg’s overwhelming Gurre-Lieder.

Riccardo Chailly conducts Gurre-Lieder

The Concertgebouw

The Musikfest Berlin opens with Le Grand Macabre by György Ligeti and at the same time celebrates the 75th anniversary of the Berliner Festspiele. Ligeti’s only opera is a profoundly-black parable of war and the end of the world, but ultimately humour gains the upper hand and indirectly also helps in overcoming the fear of death. It is therefore no surprise that this satire is one of the most frequently performed works of contemporary music theatre. Nicholas Collon leads the way through Ligeti’s grotesque doomsday scenario as the chief conductor of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, assisted by the Helsinki Chamber Choir and an international ensemble of soloists. Thanks to the Helsinki Festival, Ligeti’s “anti-anti-opera”, as the composer himself called it, will be heard for the first time in Finland just a few days previously.

Opening Ceremony Musikfest Berlin 2026 75 Years Berliner Festspiele

Berliner Philharmoniker

«I saw Wozzeck on stage, before the war, and made such an incredible impression that I decided to set it to music immediately». So wrote Alban Berg to his friend and colleague Anton Webern in 1918, at a time when his name was only known in the small circle of Schoenberg's pupils. International fame and affirmation would arrive a few years later and precisely thanks to Wozzeck, an opera inspired by Georg Büchner's novel of the same name, which would soon become a symbolic work of the early 20th century as well as an emblem of expressionist theatre. In Büchner's text, Alban Berg had in fact identified themes particularly dear to expressionist poetics such as nightmare, mental alienation and brutal murder. The opera in three acts and fifteen scenes premiered at the Berlin Staatsoper on 14 December 1925 to great acclaim. Berg conceived the opera as a system of closed forms where each scene of each act refers to a formal structure of the Western instrumental tradition such as the suite, the rhapsody, the march, the passacaglia, to name but a few, revised through a livid and anguished orchestral writing. On the vocal side, the almost spoken chant in Wozzeck's Sprechgesang stands out, renouncing all melodic artifice to emphasise the protagonist's sorrowful humanity.

Maggio Musicale Fiorentino Theatre

With "Das Rheingold," Richard Wagner opens his monumental "Ring of the Nibelung": a mythological world theater about power, love, and the loss of innocence. Whoever renounces love gains power. This fateful law draws both Alberich and the god Wotan into the spell of the cursed ring. From the famous depths of E-flat major, a world unfolds between idyllic nature and moral decay. Andreas Homoki's successful production returns under the musical direction of Gianandrea Noseda. Michael Volle sings Wotan.

Tenor

Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke

Events

Upcoming events

Aug 28, 2026

Opening Ceremony Musikfest Berlin 2026 75 Years Berliner Festspiele · Berliner Philharmoniker

Sep 27 - Oct 3, 2026

Wozzeck · Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino

Nov 29 - Dec 17, 2026

Das Rheingold · Opernhaus Zürich

Past events

Apr 14 - May 8, 2026

Elektra · Staatsoper Hamburg

5 - 13 Mar, 2026

Siegfried (Der Ring des Nibelungen) · Teatro alla Scala

Future and recently performed repertoire

Herod in Salome by Strauss

Staatsoper Hamburg

Captain in Wozzeck by Berg

Staatsoper Berlin

Hauptmann in Wozzeck by Berg

Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino

Singer in Gurre-Lieder by Schönberg

Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra

Aegisth in Elektra by Strauss

Staatsoper Hamburg

Mime in Das Rheingold by Wagner

Opernhaus Zürich

Piet the Pot in Le Grand Macabre by Ligeti

Berliner Philharmoniker

Mime in Das Rheingold (Der Ring des Nibelungen) by Wagner

Teatro alla Scala

Mime in Siegfried (Der Ring des Nibelungen) by Wagner

Teatro alla Scala

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