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

Schiller Theater

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

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.

Mirka Wagner

Events

Upcoming events

Jan 31 - Mar 14, 2026

Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk · Komische Oper Berlin

Feb 21 - May 15, 2026

Hansel and Gretel · Komische Oper Berlin

Mar 15 - Apr 6, 2026

The Nose · Komische Oper Berlin

Future and recently performed repertoire

Gertrud, mother in Hansel and Gretel by Humperdinck

Komische Oper Berlin

Aksinya in Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk by Shostakovich

Komische Oper Berlin

Mourning woman in the cathedral / Podtotchina's daughter in The Nose by Shostakovich

Komische Oper Berlin

About

Mirka Wagner hasn't added a bio

Mir­ka Wag­ner

Events

Upcoming events

Jan 31 - Mar 14, 2026

La­dy Mac­beth of Mtsensk · Komische Oper Berlin

Feb 21 - May 15, 2026

Hansel and Gretel · Komische Oper Berlin

Mar 15 - Apr 6, 2026

The Nose · Komische Oper Berlin

Future and recently performed repertoire

Gertrud, mother in Hansel and Gretel by Humperdinck

Komische Oper Berlin

Aksinya in Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk by Shostakovich

Komische Oper Berlin

Mourning woman in the cathedral / Podtotchina's daughter in The Nose by Shostakovich

Komische Oper Berlin

About

Mir­ka Wag­ner hasn't added a bio

Mirka Wagner

Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk · Komische Oper Berlin

Mirka Wagner hasn't added a bio