Name: Symphony Concert: Turangalîla
Start: 2027-02-07T19:00:00
Location: Philharmonie Berlin

Pierre-Laurent Aimard

Maxime Pascal

Cécile Lartigau

Deutsche Oper Berlin

It’s the most performed opera in the German-speaking region, an unusual – and masterly – blend of Viennese folk theatre and fairy tale, mythology and freemasonry mystique: Mozart’s THE MAGIC FLUTE remains a puzzle to this day. Did Mozart and his librettist Schikaneder switch horses from the Queen of the Night to Sarastro half way through? Is the message not one of distrust towards a supposedly infallible priesthood and its simplistic good-versus-evil ideology? Are some Mozart experts right when they talk of a disconnect between text and music? Whatever the answer, it’s the music that allows us to relate to the story’s contradictions. Far from denouncing the characters, it confers an existentiality on their conflicts.

The Magic Flute

Georges Bizet’s titular heroine is as captivating a character as any in the history of opera. The different interpretations of Carmen are legion: we have the seductress, the personification of forbidden yearning, the standard bearer for the “eternally female” in the brutal battle of the sexes, the anarchist unfettered by bourgeois angst and compulsions, the archaic clairvoyante seeing her own death in the cards - yet free, as she does not dread her destiny. Few opera heroines are so open to interpretation and hence so able to serve as a mirror held up to society.

Carmen

A nation is cowed by its princess. Turandot, beautiful and fascinating representative of a royal dynasty, presides over a gruesome ritual: only her marriage to a suitor will bring an end to the violence, but no would-be bridegroom has yet managed to solve the riddles. The same old spectacle plays out, ending in yet another execution, until Calaf, the son of a deposed ruler from a foreign land, unexpectedly answers the riddles correctly. He then turns the tables on Turandot, forcing her to answer his own question if she wants to steal out of her obligation. Puccini’s times are changing rapidly, the art world is going through drastic transformation and new, abstract forms are being coined to reflect modern-day experience. And the composer, in his early 60s, is again trying to break new ground.

Turandot

Moral outrage one moment, coquettish expediency the next. The intrigues of the powerful interwoven with the desperation of hapless refugees. When it comes to the gamut of human emotion and modes of behaviour, few operas of the baroque period can touch Handel’s GIULIO CESARE IN EGITTO, which premiered in London in 1724. This tale of the love affair between the ageing Roman general Julius Caesar and the young pharaoh Cleopatra was one of Handel’s greatest triumphs within his lifetime and remains his most performed opera. That is not just down to the base material – one of the best-known historically attested love stories, which has been given treatments ranging from Shakespeare to Liz Taylor and Richard Burton and “Asterix und Cleopatra” – but also to a sophisticated libretto that provided the inspiration for a string of great arias and memorable character studies, for aside from the Roman-Egyptian pairing of Caesar and Cleopatra GIULIO CESARE IN EGITTO features another pair who are busy not with flirting but with the serious business of staying alive: Cornelia, the widow of Pompeius, a murdered rival of Caesar, and her son Sesto. Both have sought refuge in Egypt but have become pawns in the scheming between Cleopatra and her brother Tolomeo.

Giulio Cesare in Egitto

Few works have slipped from the programmes of German-language opera houses to the extent experienced by the operas of Albert Lortzing. Where works such as THE POACHER, THE ARMOURER and UNDINE were still fixtures in the repertoire only thirty years ago, they have now all but vanished from the calendars of theatre venues. Not even Lortzing’s greatest triumph, his comedy of errors CSAR AND CARPENTER (1837), has escaped the neglect – and this despite old chestnuts like the “Clog Dance” and the aria “Lebe wohl, mein flandrisch Mädchen.” Doubly surprising if you consider that this tale of Tsar Peter the Great, who strikes up a friendship with an army deserter with the exact same name while acquiring the skills of a carpenter incognito in a Dutch shipyard, was arguably one of the best musical comedies of its time, with Lortzing’s protagonists retaining all their relatable flaws and yearnings in the face of all their ups and downs. The young deserter, who just wants a quiet life, the feisty Marie, who’s determined to decide her own path, the Tsar with his thinly veiled leanings to violent domination, and van Bett as the mayor and a loveable caricature of a German bigwig… all these characters confer a timeless humanity on the comedy.

Csar and Carpenter

A garret in Paris on a cold winter’s day around Christmas. Rodolfo, a writer, and Marcello, a painter, are working on their masterpieces. They have no money to buy food, pay the rent or fuel the stove. Colline, a philosopher, returns from the pawn shop empty handed, having failed to get rid of some books. Only Schaunard, a musician, has managed to come up with some victuals, kindling, cigars and cash, so off they go to Café Momus - without Rodolfo, who’s trying to work. Mimì, the embroiderer from next door, arrives to ask for a match to light her candle with. She collapses and loses her key; cue for Rodolfo to fall in love with Mimì, who is terminally ill with TB, although he dumps her two months later because the prospect of her ailment getting steadily worse in her freezing home is too much for him. Six months go by. Musetta, Marcello’s ex, arrives with Mimì, whose condition is grave. Musetta sells some earrings with a view to buying medicine; Colline gives up his coat. Gratitude and happiness for a short while. Rodolfo thinks Mimì is sleeping and her body regenerating, …but in fact she’s dead.

La bohème

Taking a peek at the Staatsballett Berlin dancers during morning class is a rare opportunity. However, the Staatsballett’s most popular event series, Ballet Class Up Close makes it possible: on the stages of the opera houses, you can catch a glimpse at the everyday life of a ballet dancer. Find out what they do on a daily basis to prepare for rehearsals and performances, working on the essential foundation of their art which they master so skilfully. What seems light and airy on stage requires hard work and relentless discipline. Therein lies the fascination which never seizes to capture the audience.

Ballet Class Up Close

Named after the Palacio de la Zarzuela near Madrid, the early form of Spanish musical theatre emerged as early as the 17th century, parallel to Italian opera. Related to vaudeville, farce and operetta, hundreds of these entertaining and effective works were written within a few decades. The genre was increasingly forgotten and only experienced a revival in the mid-19th century. However, it is still neglected on theatre programmes today. Star director Christof Loy, who has been a strong advocate of the zarzuela for many years, is staging an evening at the Deutsche Oper Berlin.

Gran Gala de Zarzuela

Who are we when no one is watching, who do we want to be? How can we become what we claim to be? «Heroes, (if) just for one day»? In a captivating dance performance, a journey through strange worlds unfolds—and one‘s own self. A group of travelers moves between worlds, between identities, between truth and deception. With every movement they transform, lose and reinvent themselves. What remains when masks fall and roles break? Put your helmets on and explore the planet of one‘s own self with us. But where does the illusion end—where does the true self begin? Inspired by David Bowie‘s legendary songs, a story unfolds about identity, longing and the freedom to reinvent oneself again and again. You can see the stories and thoughts of around 100 children and young people from four different schools in Berlin who worked with the dance educators of the Staatsballett for a school year, as well as 30 adult hobby dancers from the dance course Never too late. Young and old negotiate their questions of identity and roles together—a journey that people go through throughout their lives.

Tanz ist KLASSE! On Stage

This time, the Wilde Jazzorchester and its conductor Martin Auer transform the stories of 1001 Nights into jazz fairy tales. They will be presenting their latest narrative concert live on these two dates, following on from ‘The Ghost of Canterville,’ ‘The Ballad of Robin Hood’ and ‘The Jungle Book.’

Jazz & Lyrics IV: Sheherazade

On the Late Nights, the stage becomes a dance floor, voices mix together, the foyers become open floors. We connect with partners from the Berlin club scene and question the opera from the perspective of the night: What does it mean to be together when the order shifts? The night is open, come out and dance! Before the party, there is a musical theatre intervention: Students from the Musikhochschule Hanns Eisler form a rapid response team and search for answers to the question of how opera can respond to our breathless present.

Late Night

Curated by Rirkrit Tiravanija – Saturday at 12:00 p.m. through Sunday at 6:00 p.m. at and around the Deutsche Oper Berlin

Opening weekend

The key to musical modernity is said to lie in that unresolved, drifting Tristan chord: Richard Wagner’s epochal music drama Tristan und Isolde takes up the idea of unquenchable desire from the High Medieval Codex Menasse and propels it into the transcendental. Complicated by a love potion and unbroken in the Liebestod (Love-Death), the fibres of the musical fabric stretch. The prelude also gained fame through Lars von Trier’s film Melancholia, in whose wake an oversized moon hurtles towards Earth. This image would surely have appealed to Olivier Messiaen, even though his work on the Tristan theme exists far removed from Wagner’s sonic cosmos. Turangalîla, a central part of Messiaen's Tristan trilogy, is a neologism from Sanskrit, combining «turanga» – time running like a galloping horse – with «lîla,» the cosmic game. Analyses of his only symphony in ten movements fill entire books. Messiaen contented himself with the statement: «This work is a love song. I do not consider it necessary to offer further explanations.» Maxime Pascal, Principal Guest Conductor at Deutsche Oper Berlin, conducted Messiaen’s only opera, Saint François d’Assise, in Salzburg in the summer of 2026; now he continues his exploration of this composer.