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.

The Nose

Schiller Theater

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

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

In the limelight: Dagmar Manzel and Max Hopp! She plays: operetta diva Manon Cavallini, her suitor Raoul, and the father of her daughter Lucy. He plays: that same Lucy, all five of Cavallini’s lovers, and Lucy’s gallant to boot. In additional roles: Dagmar Manzel and Max Hopp! A breathless tour de force, with the orchestra under Adam Benzwi’s baton igniting a fireworks display of marches, waltzes, and chansons, all from the pen of Oscar Straus.

A Woman Who Knows What She Wants!

In the heart of the desert, three fugitive criminals establish the city of Mahagonny. This ‘paradise city’ has its own rules for living life, fueled by the wealth of men passing through from the Gold Coast. Eating, loving, boxing, and drinking are the order of the day. However, this idyllic utopia soon begins to falter, as natural disasters, excesses, violence, and corruption push the city to its breaking point.

Rise and Fall of the City of Maha­gonny

After the great success of Lonely House, Katharine Mehrling returns to the Komische Oper Berlin with a staged evening of songs by Kurt Weill. While Lonely House was devoted entirely to Weill’s exile in Paris and New York, the focus tonight is on the songs from Weill’s Berlin period, arranged for orchestra by Kai Tietje and staged by Barrie Kosky.

... und mit morgen könnt ihr mich!

In 1983, a cry of freedom rang out from Broadway to London and Berlin, heralding the triumph of a musical insisting on the right to a brightly coloured life outside of narrow-minded conventionality.

Barrie Kosky

Events

Upcoming events

Mar 15 - Apr 6, 2026

The Nose · Komische Oper Berlin

Past events

Mar 15 - Apr 6, 2026

The Nose · Komische Oper Berlin

Jan 31 - Mar 14, 2026

Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk · Komische Oper Berlin

About

Barrie Kosky hasn't added a bio

Bar­rie Kos­ky

Events

Upcoming events

Mar 15 - Apr 6, 2026

The Nose · Komische Oper Berlin

Past events

Mar 15 - Apr 6, 2026

The Nose · Komische Oper Berlin

Jan 31 - Mar 14, 2026

La­dy Mac­beth of Mtsensk · Komische Oper Berlin

About

Bar­rie Kos­ky hasn't added a bio

Barrie Kosky

Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk · Komische Oper Berlin

Barrie Kosky hasn't added a bio