It's Christmas Eve. After the wonderful festivities, little Klara falls into a deep sleep. She dreams of a fantastic journey to the fairytale sugar country, accompanied by the nutcracker, her most beautiful gift.

Children' s ballet - The Nutcracker

Deutsche Oper Berlin

Don Giovanni knows what he wants, how to get it and how to throw an outrageously decadent party. Servant Leporello groans under the seductive arts of his master, as he has to pay for everything afterwards. When Don Giovanni murders the Commendatore in a duel for the honor of his daughter Donna Anna, Leporello has had enough. Don Giovanni likes to seduce, trick and gamble for his life, until he suddenly has to face death young and wild ...

Don Gio­vanni/­Re­qui­em

Schiller Theater

It’s a rambunctious tale: an old curmudgeon is set on marrying his own ward of court with a view to snapping up her considerable inheritance. He leaves no stone unturned in his efforts to keep the fair Rosina cloistered from the outside world and thus from any potential young suitors. A pity, then, that Count Almaviva has fallen head over heels for her. Assisted by Figaro, an enterprising barber, he plans to outwit the old man, win over Rosina – and ensure that it’s love that attracts her to him rather than his rank and wealth. Not an easy job for Figaro, seeing as the opposite camp is scheming with equal tenacity … Love wins out in the end, and it turns out that all precautions were useless!

The Barber of Seville

EPSG:4326

Christmas Oratorio

Berliner Philharmonie

Podcast link: https://youtu.be/4hagYvrYbuM

The Artelize Podcast and Kasper Holten - Pedefining Opera for the modern world

Podcast link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d36M5Hi6O80

The Artelize Podcast - A legacy of innovation in Opera: Celebrating Marc A. Scorca

Podcast link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59E40S_EQSY

The Artelize Podcast: A love letter that was never sent

Podcast link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THv6htilWtI

The Artelize Podcast and Adolfo Corrado: Mediterranean flavors, opera and social media

Hansel and Gretel, children of a poor broom maker and his wife, are sent into the woods one day by their mother to pick berries – as punishment for larking around instead of doing their chores. When their father arrives home bearing a bag full of treats after a successful working day, he berates his wife, because the woods are home to an evil witch. The parents set off to look for the kids, who have meanwhile filled their baskets but then eaten all the berries themselves out of sheer hunger. They also realise darkness has fallen and they’re lost, so they lie down for the night and say their prayers, falling asleep and having a strange and wonderful dream. In the morning they wake to see a cottage made of gingerbread and other sweetmeats. Nibbling at the house, they are surprised by the witch, who takes them captive, planning to bake the children in her oven. Instead, they play a trick on her and push her into her own oven. The spell is broken and all the children who had been transformed into gingerbread by the witch regain their human form. The pair’s parents appear and the reunited family returns home.

Hansel and Gretel

In the limelight: Dagmar Manzel and Max Hopp! She plays: operetta diva Manon Cavallini, her suitor Raoul, and the father of her daughter Lucy. He plays: that same Lucy, all five of Cavallini’s lovers, and Lucy’s gallant to boot. In additional roles: Dagmar Manzel and Max Hopp! A breathless tour de force, with the orchestra under Adam Benzwi’s baton igniting a fireworks display of marches, waltzes, and chansons, all from the pen of Oscar Straus.

A Woman Who Knows What She Wants!

Ohad Naharin is a world-renowned Israeli choreographer and the inventor of the Gaga movement language, which, originating from the Batsheva Dance Company in Tel Aviv, has now spread globally and is taught worldwide. To allow dancers to form a personal and emotional connection with the material and the moment of the performance beyond the choreography itself, the Gaga method works towards complete emotional openness.

Minus 16

It is one of the classics in the Staatsoper’s repertoire: August Everding’s production of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s The Magic Flute. The production is unique for its reconstruction of Karl Friedrich Schinkel’s 1816 set design for what was then the Berlin Court Opera on Unter den Linden – including the legendary starry sky for the Queen of the Night, which has become an icon of scenography and continues to enchant audiences.

Die Zauberflöte (Everding)

Bebelplatz

Mrs Bertie Bartolotti had intended to spend the evening at the opera with Mr Egon, but now she’ll have to change her plans. Never in her wildest dreams did she imagine that a misdelivered tin can would turn her into a mother! The Himmelblau company, experts in mass-producing model children, has sent her the Premium Chromo.XY/3859 model, with hair parted to the side and the name Conrad. But what does such a child actually need? And what does he like? Hot peppers? Jellies? Liqueur chocolates? Sardines in oil? Well, best to start by putting a bit of everything on the plate! Conrad loves order and rules, so unfortunately he knows only too well that good children always finish their plates...

Con­rad or The fac­to­ry-made boy

Depending on the demand for their work, the penniless poet Rodolfo and his three witty artist friends live either in destitution or in the lap of luxury, squandering their money. When their neighbour Mimì appears in their garret one day, Rodolfo falls in love with the fragile young woman at first sight. But in the face of Mimì’s illness, the struggling artists are caught up in harsh reality.

La Bohème

“Blame it on the champagne, tra la la la la !” That’s the half-truth that the protagonists in Johann Strauss’s THE BAT sign up to at the end of a drink-fuelled night of mistaken identities and erotic escapades. But alcohol is only partly to blame; the confusion is largely due to the wiles of the humiliated Dr Falke, who was once exposed to small-town ridicule dressed in the costume of a bat and is now seizing his chance to avenge himself on his ‘good pal’, bon vivant Gabriel von Eisenstein. And so it is that the maid disguises herself as an actress, the wife as a Hungarian countess and Eisenstein himself as a French marquess and off they trot to Prince Orlofsky’s masked ball. That they end up bewailing their fate in jail early the next morning is less down to champagne than to the natural course of events. In THE BAT Johann Strauss pulled off a work that proved to be the prototypical Viennese operetta, bursting with waltzes and polkas and oozing wicked irony. Inspired by Offenbach’s opéras buffes from Paris, Strauss’s work was merciless in the way it held up a mirror to the bourgeois salon-going public - and many audience members recognised themselves in the absurd antics onstage.

Die Fledermaus

Long before Oscar Wilde’s interpretation, the figure of Salome already appeared in the Bible. There, the story was about how King Herod, his stepdaughter Salome, and John the Baptist (Jochanaan) each lose their heads—although in very different ways...

Sa­lo­me

In the heart of the desert, three fugitive criminals establish the city of Mahagonny. This ‘paradise city’ has its own rules for living life, fueled by the wealth of men passing through from the Gold Coast. Eating, loving, boxing, and drinking are the order of the day. However, this idyllic utopia soon begins to falter, as natural disasters, excesses, violence, and corruption push the city to its breaking point.

Rise and Fall of the City of Maha­gonny

Figaro and Susanna, servants at the court of Count Almaviva, are soon to marry and are furnishing the lodgings that they’ve been allotted in the Count’s castle. Figaro is gleefully taking measurements for the conjugal bed, but Susanna is worried: the Count’s passion for his wife has long since cooled, meaning that he might invoke his “right to the first night”. Figaro is determined that it won’t come to that, but another issue is plaguing him too: before lending him a sum of money, Marcellina, the Count’s housekeeper had wrung from him a pledge to marry her if he defaulted, and that time has now come. To complicate matters, in the Countess’s chambers Susanna is asked by the Count’s page, Cherubino, to put in a word for him because he’s been fired for a dalliance with Barbarina, the Count’s gardener’s daughter. The Count enters suddenly and tries to negotiate a tryst with Susanna, forcing Cherubino to hide, whereupon Basilio the music teacher arrives, and finally Figaro. The situation heats up and the only person to keep a handle on things is Susanna.

Le nozze di Figaro

In San Francisco, money is tight and old sailors like Jonas are left to sleep rough in the crime-ridden port city. Unexpectedly, the boatman Anatol Brown inherits the Hotel Nevada, the last building yet to fall into the hands of the greedy nightclub magnate, Xonga Miller. The problem is that Anatol’s uncle happens to have accumulated a mountain of debt with her. If Anatol can’t raise the $10,000, his dream of turning the Nevada into a home for retired sailors will come to nothing. With a huge fundraiser involving plenty of booze, the sailors of Frisco ultimately manage to scrape together the money, just in time.

In Fris­co, all Hell's bro­ken out

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

Before the champagne corks pop on New Year's Eve, the Berlin Symphony Orchestra will be banging the drums one last time! And not only that. With highlights from films, musicals, and operettas, they ignite a musical fireworks display that is in no way inferior to the sparkling spectacle at midnight. Of course, there will also be some Strauss classics in three-quarter time! Together with singer Nadja Mchantaf, conductor and presenter Ulrich Kern will provide the necessary momentum to start the new year in a good mood.

New Year's Eve concerts 2025

With Franz Lehár, Viennese operetta experienced a noticeable upswing in the first decades of the 20th century. The new flowering of the genre, known as the “Silver Age,” is due not only to the extremely popular The Merry Widow , but also to Lehár’s late operettas from the 1920s and early 1930s, in which he consciously approached grand opera. These works are ambitious and sophisticated, and often feature prominent figures from cultural history, such as the “Devil’s Violinist” Niccolò Paganini or the “Poet Prince” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (in the operetta Friederike ). And with Giuditta , described as a “musical comedy,” he even celebrated a premiere at the Vienna State Opera. Melodic bliss and melancholy are combined in Lehár’s music in a fascinating way.

New Year's concert

The tragic drama of an oppressed person from society’s lower classes: Wozzeck, a hardworking but penniless soldier, is increasingly losing control of his life and his mind. He is seized by increasingly violent psychotic episodes, until in a delusion, he stabs and kills his girlfriend Marie.

Wozzeck

Lieutenant Pinkerton is attached to an American ship currently moored in Nagasaki harbour. He has been courting a 15-year-old geisha girl named Cio-Cio-san, known as Butterfly, who is from a poor but genteel family and takes love very seriously. Pinkerton wants to enter into a “time-limited marriage” – not uncommon between European men and geishas at the time – and is even being helped by Goro, the marriage agent, to find a cottage in which they can spend their honeymoon. The US consul, Sharpless, warns him against such a step, but Pinkerton brushes him off and even toasts the day when he will take an American to be his “real” wife.

Events in Berlin this month

Children' s ballet - The ...

Deutsche Oper Berlin

Don Gio­vanni/­Re­qui­em

Komische Oper Berlin

The Barber of Seville

Deutsche Oper Berlin

Christmas Oratorio

Berliner Symphoniker

The Artelize Podcast and ...

Artelize

The Artelize Podcast - A ...

Artelize

The Artelize Podcast: A l...

Artelize

The Artelize Podcast and ...

Artelize

Hansel and Gretel

Deutsche Oper Berlin

A Woman Who Knows What Sh...

Komische Oper Berlin

Minus 16

Deutsche Oper Berlin

Die Zauberflöte (Everding...

Staatsoper Berlin

Con­rad or The fac­to­ry-...

Komische Oper Berlin

La Bohème

Staatsoper Berlin

Die Fledermaus

Deutsche Oper Berlin

Sa­lo­me

Komische Oper Berlin

Rise and Fall of the City...

Komische Oper Berlin

Le nozze di Figaro

Deutsche Oper Berlin

In Fris­co, all Hell's br...

Komische Oper Berlin

The Magic Flute

Deutsche Oper Berlin

New Year's Eve concerts 2...

Berliner Symphoniker

New Year's concert

Staatskapelle Berlin

Wozzeck

Staatsoper Berlin

Madame Butterfly

Deutsche Oper Berlin

Don Giovanni/Requiem

Conrad or The factory-...

Salome

In Frisco, all Hell's br...