Conductor

The diaries of the English Admiralty official and man-about-town Samuel Pepys (1633–1703) have been described as a “literary wonder” and a “unique monument of world history”. Pepys noted down literally everything that happened to him on a daily basis in the London of the 1660s. The result is a detailed, humorous chronicle of his everyday life – how Pepys squabbles with his wife, strolls through the London of the Great Plague in his new silk jacket and for safety’s sake during the financial crisis buries his money. Actor Gustav Peter Wöhler, who in 2013 was awarded the German Audiobook Prize, lends his voice to these entertaining jottings. How fitting that  throughout his life Pepys was also a keen musician. With lautten compagney, the Swinging Sixties under Charles II are brought back to life in music as well as words.

EPSG:4326

Peeping at Mr. Pepys

Carl Maria von Weber Theater

When the young Handel was working on his Agrippina, which is to be performed this year at Halle Opera, he also lifted whole sections from the score of Octavia by his former superior in Hamburg, Reinhard Keiser – here, for the first time, you have the opportunity of comparing the two works. One point of interest is that the two title characters are the mother and first wife of the Roman emperor, Nero, who won legendary status as a persecutor of Christians, untalented musician and arsonist. In Keiser’s opera, Octavia, who is being urged by her husband Nero to commit suicide, uses cunning to save her life. On the advice of the philosopher Seneca, she appears to Nero as her own ghost and succeeds in making him relent.

Octavia

Goethe Theatre Bad Lauchstädt

After the overwhelming success of Claudio Monteverdi’s »L’Orfeo« in the spring of 2023 at Dresden‘s Semper Opera, Rolando Villazón, Wolfgang Katschner and the lautten compagney BERLIN have put together another concert program. This revolves around the inner world of a modern person travelling to the center of their own soul – with all the emotional ups and downs that define our human existence.

Conductor

Wolfgang Katschner

Events

Past events

Jun 11, 2025

Peeping at Mr. Pepys · Händel-Festspiele Halle

7 - 9 Jun, 2025

Octavia · Händel-Festspiele Halle

About

Wolfgang Katschner hasn't added a bio