Name: Festival song recital Christian Gerhaher 1
Start: 2026-07-26T20:00:00
Location: Munich Residence

Christian Gerhaher

Gerold Huber

Bayerische Staatsoper

“Chi è morto, voi o il vecchio?,” jokes the servant Leporello cryptically, after Don Giovanni has murdered “Il Commendatore”. The story of the “punished debauchee” has long since been the stuff of myth. Don Giovanni plays out in a field of tension between heaven and hell, as opposites collide in this dramma giocoso, set among amorous desires and the fall of angels. In this kaleidoscope of situations and characters, there is an absolute absence of clarity, evident alone in the fact that each of these characters lies – either to each other or to themselves. The timeless comedy motifs of role and dress change assume an oppressive ambiguity here. The master of transformation Don Giovanni, this polyerotic hedonist, is hard to fathom. In endless metamorphoses, he appears just as suddenly as he then immediately disappears again. The other characters know – they need him, as a mirror of themselves. And so for Leporello it becomes clear after his master’s death that Don Giovanni leads an eternal life and will affect ours again and again. This Don Giovanni now completes the Da Ponte cycle. “Faust” winner David Hermann stages at the Bayerische Staatsoper for the first time. General Music Director Vladimir Jurowski conducts the piece, in which Mozart threw open the doors to a new world, from which there can be no return.

Don Giovanni

Max-Joseph-Platz

As the template for his opera, Die Englische Katze (1983), Hans Werner Henze turned to a story by Honoré de Balzac from the early 1840s, illustrated by the famous caricaturist, Grandville. The libretto for Die Englische Katze was delivered by the English author Edward Bond, with whom Henze had already collaborated successfully with his previous opera, We Come to the River. If this was a passionate plea against the war, at first glance this animal parable, Die Englische Katze, appears to be apolitical, indeed, even harmless or amusing. The story about the ageing tomcat, Lord Puff, president of a vegetarian-nourishing “Royal Society for the Protection of Rats” and his young wife Minette, who falls in love with another, daring and exciting tomcat, Tom, ends tragically however, and serves as a wicked satire. Minette is drowned by the other cats, Tom is stabbed in the back, just after he has inherited a large sum of money. The insensitive, hypocritical cat society that only looks out for its own benefit gets off scot free.

Die Englische Katze

Munich Residence

When the nights are at their longest, frosty wind and snow storms sweep the land, it is the time of the Koliada – of the pagan winter solstice feast and the Christian-orthodox Christmas celebration in equal measure. In these magical “twelve days of Christmas” the barrier between the human world and the realm of dark beings becomes especially thin. Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s “true” Christmas song, Die Nacht vor Weihnachten, based on the eponymous story by Nikolai Gogol, also plays out in this very same period.

Die Nacht vor Weihnachten

Since its first performance in 1893, Humperdinck's most famous opera Hansel and Gretel has remained constantly popular, becoming over the generations almost synonymous with the first family visit to the opera. "Brother come and dance with me!“ – "Susie, dear Susie" – a dancing brother and sister, the Dew Fairy and the Sandman, the Witch and the parents: a collection of all the fairy tale elements of the 19th century. And yet this is also a tale of hardship, hunger and the desire for abundance with a clear moral: "When the need is greatest, God the Lord puts out His hand!“

Hänsel Und Gretel

Heartache, heartbreak, the whole nine yards – four starving artists – love in a shabby attic loft – the swank boulevards where people live life with a capital "L", but Mimi is destined to die. Her tiny hand: ice cold! Otto Schenk's incredibly opulent, eternally valid production continues to fascinate audiences. All of Paris is magically transported onto the stage here.  So beautiful you could cry!

La Bohème

In the portrait concerts of the Opera Studio, two singers and a pianist from the Opera Studio present themselves. The program consists exclusively of song repertoire, which is selected by the singers in consultation with the pianists and, along with operas, forms an important part of the vocal repertoire. The portrait concerts offer the possibility to get to know the three artists in their own way and with their history in a nice atmosphere.

Portrait Concert 1

Artist House

Whether the word “wave” reminds us of a beach by the sea, the radio or a football stadium – the idea of ​​energy is always in there somewhere. An energy that looks for its path and awakens the impression of liveliness. Waves often spread in circles, going out in all directions from a center point. Waves and circles play a role in a different way in the triple bill ballet program, Waves and Circles – they are extolled, are visible or are tangible.

Waves And Circles

Barrie Kosky affords the “operetta of all operettas” a new look and focuses on its morbid side. The scene is Vienna, city of the golden operetta era, where Die Fledermaus celebrated its world premiere at the Theater an der Wien in 1874. The revenge of the bat becomes a nightmare for Gabriel von Eisenstein and many others. A society, an entire city dances towards the abyss. To take revenge on his friend Eisenstein, Dr Falke, alias the bat, orchestrates a misunderstanding with Prince Orlofsky. A marquis and a chevalier, a countess and budding artists meet here for a raucous party. Glasses clink, relationships are strained, there is loving, lying and dancing. They party ‘til the cows come home, always believing: “Happy are those who forget ...”

Die Fledermaus

Jerusalem and Babylon at the time of Neubchadnezzar around 578 B.C. were the setting of Verdi’s early work, Nabucco. But the Biblical epic about power, love and religion is certainly more than a mere historical drama that might have served as a Hollywood blockbuster, and which places the most stringent demands on the soloists, chorus and stage machinery. Human conflicts are expressed here in highly emotional music and leave an indelible mark, to the present day, on this first, genuinely major operatic success by composer Giuseppe Verdi. Nabucco, the work with the famous prisoners’ chorus “Va pensiero” (“Fly, thought, on golden wings!”), the best-known hymn to freedom ever composed, is a must – and not just for Verdi fans.

Nabucco

The U.S. Forces show their presence world-wide: American Lieutenant Pinkerton has an affair in Nagasaki with Cio-Cio San, "Madame Butterfly". He sails away. She then has his child. Three years later he returns to Japan – accompanied by his American wife and wants to take the child with him. Butterfly commits suicide.

Madama Butterfly

Seeing his love succeed against the will of the parents is pretty difficult in a rural setting. Especially when he is also considered an outsider, things do not look good with the parents-in-law, and there's a lot of money in the mix as well. But what Hans negotiates with Kezal the marriage broker, without discussing it with his beloved Marie, certainly requires a very special kind of chutzpah, and it very nearly goes all wrong – bartering his loved one to a certain person, which turns out through rhetorical trickery to be himself, only becomes evident as a good idea at the end. Which once again proves: The comedy is only a tragedy avoided at the very last minute.

The Bartered Bride

On his futile search for the meaning of life, the ageing scholar Faust makes a pact with the Devil. Méphistophélès buys his soul and promises him eternal youth and love. Faust falls in love with Marguerite, however she soon leaves him. After she has killed their child, Marguerite succumbs to madness, but emerges morally superior from the encounter with Faust.