Name: Rigoletto
Start: 2025-06-06T19:30:00
Location: Deutsche Oper Berlin

Step into the mesmerizing world of opera at Deutsche Oper Berlin, where timeless stories and powerful performances come alive. From Bizet's captivating 'Carmen' to Puccini's enigmatic 'Turandot,' the stage is set for an unforgettable journey through the depths of human emotion and cultural narratives. Delve into the complex characters and sweeping narratives of operatic masterpieces, each brought to life by talented performers and visionary conductors. Prepare to be enchanted by the magic of opera as Deutsche Oper Berlin presents a series of spellbinding performances that capture the essence of the human spirit.

A Musical Odyssey: Unveiling Opera's Timeless Tales at Deutsche Oper Berlin

Step into the world of opera, where timeless narratives and evocative music converge in a captivating display of artistry and emotional depth. Deutsche Oper Berlin opens its grand stage to a series of operatic masterpieces, each telling stories of love, redemption, and human intrigue. From the iconic 'Carmen' to the enchanting 'Hansel and Gretel,' audiences are treated to a kaleidoscope of interpretations that mirror societal dynamics and timeless human emotions. With stellar performances and innovative productions, these operas promise an unforgettable cultural journey.

Opera Reimagined: A Journey Through Timeless Stories and Modern Interpretations

The Deutsche Oper Berlin is set to present a dazzling array of operatic and musical theater performances in the 2024/25 season, drawing audiences into a world of timeless music and compelling storytelling. Featuring iconic productions like 'Carmen,' 'The Magic Flute,' 'La Traviata,' and more, this season promises a rich tapestry of genres and narratives. With a talented ensemble of artists and an emphasis on both classical and contemporary themes, the Deutsche Oper Berlin continues to be a beacon of cultural excellence and innovation.

Opera Highlights at Deutsche Oper Berlin: A Season of Diverse Narratives

Step into the world of Deutsche Oper Berlin, where timeless tales and musical masterpieces converge in a spectacular series of events. From the passionate allure of Carmen to the enigmatic realms of The Magic Flute, these performances promise to captivate audiences with their rich narratives and exceptional artistry. Join us as we delve into the highlights of this operatic season, celebrating the creative genius of composers and performers alike within the historic walls of this Berlin opera house.

A Symphony of Stories: Exploring Iconic Operas and Ballets at Deutsche Oper Berlin

The Deutsche Oper Berlin is set to stage an impressive lineup of operatic masterpieces, featuring timeless classics like Georges Bizet's 'Carmen', Richard Wagner's 'Tannhäuser', and Giuseppe Verdi's 'Aida'. As diverse interpretations and powerful performances bring these works to life, audiences can expect a riveting experience that delves into themes of love, redemption, and societal reflections. This season's productions offer an opportunity to witness the compelling narratives, nuanced characters, and musical brilliance that have cemented these operas as cultural treasures.

Exploring The Timeless Allure of Opera at Deutsche Oper Berlin

Deutsche Oper Berlin invites opera enthusiasts to an exciting 2024/2025 season, featuring a diverse lineup from the passionate depths of 'Carmen' to the transcendent strains of 'The Flying Dutchman.' Bringing together iconic operas and renowned performers, this season promises to be a testament to the power of music and storytelling. With interpretations that challenge societal norms and offer profound emotional journeys, each performance is set to captivate audiences and offer new perspectives on timeless tales.

A Journey Through Opera: Exploring Deutsche Oper Berlin's 2024/2025 Season

The Deutsche Oper Berlin's 2024/25 season promises a rich tapestry of performances that explore the depths of human emotion and societal themes through opera and ballet. From Bizet's captivating 'Carmen' to Mozart's enigmatic 'The Magic Flute', the season showcases timeless classics interpreted by talented artists. Highlights include Verdi's 'La traviata', Wagner's 'Tannhäuser', and the delightful chaos of Rossini's 'The Barber of Seville'. Adding to the mix are the magical 'The Nutcracker' ballet and a jazz-infused New Year's gala 'Swingin' 25'. Join us in exploring these vibrant events and their cultural significance.

Opera Odyssey: Unveiling the Heart of Deutsche Oper Berlin's 2024/25 Season

The 2024/25 season at Deutsche Oper Berlin promises an array of diverse performances that are bound to capture the imaginations and hearts of audiences. Set in the heart of Berlin, this season offers a blend of timeless operas, insightful lectures, and engaging ballets, featuring works by Bizet, Mozart, Verdi, and more. With a lineup including 'Carmen', 'The Magic Flute', 'La traviata', and other remarkable events, the season is a celebration of music, culture, and artistic expression. Join us as we delve into the performances, explore the talents of world-renowned artists, and immerse ourselves in the vibrant atmosphere of Deutsche Oper Berlin.

Discover the Musical Wonders at Deutsche Oper Berlin: A Season of Enriching Performances

Michele Spotti

Brenda Rae

Etienne Dupuis

Kyle Miller

Alexandra Oomens

Stephanie Wake-Edwards

Maria Vasilevskaya

Stephen Marsh

Andrei Danilov

Joel Allison

Tobias Kehrer

Geon Kim

Kieran Carrel

Jan Bosse

Kathryn Plath

Stephane Laimé

Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin

Deutsche Oper Berlin

Chorus of the Deutsche Oper Berlin

In describing the attributes of his 1851 melodrama based on Victor Hugo’s acclaimed play “Le roi s’amuse” Verdi also puts his finger on the challenges that any director has to address: RIGOLETTO is namely a masterpiece whose particularity lies in the clash between the characters’ psychology and the improbable action of a fantasy storyline.

Rigoletto

It’s the most performed opera in the German-speaking region, an unusual – and masterly – blend of Viennese folk theatre and fairy tale, mythology and freemasonry mystique: Mozart’s THE MAGIC FLUTE remains a puzzle to this day. Did Mozart and his librettist Schikaneder switch horses from the Queen of the Night to Sarastro half way through? Is the message not one of distrust towards a supposedly infallible priesthood and its simplistic good-versus-evil ideology? Are some Mozart experts right when they talk of a disconnect between text and music? Whatever the answer, it’s the music that allows us to relate to the story’s contradictions. Far from denouncing the characters, it confers an existentiality on their conflicts.

The Magic Flute

Lasso didn’t choose to have the childhood he had, being brought up by Popa, a frazzled single mother who not only has her son to take care of but also a rowdy pub to manage. Which is why Lasso leaves home to seek his fortune. Along the way he hears about Princess Scharada and her three riddles. A man can ask her three questions: if she fails to answer them correctly, he gets to marry her and rule the realm; if she solves the riddles, he is put to death. But whatever happens, Lasso will not only have travelled the world and crossed paths with robbers, wild boars, astrologers, clairvoyants, scheming politicians and stern ladies-in-waiting – he’ll also have found a great friend and companion. In his THE THREE RIDDLES, an erratic blend of fairytale, social drama, road movie and full-scale opera, composer Detlev Glanert presents a witty, zany and slightly scary story of two very different children, who team up to hold their own in the big, wide world and find their own way.

The Three Riddles

Lieutenant Pinkerton is attached to an American ship currently moored in Nagasaki harbour. He has been courting a 15-year-old geisha girl named Cio-Cio-san, known as Butterfly, who is from a poor but genteel family and takes love very seriously. Pinkerton wants to enter into a “time-limited marriage” – not uncommon between European men and geishas at the time – and is even being helped by Goro, the marriage agent, to find a cottage in which they can spend their honeymoon. The US consul, Sharpless, warns him against such a step, but Pinkerton brushes him off and even toasts the day when he will take an American to be his “real” wife.

Madame Butterfly

It is common knowledge that Giuseppe Verdi, by nature a critical man, not only found much to disapprove of in the trends of his day but also subjected his own work to a continuous process of editing and revision.

Don Carlo

Violetta Valery, living in kept splendour at the expense of Baron Douphol, has apparently recovered from a serious illness. To celebrate, she throws a party where she meets and falls for Alfredo Germont. As their love for each other is frowned upon, they set up house outside of Paris. Alfredo’s father insists that she break with his son in order not to jeopardise the marriage prospects of Alfredo’s sister. Violetta accedes to his wish and cuts off relations. In a showdown at another party Violetta tries to convince Alfredo that she’s in love with the Baron, causing Alfredo to hurl his gambling winnings at her feet, calling them “fees for services rendered”. Soon afterwards, at the height of the Paris carnival, Violetta is on her deathbed. She receives Alfredo, who has heard from his father her real reason for leaving him. Violetta forgives him, gives him her blessing and dies.

La traviata

With the world premiere of his one-act opera, VIOLANTA, the 18-year-old Erich Wolfgang Korngold shifted overnight from child prodigy to one of the leading opera composers of his generation. For VIOLANTA not only heralded the arrival of a young maestro who was as independent as he was variegated in his musical palette, who had an unerring feel for how to render his vision on stage, and who could write melodies that were both expressive and catchy to boot; the 75-minute work to a libretto by Hans Müller, later to be known for co-writing THE WHITE HORSE INN, also served notice that Korngold had caught a contemporary Viennese mood that encapsulated Art Nouveau, psychoanalysis and an end-of-days atmosphere, a quintessence framed by Freud, Klimt and Schnitzler – all mirrored perfectly in the storyline: Violanta, the wife of Venice’s governor, plots during Carnival to avenge, through assassination, her sister, who committed suicide after being seduced by Prince Alfonso. When the moment comes, however, she acknowledges her true motive: to snuff out her own desire to abandon herself to passion. She sacrifices herself to free herself from “lust and guilt”.

Violanta

Director Christof Loy has already helped four little-known operas from the early 20th century make a successful comeback at the Deutsche Oper Berlin: Erich Wolfgang Korngold's DAS WUNDER DER HELIANE and Riccardo Zandonai's FRANCESCA DA RIMINI were followed by other long-forgotten operatic treasures: Franz Schreker's DER SCHATZGRÄBER in 2022 and finally Ottorino Respighi's LA FIAMMA in 2024.

The Treasure Hunter (Der Schatzgräber)

It began as a song cycle for two voices and piano accompaniment and became a choral symphonic mammoth work: Arnold Schoenberg's ‘Gurrelieder’ tell the story of the love between Tove and King Waldemar, based on poems by the Danish writer Jens Peter Jacobsen. In the ‘Gurrelieder’, Schönberg, in the tradition of Richard Wagner, Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss, combines all the musical influences of late Romanticism into an almost two-hour monumental work that is a high point of that artistic epoch – and at the same time a turning point: In fact, Schönberg had already taken the step towards atonality during the years of the completion and world premiere of ‘Gurrelieder’.

Gurrelieder

Berliner Philharmonie

A nation is cowed by its princess. Turandot, beautiful and fascinating representative of a royal dynasty, presides over a gruesome ritual: only her marriage to a suitor will bring an end to the violence, but no would-be bridegroom has yet managed to solve the riddles. The same old spectacle plays out, ending in yet another execution, until Calaf, the son of a deposed ruler from a foreign land, unexpectedly answers the riddles correctly. He then turns the tables on Turandot, forcing her to answer his own question if she wants to steal out of her obligation. Puccini’s times are changing rapidly, the art world is going through drastic transformation and new, abstract forms are being coined to reflect modern-day experience. And the composer, in his early 60s, is again trying to break new ground.

Turandot

In a courtyard of the Mycenaean palace servant girls speak disparagingly about Elektra. Elektra has not got over the murder of her father, Agamemnon, and the idea of revenge dominates her thoughts. Only one of the maidservants shows sympathy for her and is punished as a result. Elektra is yearning for the moment when vengeance will be hers and fully believes that it will come about by the actions of her brother, Orest, who was brought up in a distant region. Her sister, Chrysothemis, finds Elektra’s existence hard to bear and attempts to protect her from their mother, who has evil intentions. Chrysothemis wants to leave that awful place along with her sister so that they can live in freedom. Their mother Clytemnestra, who has been plagued by nightmares since she killed her husband, asks her daughter Elektra for help and while their conversation lasts it seems as if the two women might be reconciled. But Elektra’s hatred flares up again when Clytemnestra lies to her daughter over the whereabouts of her son, Orest. Elektra replies ambiguously to Clytemnestra’s question about the remedy for her anguish and fear, telling her mother that once the proper animal has been sacrificed under the axe her bad dreams will cease. Two strangers arrive and report the death of Orest. Elektra expresses her desire to ally with Chrysothemis in committing the deed, but her sister cannot contemplate such a thing. Determined to avenge herself, Elektra resolves: “Fine, then, I’ll do it alone!” One of the strangers moves closer to Elektra; shaken at the sight of her physical and emotional state, he allows her to see who he is: Orest. He exits to do the deed and presently Clytemnestra’s screams can be heard as she dies. Whereupon Elektra lures Aegisthus into the palace and he is killed by Orest as well. Agamemnon has been avenged. Nonetheless, Elektra stays in the palace feeling no sense of relief; she dances herself to death.

Elektra

Following on from Puccini’s LA RONDINE and Johann Strauss’s DIE FLEDERMAUS, Rolando Villazón returns to the Deutsche Oper Berlin to tackle one of the great comedies of the bel canto genre and demonstrate that he can do humour. L’ITALIANA IN ALGERI remains one of the most popular works by Gioacchino Rossini, who is said to have dashed the piece off in less than a month and was a tender 21 years of age when the opera premiered at Venice’s Teatro San Benedetto in 1813. It’s a testament to Rossini’s boldness that he chose material that had been set to music only a few years before by his more experienced colleague Luigi Mosca. His audacity paid off, with the subsequent triumph bringing him immediate fame across Italy and widespread popularity soon afterwards throughout Europe.

L’Italiana in Algeri

“As for the effect that a work has as a piece of theatre, I’d say that RIGOLETTO is the best material that I’ve ever set to music […]. It has very powerful scenes, there’s temperament, pathos, a lot of variety.” [Verdi to Antonio Somma, 22nd April 1853]

Rigoletto

Articles & News