Name: Satisfactionaction
Start: 2026-01-30T20:00:00
Location: Deutsche Oper Berlin

Deutsche Oper Berlin's 2025/26 season is set to be a cultural extravaganza, featuring a rich tapestry of operas and dance performances. From Verdi's iconic 'Aida' and 'Rigoletto' to Mozart's 'The Magic Flute', the season promises a diverse selection of operatic classics. Adding to the variety, performances such as Ohad Naharin's 'Minus 16' and Detlev Glanert's original 'The Three Riddles' showcase the transformative power of dance and contemporary opera. As the curtain rises on a season of storytelling through music and movement, audiences can look forward to an unforgettable journey.

Opera and Dance Converge at Deutsche Oper Berlin: A Spectacular 2025/26 Season

Max Andrzejewski

Mari Sawada

Gregoire Simon

Isabelle Klemt

James Banner

Annie Bloch

Arne Braun

Marco Mlynek

Jeremy Nothman

Sylvana Seddig

Martin Beeretz

Deutsche Oper Berlin

With The Magic Flute, Mozart wanted to write a piece for everyone – the blend of Viennese folk theater, Singspiel, and Italian opera makes it a favourite with audiences to this day. There's something for every taste, from catchy songs and arias to humorous spoken dialogue and fairytale elements. Günter Krämer’s production creates two contrasting worlds: the realm of the Queen of the Night and the temple of the Sun King. Between them travels Prince Tamino, accompanied by the bird catcher Papageno. On their adventurous journey, they traverse primeval forests inhabited by lions, rhinoceroses and snakes. Mozart’s opera imaginatively invites reflection on good and evil, dreams, fears and love. The lovingly crafted, partly mechanical set design creates stage magic. Renowned Mozart interpreter Tomáš Netopil conducts the Deutsche Oper Berlin orchestra. Our ensemble of soloists will enchant with their joy in acting and singing.

The Magic Flute

With The Flying Dutchman, controversial theatre director Milo Rau is tackling the work and Richard Wagner’s oeuvre for the first time, using the Romantic opera as a starting point for a journey into the political depths of the Federal Republic of Germany. The story centres on a cursed sailor who can only be delivered through the faithfulness of a woman, and who finds in Senta an obsessively determined ally. Taking Wagner’s ideologically camouflaged preoccupation with Ahasverus, the motif of the Wandering Jew, his anti-Semitism and redemption cult as a basis, Rau turns his gaze toward the long post-war history of guilt, memory and the search for reconciliation. What does it mean to be a fan of Wagner after the Holocaust? Is there redemption for Wagner, any deliverance from German guilt? The production searches for the answers to these questions via the unredeemed Dutchman of the title, like a road trip movie through German culture and history after 1945 as well as the emotionally charged German-Israeli relations up to the present day. The Dutchman appears as a national metaphor, a figure who is constantly failing to overcome his own history. Through this, Rau ventures a step into painful corners of the discourse without promising any answers that can be easily swallowed. With a documentarian narration style and the tools of musical theatre, the score becomes a space for reflecting on reception and accountability. The music of Wagner’s ghostly opera is coupled with the energetic narration of young conductor Giedrė Šlekytė, who is giving her Wagner debut at Deutsche Oper Berlin with this production. Tomasz Konieczny, who has a wealth of experience in the role, will portray this new Dutchman. At his side will be Aušrinė Stundytė, internationally celebrated for her radical portrayals of women and who will be debuting her portrayal of Senta.

The Flying Dutchman

Sounds like those Richard Strauss unleashed in Elektra with a gigantic orchestra were unprecedented until the opera’s premiere in 1909. And the radicalism and expressive ferocity of Elektra have lost none of their power to this day. The archaic subject matter both terrifies and fascinates: Elektra, an infinitely lonely young woman, is kept alive solely by the thought of avenging her mother’s murder of her father, Agamemnon. When her father is avenged and her brother Orestes has killed their mother and her lover, Elektra dances an ecstatic dance, at the climax of which she collapses dead. This is a roller coaster of an opera. Ricarda Merbeth, one of the most important Wagner and Strauss interpreters of our time, takes on the title role, while the charismatic Okka von der Damerau makes her debut as Clytemnestra. The Slovak conductor Juraj Valčuha, for years one of the most influential guest conductors at Deutsche Oper Berlin, conducts the monumental work.

Elektra

Max loves to read. Now a book written over 150 years ago has captivated him: In 80 Tagen um die Welt by Jules Verne, known in English as Around the World in 80 Days. Not even Max’s girlfriend Josi can keep him from his reading, even though she feels he can’t escape into his own world in his attic forever. After all, reality is exciting enough, he should go with her to the important demonstration! Yet Max gets so lost in his book that the characters suddenly come to life and he takes on a key role in the story: Phileas Fogg, the eccentric English gentleman, takes on Max as his servant. Fogg has spent half of his assets to circumnavigate the world in 80 days. Nowadays that would be no problem, but it was a huge undertaking 150 years ago. Max, now named Passepartout, joins Fogg on an adventure into the past, visiting the Egyptian pyramids, India, Hong Kong and ultimately America. Sometimes they travel by train, other times by ship, even by elephant… Yet Detective Fix, who believes Fogg to be a wanted bank robber, is hot on their trail. Fortunately, Fogg is aided not just by Max a.k.a. Passepartout, but also by the very clever Aouda, who ensures that the constantly cool and collected Fogg suddenly shows emotions… This world-famous story that has often found itself on the big screen inspired English composer Jonathan Dove to craft a score that crosses the globe. Peter Lund wrote the libretto and is directing the piece. The result is a fast-paced family opera that takes a new, tongue-in-cheek perspective of a fascinating tale. We are looking forward to presenting a new opera for the whole family on the big stage at Deutsche Oper Berlin.

Around the World in 80 Days

What does the Big Bang of jazz sound like? A musical and scientific journey through the history of the cosmos, from the Big Bang to today. 90 minutes between astrophysics and improvisation. World premiere!

Jazz & Lyrics II: The Jazziversum

Together with the CTM Festival, Unlimited invites you to Berghain, where Bára Gísladóttir is presenting her one-hour solo work Silva on contrabass. The work combines influences from a range of genres, from experimental music and heavy metal to noise, drone, techno and electronic. «Each sound in Silva comes from a contrabass,» says Gísladóttir. «The sounds were processed to different degrees and layered to create a mass of sound. Deep drones create thick, dark, almost oily layers, while the higher overtones surround the bleak centre like ascending, smoky yet light fog.»

Silva

Berghain | Panorama Bar

Christian Spuck’s new production places E.T.A. Hoffmann’s literary original at its center, emphasizing the tension between childhood innocence and the awakening of self-awareness.

The Nutcracker

Confrontation or inspiration? Where do traditions meet, and where do they clash? An evening of musical encounters, overlaps, cores – and appropriation. With works by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Antonín Dvořák, Béla Bartók and Hilda Paredes.

2nd Tischlerei concert – Culture Clash

Mozart’s singspiel The Abduction from the Seraglio (Die Entführung aus dem Serail) may at first glance appear fairytale-like and almost a bit naive. And the plot surrounding Konstanze, who has been abducted by pirates and is now trapped in the harem of Bassa Selim, seems to only confirm this. But Mozart’s music transcends the boundaries of the singspiel. It transforms the characters, who seem bound to the «Turkish opera» so popular in the 18th century but usually quite simplistic, into profoundly human characters exposed to extreme situations and experiencing conflicting emotions. For Mozart, the inner conflicts of his characters were more important than the external plot, and his music explores them in a psychologically profound way. The Argentinian-Spanish author and director Rodrigo García has transposed the story to the present day and rewritten the dialogue. With the French-British conductor Stephanie Childress, one of the most interesting young musicians of our time makes her debut at Deutsche Oper Berlin. In addition, the premiere Konstanze returns to Bismarckstrasse with Kathryn Lewek.

The Abduction from the Seraglio

Cage and Stockhausen meet in a scenic concert in the historic hall of Hamburg Central Station. In the extensive installation We Make Years Out of Hours by Lithuanian artist Lina Lapelytė, the Zafraan Ensemble – as a satellite of the musical theatre Music of Changes – works with singers from the opera ensemble to weave two of the composers’ works together: Cage’s Hymns and Variations (1979) uses the random thinning of religious hymns to illustrate the path «from something to nothing and back again,» while Stockhausen’s instrumental piece Stop (1965) generates an intense, physical experience of presence and energy from abruptly interrupted sound events. Based on these pieces, the installation itself becomes a score. Perception moves to the centre, the boundaries of listening are shifted – for both composers, the most important exercise for the salvation of humanity.

Music of Many

Contemporary Art National Gallery

For the first time since 1842, Mozart’s clavichord is leaving Salzburg. His own instrument where he composed, dreamed and doubted. Between humming sewing machines in costume, the music from Papageno to the poor Violet suddenly becomes real, as though Mozart only just left the room.

Serenades I: Mozart's clavichord

David Simic, long-time director and choreographer of our Children's Ballet Company, presents his latest creation this holiday season: Alice in Wonderland, based on Lewis Carroll's famous classic. How on earth did it happen that a brave girl named Alice fell down a rabbit hole… and fell and fell and fell. Upon arriving in a fantastical and highly bizarre parallel world, she encounters the talking White Rabbit again, meets the Cheshire Cat, and takes part in a very strange tea party with the March Hare and the Mad Hatter. There is also the Queen of Hearts, whose constant shrieking of «Off with their heads!» strikes sheer terror into her court of playing cards. So far, so good, but just imagine a main character who constantly changes size—from as tiny as a thumbnail to as huge as a room. David Simic has already proven his boundless imagination with ballet adaptations of The Nutcracker and Peter Pan, and his ability to unite children and young people aged 6 to 18 on stage in his choreographies is always a very special quality of these productions. Now look forward to this children’s ballet premiere featuring music by Léo Delibes, Jacques Offenbach, Ferdinand Hérold, and Gioachino Rossini, and let yourself be swept away into a whimsical world—or is there something «behind the mirrors» after all?

Children' s ballet – Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

A collective media meditation: coloured foam is gently sliced into disks, a dirty carpet gets a thorough deep clean, a hydraulic press crushes a variety of objects. Pointless processes, absurd repetitions, one-size-fits-all automations: they all trigger a sense of contentment and wellbeing in us as a counterpoint to an increasingly complex reality. “Oddly Satisfying” is the name given to an internet phenomenon that forms the focus of SATISFACTIONACTION, an installation that has attracted millions of views on multiple platforms. Most of us are familiar with the odd sense of comfort afforded by day-to-day routine actions. Suddenly everything jells, luggage fits snugly into the car boot, the train is caught calmly with a minute to spare, the blackhead is discreetly squeezed. What is it that gives us that warm feeling and what lengths are we prepared to go to to bring it about? Do these hard-to-define mechanisms function only on an innocent neuronal level or is there a social element at play involving norms of behaviour, success and failure, belonging and exclusion? And are these deep-seated needs not also met by our schadenfreude at the plight of an irritating colleague or by our membership of a group, which automatically implies the exclusion of others?

Satisfactionaction

Articles & News