Name: The Tsar wants his Photograph taken / The Clever Woman
Start: 2026-06-27T19:30:00
Location: Oper Frankfurt

Jiří Rožeň

Magnus Dietrich

Elizabeth Reiter

Kelsey Lauritano

Alfred Reiter

Domen Križaj

Peter Marsh

Thomas Faulkner

Karolina Makuła

Gerard Schneider

Sebastian Geyer

Nombulelo Yende

Iain MacNeil

Dietrich Volle

Juanita Lascarro

Michael McCown

Mikołaj Trąbka

Boris Kudlička

Simone Sandroni

John Bishop

Keith Warner

Kaspar Glarner

Oper Frankfurt

a moving story about an outsider, turned into a scapegoat by his small-minded, vindictive fellow villagers. The only way to escape his wretched life and them, baying for his blood, is by scuttling his boat and drowning at sea. Michel Friedman discusses this with a former chairman of the SPD, minister in several cabinets and vice chancellor: Franz Müntefering.

Michel Friedman (a well known person in Germany) in conversation

The title of this series of concerts– »Happy New Ears« – was something John Cage once wished his audience instead of Happy New Year. Cage, along with Luigi Nono, who taught him, and Karlheinz Stockhausen were among those to have influenced Helmut Lachenmann most. He turns 90 on November 27 this year; a chance to honour one of the most important composers of the 20th and 21st centuries with a portrait concert. He's been trying to broaden horizons across the board with his distinct sound world and challenging concepts of art and music for nearly 70 years. »Art is not an expression of what defines time, but what it lacks,« he said and, with Beethoven in mind: »a metamorphosis of magical, familiar experiences triggered by a spiritually charged, creative driving force« - something that fascinates him.

Happy New Ears

HfMDK Frankfurt

She lives in the here and now, one of the best-known heroines in operatic history, she makes sergeant Don José lose his mind, throwing his life into confusion. His attempts to make her tow the line fail because she can’t be tied down. They gradually drive each other into corners. Bizet’s music brings the differences in their perceptions of love and relationships into contrast again and again: Their downfall starts with light-hearted operetta music, but ends in tragedy. Barrie Kosky’s production quickly achieved cult status after it blasted onto the stage in  2015, and has lost none of its impact, taking the most performed opera in the world back to its roots - Opéra comique. The story’s interspersed and told using concise texts, steering us towards its tragic end. En route, romantic, amusing moments and wonderful dance routines share the stage. Kosky’s vision is fascinating, toying masterfully with usual Carmen and Spanish clichés.

Carmen

Introductory talks (in German) in the Holzfoyer 30 minutes before curtain up, available here shortly after opening night and everywhere where podcasts are to be found.

Amor vien dal destino

»If I survived, and others didn’t, then it was probably to attest to what Auschwitz was.« Said Zofia Posmysz, explaining why she wrote her novel The (female) Passenger. Polish composer Mieczyslaw Weinberg, who suffered under the brutality of the SS as well as Stalin’s reign of terror, found a guardian and supporter in Dmitri Shostakovich. It was he who suggested he turn Posmysz' novel into an opera. Director Anselm Weber and set designer Katja Haß cleverly managed to depict different times and places – present day and memories: A ship sailing to Brazil in the 1950s. Lisa and her husband Walter are on their way to start a new life when an encounter suddenly confronts Lisa with the past, when she was a KZ guard in Auschwitz. Is the other passenger a former prisoner, Marta? Lisa was convinced she had died but now stands face to face with her. Walter’s dumbfounded and fears for his future as a diplomat – he knew nothing of his wife’s past.

The (female) Passenger

The relationship between Cio-Cio-San, called »Butterfly«, and US American marine officer Benjamin F. Pinkerton begins as a proforma wedding – with unexpected consequences: the young Japanese woman cuts herself off from her family, hoping to leave her impoverished origins behind; Pinkerton, on the other hand, despite his overwhelming desires, doesn’t feel committed to this »provisional marriage«. When he’s ordered home Cio-Cio-San’s left behind, expecting his baby. She waits unwaveringly for his return; her only rock is her faithful servant Suzuki. But when Pinkerton’s ship re-docks in Nagasaki, the illusion shatters: He married another woman in America. When Butterfly realises they intend to take her child as well, she sees no other way out; she commits ritual suicide, as her father before her. Doing away with superficial clichés, the director R.B. Schlather focuses on the human tragedy, for which Puccini, Master of Melody found such heart-rending music.

Madama Butterfly

A year of political and musical upheaval. The title of French composer Elsa Barraine's 2nd symphony is the Russian word for »war«, a work commissioned by the French Ministry for Culture in 1938. After the annexation of Austria and the Munich Agreement war was in the air, and subsequent events proved her right. But the work hints at a distant future. The war in the 1st movement is followed by a funeral march in the 2nd before the music returns to life in the finale.

6th Sunday & Monday Symphonic Concerts

Alte Oper

Patrick Grahl's wonderful voice and oustanding diction has made him one of the most sought-after tenors of his generation, in particular for oratorio and concert work, working regularly with musicians including the Leipzig Gewandhausorchester, the NDR Radio Philharmonie, the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia and London Symphony Orchestra with conductors such as Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Sir Simon Rattle and Philippe Herreweghe. Born in Leipzig, he was a member of the Thomanerchors before studying for his masters at the »Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy« university. Alongside his busy operatic career, which has taken him to places including Venice, Helsinki, Budapest and Lyon, he is passionate about singing Lieder. Don't miss the chance to hear him with his pianist Klara Hornig singing works you've probably never heard before, by Wilhelm Weismann, Rudolf Wagner-Regény, Hanns Eisler and Johannes Weyrauch, which you can hear again if you buy their much praised recording Das ferne Lied.

Patrick Grahl (tenor) & Klara Hornig (piano)

A wealthy man wants to immortalise his life and success in an illustrated book, which confronts him with an uncomfortable reality.

Written on Skin

Julies Massenet’s much loved opera Werther moves between ecstasy and resignation, dream and reality, sensual desire and the longing for death. Central to this feverish drama, based on Goethe‘s 1774 epistolary novel, are Werther and his impossible love for Charlotte, who promised her dying mother to marry dependable Albert. Charlotte repeatedly turns Werther down, although she shares his feelings. It ends with Werther taking his life on Christmas Eve.

Werther

Music is always a reflection of its time. Bernstein's Age of Anxiety, written between 1947 - 1949, inspired by a poem by Auden, describes people's uncertain and changeable feelings after World War II. The poem's about four young people drowning their fears and loneliness in a New York bar, desperately seeking stability and faith in a world they no longer recognise.

7th Sunday & Monday Symphonic Concerts

One of the leading mezzo-sopranos of our time is back in Frankfurt, where she thrilled audiences with Sesto (role debut) in La clemenza di Tito, Charlotte inWerther, Marguerite, in a new La damnation de Faust, and Sara in concert performances of Donizetti's Roberto Devereux, for this recital with her friend and accompanist Julius Drake, with whom she gave two other unforgettable recitals here. This British artist is a regular guest at leading houses in Europe and the USA, singing roles including Carmen, Dorabella (Così fan tutte), Lucretia (The Rape of Lucretia), Ariodante, Xerxes, Agrippina, Ruggiero (Alcina), Dejanira (Hercules), Madame de Croissy, Mère Marie (Dialogues des Carmélites) and Cassandra (Les Troyens). Much sought-after as a Lieder singer she appears regularly in recital at venues including the Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall, the Konzerthaus in Vienna and Concertgebouw in Amsterdam - there are lots of prize-winning recordings to choose from, full of thrilling and profound interpretations of Lieder you love. Alice Coote received an OBE for her services to music in 2018.

Alice Coote (mezzo-soprano) & Julius Drake (piano)

A Tsar, wanting to have his photograph taken has no idea he’s surrounded by conspirator’s planning his assassination. And a young woman, who can outsmart anybody – even a King.