Name: Premiere Talk: The Nutcracker
Start: 2026-11-08T11:00:00
Location: Deutsche Oper Berlin

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

«What is our life? A game! Good and evil are merely dreams, work and honesty just lies,» Hermann fatalistically concludes in Pique Dame, as he faces his end at the gaming table. Based on Pushkin’s novella, Tchaikovsky paints a picture of a world dominated by economic inequality and the law that dictates only the strongest survive. Hermann must live up to the social standing of his lover Lisa at any cost; he hopes to gain wealth through the Countess’s cursed card secret. But his hope for happiness vanishes in a spiral of obsession that drags Hermann into the abyss. Doris Soffel returns as the Countess in Sam Brown’s production. Elena Guseva takes on the role of Lisa, while Arsen Soghomonyan makes his house debut as Hermann; both have performed the roles on stages from Milan to New York. Stéphane Degout and Alexey Markov, two great baritones of our time, appear as Prince Yeletsky and Count Tomsky, respectively. The musical direction is by the Ukrainian conductor Kirill Karabits.

Queen of Spades

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

On a Sunday morning before the big event of the premiere, Artistic Director Christian Spuck and Dramaturge Katja Wiegand welcome you to the premiere talk.

Premiere Talk: The Nutcracker

What remains of a family whose home keeps disappearing? ? The Relatives follows the family history of composer Sergej Newski. Based on interviews with his grandmother Anna Timofeevna Kravchenko and unique Super 8 recordings from 1968, the result is a multimedia narration across four generations, from 1912 to the present. The form is radical: a video conference between times and augmented reality as a dramaturgic principle. Interviews and documentary materials transform into a conversation that blurs the lines between past and present. Cutting-edge AI morphs live cams and archival materials into one another, not as a technical spectacle but as a way to search for a believable form in which the story can be told. People are shown in a state of seemingly endless, intergenerational flight, maintaining their ethos in the most impossible circumstances. People who do not sacrifice their empathy. People who can laugh and find the most unconventional solutions in their fight for survival. This is an international co-production that asks: How do we remember that which cannot be told? How do we give shape to the act of vanishing?

The Relatives

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.