Name: Forum
Start: 2025-05-27T19:00:00
Location: Deutsche Oper Berlin

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'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

Katja Wiegand

Dominik White Slavkovský

Deutsche Oper Berlin

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

Ohad Naharin is a world-renowned Israeli choreographer and the inventor of the Gaga movement language, which, originating from the Batsheva Dance Company in Tel Aviv, has now spread globally and is taught worldwide. To allow dancers to form a personal and emotional connection with the material and the moment of the performance beyond the choreography itself, the Gaga method works towards complete emotional openness.

Minus 16

Discover the world of dance from a different perspective! In the Forum discussion series, Dramaturge Katja Wiegand delves into pressing societal questions and their connections to dance. Together with experts from other artistic disciplines, academia, and practice, the 2025/26 season once again fosters interdisciplinary exchange. Using pieces from the current repertoire as examples, the series highlights the intersection of dance with cultural and social themes. This season’s focus is on the captivating world of collections, archives, and artistic styles in dance.

Forum

Figaro and Susanna, servants at the court of Count Almaviva, are soon to marry and are furnishing the lodgings that they’ve been allotted in the Count’s castle. Figaro is gleefully taking measurements for the conjugal bed, but Susanna is worried: the Count’s passion for his wife has long since cooled, meaning that he might invoke his “right to the first night”. Figaro is determined that it won’t come to that, but another issue is plaguing him too: before lending him a sum of money, Marcellina, the Count’s housekeeper had wrung from him a pledge to marry her if he defaulted, and that time has now come. To complicate matters, in the Countess’s chambers Susanna is asked by the Count’s page, Cherubino, to put in a word for him because he’s been fired for a dalliance with Barbarina, the Count’s gardener’s daughter. The Count enters suddenly and tries to negotiate a tryst with Susanna, forcing Cherubino to hide, whereupon Basilio the music teacher arrives, and finally Figaro. The situation heats up and the only person to keep a handle on things is Susanna.

Le nozze di Figaro

It's Christmas Eve. After the wonderful festivities, little Klara falls into a deep sleep. She dreams of a fantastic journey to the fairytale sugar country, accompanied by the nutcracker, her most beautiful gift.

Children' s ballet - The Nutcracker

It is the summer of 1789. A festivity is being prepared in the castle of Countess de Coigny. Charles Gérard, a servant of the Countess´ voices his hatred of the French aristrocracy´s decadence. His aged Father is forced to labour all day long and Gérard himself leads the undignified life of a lackey. Moreover, he is secretly and unhappily in love with Madeleine de Coigny, the daughter of the House with whom he was raised. The political situation is very tense. When the visitors attending the ball finally arrive, they try to distract themselves from the disquieting news from Paris with the help of arcadian idylls and games. The young poet André Chénier is among the guests. Madeleine requests him to recite a poem. He sings of love and laments the injustice of the powers that be in such a convincing manner that Madeleine is deeply moved and forced to quit the room. The doors are suddely opened and a mob of irate people led by Gérard shocks the ball guests. However, the Countess manages to pacify and disperse the mob. The dancing continues.

Andrea Chenier

Hansel and Gretel, children of a poor broom maker and his wife, are sent into the woods one day by their mother to pick berries – as punishment for larking around instead of doing their chores. When their father arrives home bearing a bag full of treats after a successful working day, he berates his wife, because the woods are home to an evil witch. The parents set off to look for the kids, who have meanwhile filled their baskets but then eaten all the berries themselves out of sheer hunger. They also realise darkness has fallen and they’re lost, so they lie down for the night and say their prayers, falling asleep and having a strange and wonderful dream. In the morning they wake to see a cottage made of gingerbread and other sweetmeats. Nibbling at the house, they are surprised by the witch, who takes them captive, planning to bake the children in her oven. Instead, they play a trick on her and push her into her own oven. The spell is broken and all the children who had been transformed into gingerbread by the witch regain their human form. The pair’s parents appear and the reunited family returns home.

Hansel and Gretel

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

“Blame it on the champagne, tra la la la la !” That’s the half-truth that the protagonists in Johann Strauss’s THE BAT sign up to at the end of a drink-fuelled night of mistaken identities and erotic escapades. But alcohol is only partly to blame; the confusion is largely due to the wiles of the humiliated Dr Falke, who was once exposed to small-town ridicule dressed in the costume of a bat and is now seizing his chance to avenge himself on his ‘good pal’, bon vivant Gabriel von Eisenstein. And so it is that the maid disguises herself as an actress, the wife as a Hungarian countess and Eisenstein himself as a French marquess and off they trot to Prince Orlofsky’s masked ball. That they end up bewailing their fate in jail early the next morning is less down to champagne than to the natural course of events. In THE BAT Johann Strauss pulled off a work that proved to be the prototypical Viennese operetta, bursting with waltzes and polkas and oozing wicked irony. Inspired by Offenbach’s opéras buffes from Paris, Strauss’s work was merciless in the way it held up a mirror to the bourgeois salon-going public - and many audience members recognised themselves in the absurd antics onstage.

Die Fledermaus

It’s a rambunctious tale: an old curmudgeon is set on marrying his own ward of court with a view to snapping up her considerable inheritance. He leaves no stone unturned in his efforts to keep the fair Rosina cloistered from the outside world and thus from any potential young suitors. A pity, then, that Count Almaviva has fallen head over heels for her. Assisted by Figaro, an enterprising barber, he plans to outwit the old man, win over Rosina – and ensure that it’s love that attracts her to him rather than his rank and wealth. Not an easy job for Figaro, seeing as the opposite camp is scheming with equal tenacity … Love wins out in the end, and it turns out that all precautions were useless!

The Barber of Seville

After the phenomenal success of the last two New Year's Eve celebrations, our BigBand will also ring in the new year this season: Celebrate 2026 with renowned jazz greats and versatile ensemble members and start the new year in a good mood under the direction of Manfred Honetschläger.

Swingin` 26

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

The focus of the Forum event series in the 2024/25 season is on social science questions explored from various perspectives of science and dance. It provides a space for discussion and association on topics that extend far beyond the stage and invites reflection on the societal role of dance through examples from the current repertoire. On three occasions, dramaturg Katja Wiegand, along with her guests from academia and practice, will examine the complex interactions between dance and current discourses: the first session, Nature Romanticism and Ecology , questions the portrayal of nature in classical ballets, where nature is often romanticized or stylized. In Space and Movement , the tension between architecture and dance will be highlighted. The concluding session, Body and Culture , will focus on the relationship between dance and identity.

Forum

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