Richard Strauss had a deep admiration for Don Quixote—a man who hurls himself into every challenge, obstacle, and peril, without ever achieving a final victory. It’s this ‘knightly character’ that Strauss celebrates in his Fantastic Variations from 1897.While Don Quixote longs for a life as a hero, Debussy's Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune takes us on a sensual journey - this time it is the dreaming faun who is the focus of the symphonic poem. Meanwhile, Ottorino Respighi’s Pini di Roma (1924) offers a sonic tour through the Eternal City, from the Villa Borghese to the Via Appia, always in view of the city’s towering marvels: its pine trees, which weave an evergreen thread through the ancient metropolis. James Gaffigan brings together three fantastic concert works contrasting highly diverse styles, with Strauss crossing the boundaries into modernity and Respighi already channelling in 1924 the future mode of film music. An exhilarating evening awaits!

Dreams of the hero

Konzerthaus Berlin

Long before Oscar Wilde’s interpretation, the figure of Salome already appeared in the Bible. There, the story was about how King Herod, his stepdaughter Salome, and John the Baptist (Jochanaan) each lose their heads—although in very different ways...

Sa­lo­me

Schiller Theater

‘Imagine that the universe is beginning to sound and resonate’, Gustav Mahler once said about his Eighth Symphony. This extraordinary work is often called the ‘Symphony of a Thousand’, because Mahler’s vision called for such a huge ensemble: two mixed choirs, a boys’ choir, eight soloists, a massive orchestra, an organ, and an additional brass section. ‘Veni, creator, spiritus!’ It is with this Pentecost hymn invoking the Holy Spirit that the symphony’s first movement begins. For the second movement, Mahler draws upon the final scene of Goethe’s Faust II: ‘The noble part of the spirit has been saved from evil’. Angels and other celestial ‘flight attendants’ lift Faust’s soul—rescued from the clutches of the devil—up to the realm of the ‘Eternal Feminine’. Faust, an early pioneer of grand visions and soaring ideas, fits perfectly into the industrial architecture of Tempelhof. It is here that Mahler’s Eighth Symphony will truly ‘sound and resonate’ as never before, especially with Music Director James Gaffigan himself in the cockpit, guiding our flight through Mahler’s universe.

The thou­sand at Tem­pel­hof

Tempelhof Airport

After the director Herbert Fritsch captivated audiences with an extravagant symphony concert in 2024, this guest concept is now becoming a favourite tradition at the Komische Oper Berlin. This time, the spotlight falls on the charismatic actor Ulrich Matthes, who steps in as concert curator. Under the theme of ‘boldly stepping forth’, he launches the new year with a dazzling programme while offering personal insights into his favourite musical works. Here, the bright optimism of Mozart’s ‘Linz Symphony’ (1st movement) meets the reverent Adagio from Schumann’s Second Symphony. The jazz-infused energy of Gershwin’s Piano Concerto in F major meets with Bernstein’s playful Symphonic Dances from West Side Story. And after his 2014 performance as a narrator at a symphony concert with the Komische Oper—who knows? This time, Ulrich Matthes just might take the leap into song...

Matthes in charge

With stunning natural imagery and attention to every detail, Barrie Kosky presents Tchaikovsky’s soulful drama about the hopes, longings, and failures of four young people who come to realize in the end that happiness was almost within reach.

Eugene Onegin

After bringing Dmitri Shostakovich’s early opera The Nose to life in a wonderfully grotesque staging, Barrie Kosky now turns his attention to a far more radical work by the Russian composer: Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, a dark tale of sex and violence featuring one of opera’s most fascinating female characters.

La­dy Mac­beth of Mtsensk

Destitute and directionless, Australian musician Nick Cave arrived in West Berlin in the 1980s, plunging himself into the city’s drug scene and emerging as an underground legend. His 1988 album Tender Prey, created with The Bad Seeds during his Berlin years, now undergoes a romantic symphonic synthesis as part of the Schall&Rausch festival. In the subterranean chamber of the former Kindl brewery, the orchestra of the Komische Oper Berlin – under the baton of Music Director James Gaffigan – juxtaposes the pitch-black death wish of a post-punk junkie against the world-weariness of Franz Schubert’s lonely wanderer. Songs of futility and farewell from Schubert’s 1827 song cycle Winterreise, in Hans Zender’s orchestral arrangement, resonate with a sharp chill as they repeatedly pierce through Nick Cave’s brooding soundtrack.

Cave meets Schubert

Vollgutlager Berlin

Engelbert Humperdinck’s celebrated fairy-tale opera for the whole family has returned to the stage of the Komische Oper Berlin! In this new production by Dagmar Manzel, the story of the siblings lost in the forest burgeons with fresh new life, full of childlike imagination, poetic wit, and plenty of magic.

Hansel and Gretel

If you listen closely, you’ll hear—hidden within the thicket of certain melodies—the most wondrous creatures and characters, including sparkling fairies, wicked witches, and enchanted birds. With creepy-crawlies lurking in every corner, we’re going on an adventure through a magical forest with various musicians from our orchestra. We’re sure to encounter some rarely seen creatures along the way. You won’t want to miss it!

Enchanted Forest

Director Barrie Kosky plunges us into a nightmarish, wildly exaggerated satire, with marching noses, rolling rickshaw tables, and caricatured protagonists in garish costumes that straddle folklore and historicism, all unfolding within a cold, bleak setting that feels claustrophobic despite its size. This surrealist story of the insecure and paranoid upstart Platon Kuzmich Kovalyov is transformed into a absurd, kaleidoscopic revue of the vanities, an unsettling collision of Wozzeck and Alice in Wonderland with its own ‘irrational’ logic.

James Gaf­figan

Events

Upcoming events

Nov 22, 2025 - Jan 3, 2026

Sa­lo­me · Komische Oper Berlin

Jan 1, 2026

Matthes in charge · Komische Oper Berlin

Jan 16 - Feb 1, 2026

Eugene Onegin · Komische Oper Berlin

Jan 31 - Mar 14, 2026

La­dy Mac­beth of Mtsensk · Komische Oper Berlin

Feb 13, 2026

Cave meets Schubert · Komische Oper Berlin

Past events

Nov 26, 2025

Dreams of the hero · Komische Oper Berlin

Nov 22, 2025 - Jan 3, 2026

Sa­lo­me · Komische Oper Berlin

Future and recently performed repertoire

Conductor in Symphonic Dances from West Side Story by Bernstein

Komische Oper Berlin

Conductor in Symphony No. 2 by Schumann

Komische Oper Berlin

Conductor in Pines of Rome by Respighi

Komische Oper Berlin

Conductor in Don Quixote by Strauss

Komische Oper Berlin

Conductor in Hansel and Gretel by Humperdinck

Komische Oper Berlin

Conductor in Eugene Onegin by Tchaikovsky

Komische Oper Berlin

Conductor in Winterreise by Schubert

Komische Oper Berlin

Conductor in Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune by Debussy

Komische Oper Berlin

Conductor in Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk by Shostakovich

Komische Oper Berlin

Conductor in The Nose by Shostakovich

Komische Oper Berlin

Conductor in Symphony No. 8 by Mahler

Komische Oper Berlin

Conductor in Salome by Strauss

Komische Oper Berlin

Conductor in Piano Concerto in F Major by Gershwin

Komische Oper Berlin

Conductor in Symphony No. 36 by Mozart

Komische Oper Berlin

About

James Gaf­figan hasn't added a bio

James Gaffigan

Salome · Komische Oper Berlin

Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk · Komische Oper Berlin

Salome · Komische Oper Berlin

James Gaffigan hasn't added a bio