Name: 8. Chamber Concert
Start: 2026-06-16T19:30:00
Location: Lübeck Town Hall

Johanna Jung

Vera Dörmann

Waldo Ceunen

Theater Lübeck

While "Don Giovanni" is being performed in the opera house, the real show takes place in the wine cellar next door – here, the poet Hoffmann entertains his customers with his fantastic tales in which people turn out to be machines, singing can be fatal, and mysterious figures seek to rob him of his reflection. The hidden core of every story: his relationship with the singer Stella, who is also on stage as Donna Anna in the opera. The longer the evening goes on, the crazier the stories become, until Hoffmann finally threatens to lose touch with reality...

Hoffmann's Tales Les contes d'Hoffmann

The most powerful man in the Roman Empire, Emperor Nero, covets the beautiful and power-hungry courtesan Poppea. She demands that he marry her and crown her empress. To do so, however, Nero must first disown his unloved wife Ottavia. The philosopher Seneca tries in vain to temper Nero's desires, but this only draws his wrath. Empress Ottavia, fighting to maintain her position, commissions a courtier to murder her rival Poppea. But the plan backfires. Ottavia is found guilty, and Nero finally has a plausible reason to exile her and enthrone his lover.

The Coronation of Poppea L'incoronazione di Poppea

In his drama fragment "Woyzeck," shortly before his untimely death in 1837, Georg Büchner became one of the first playwrights to turn his attention unsparingly to social reality. Inspired by a real court case, he depicts a simple man trying to lead a normal life against all odds—living in poverty, subjected to questionable medical experiments, and humiliated from all sides, he increasingly loses his mind. The play wasn't staged until 1913.

Wozzeck

It's a well-known cliché that mothers develop superpowers when their children are in danger. Playwright Sina Ahlers goes even further in her play "Milk & Guilt": "The generic mother survives in complete isolation, able to do without solid food. She is the disciplined human being that capitalism needs and will open up a new planet." Mothers as humanity's last hope? Yeah, right! Saving the world for a second would, after all, be just another completely unreasonable expectation our modern society places on mothers.

Milk & Guilt

They want to live solely for art and love: the singer Floria Tosca and the painter Mario Cavaradossi. Yet they find themselves caught in a deadly whirlpool of political and personal power struggles. Cavaradossi sympathizes with the ideals of a liberal republic, but at the same time paints Madonnas for the ultra-conservative Roman clergy. When he helps a fugitive republican find refuge, the police chief Baron Scarpia, who has established a reign of terror in Rome to suppress republican aspirations, becomes suspicious of him. To achieve two goals at once—to eliminate Cavaradossi and to subjugate his lover Tosca—Scarpia devises a truly diabolical plan: He has Cavaradossi arrested and tortured in Tosca's presence, and then makes her an extortionate offer...

Tosca

8.  Chamber Concert

Lübeck Town Hall

Truffaldino travels to Venice with his employer. And because the boss is busy in important meetings, Truffaldino quickly finds a second job that promises to fill his empty stomach and save him from financial difficulties. Now it's all about keeping the two employers secret. But Boss No. 1 is actually a woman, dressed only in men's clothing, looking for her lover, who is on the run after a botched duel. And Boss No. 2 is—how could it be otherwise—this lover, of all people. While the two lovers are actually looking for each other, Truffaldino works up a sweat to prevent them from meeting at all costs. This famous game of mistaken identity brought joy to people more than 250 years ago and became Carlo Goldoni's masterpiece.

The Servant of Two Masters

The final symphony concert of the season presents a Scandinavian program with discoverable works from Sweden and Denmark, as well as a Finnish classic that, surprisingly, originated in Italy. Elfrida Andrée, born in 1841 in Visby on Gotland, was the first female composer in Sweden to venture into the realm of symphonic music. In 1894, she composed her only opera, "Fritiofs Saga," based on a libretto by Selma Lagerlöf, but it was never performed during her lifetime. The trombone concerto by Danish composer Launy Grøndahl from 1924 combines elements of Romanticism, Impressionism, and Nordic folklore and is one of the most significant contributions to the genre. In Lübeck, the piece will be played by the Philharmonic Orchestra's principal trombonist, Stephan Gerblinger.

9th  Symphony Concert

Music and Congress Hall Lübeck

The Lübeck slam A Rama Poetry Slam is back with the stage literature highlight of the season! At the "Poetry Slam Gala Show," five top poets from the A-league of word acrobats in the German-speaking slam scene will compete against each other to show the audience how their texts can make an entire hall and a five-person audience jury cry, scream, tremble, or laugh. And sometimes all of these things at once. In the finest theatrical atmosphere, leaning back in comfortable armchairs, you can look forward not only to the best poets but also to an excellent musical supporting program. It couldn't be more enjoyable!

Slam A Rama presents:The Poetry Slam Gala Show

In 2009, it landed at number 9 in the "ABC Classic 100 Symphony Countdown" – and rightly so: Jean Sibelius's Symphony No. 2 is one of the most popular works in the symphonic repertoire today. Its grand finale made it a symbol of the struggle for independence from Russia in Finland. Sibelius himself never expressed a clear political interpretation – and yet this music strikes a chord: Between the sounds of nature, awakening, expansiveness, and power, a symphony of timeless significance unfolds.

Youth concert for the  9th Symphony concert

It is part of the Philharmonic Orchestra's tradition to accompany selected students from the Lübeck University of Music and Performing Arts as part of their concert examinations at the end of each concert season. With this soloist concert, Theater Lübeck and its orchestra underscore the special importance they attach to the development of aspiring musicians and their entry into professional life.

Soloist concert of the Lübeck University of Music

Lübeck Academy of Music

The Philharmonic Youth Orchestra of the Hanseatic City of Lübeck is entering its second season. Under the direction of Second Kapellmeister Nathan Bas, young musicians rehearse works from the symphonic repertoire on Monday evenings. They are also supported in vocal and ensemble rehearsals by musicians from the professional orchestra through the Lübeck Philharmonic Society / Lübeck Philharmonic Orchestra.