The Komische Oper Berlin has an opera choir in a class of its own. Awards from the trade magazine "Opernwelt" as opera choir of the year are proof of this, but you really just have to experience them in their full force, the choir soloists of the Komische Oper Berlin. Normally they shine in productions from Handel oratorios to Berlin jazz operettas, dancing cheerfully and playing with great professionalism. In this concert, all forces are focused on their core competence: exquisite choir sound in a class of its own. With great romantic works of the genre by Alexander Zemlinsky and Erich Wolfgang Korngold to rarely heard pieces by Franz Schreker under the direction of choir director David Cavelius.

Symphony Concert: Voices

Komische Oper Berlin @Schillertheater

Violetta Valery, living in kept splendour at the expense of Baron Douphol, has apparently recovered from a serious illness. To celebrate, she throws a party where she meets and falls for Alfredo Germont. As their love for each other is frowned upon, they set up house outside of Paris. Alfredo’s father insists that she break with his son in order not to jeopardise the marriage prospects of Alfredo’s sister. Violetta accedes to his wish and cuts off relations. In a showdown at another party Violetta tries to convince Alfredo that she’s in love with the Baron, causing Alfredo to hurl his gambling winnings at her feet, calling them “fees for services rendered”. Soon afterwards, at the height of the Paris carnival, Violetta is on her deathbed. She receives Alfredo, who has heard from his father her real reason for leaving him. Violetta forgives him, gives him her blessing and dies.

La traviata

Deutsche Oper Berlin

As in all operas by Puccini, TOSCA is an illustration of how human attentiveness and pleasures of the palate can be mutually dependent if the composer’s artistic intentions become a benchmark for directorial interpretation. Puccini’s humane attentiveness is essentially dependent on an outcry and/or a sense of resignation. The pity inherent in his music does not content itself with abstract gestures; it wants to unsettle, to bring about change. Out of the “small things” named by Puccini as the source of his inspiration and the focus of his music “big things” grow – as long as we want them. Puccini’s choice of material owes something, directly or indirectly, to the spirit of Zola, Gorki and Hauptmann, and the link between that material and his compositional style places him likewise as a direct descendant of Verdi and an exponent of verismo. He was also known as an admirer of Wagner, although a Wagner imitator he assuredly was not.

Tosca

What could be more practical to escape annoying social obligations than having a friend every now and then who urgently needs our help? Oscar Wilde used this mental sigh to create his last and most popular comedy to date, The Importance of Being Earnest . Gerd Natschinski chose the successful material as the basis for a musical in 1964. Max Hopp is staging this "top work of cheerful musical theater" in the GDR with all its quirks in the tent!

My Friend Bunbury

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

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

“As for the effect that a work has as a piece of theatre, I’d say that RIGOLETTO is the best material that I’ve ever set to music […]. It has very powerful scenes, there’s temperament, pathos, a lot of variety.” [Verdi to Antonio Somma, 22nd April 1853]

Rigoletto

About 560 employees and innumerable guests behind and before the stage see to it that at the Deutsche Oper Berlin “the cloth is raised”, enabling the audience to leave the scene enriched by unforgettable impressions. We cannot introduce you to every personality at once in our OPERNWERKSTATT series. But if you regularly visit the OPERNWERKSTATT you will gradually get to know them: the clever brains behind the Opera as work of Art, and the dreams, thoughts, emotions and ambitions associated with her. OPERNWERKSTATT brings you together with directors, conductors, singers, study directors, dramaturges, theatre creators. Each event starts with a visit to a scenic or musical rehearsal. After a glimpse into the workshop we shall introduce you to the emerging project and answer your questions. So that you can see what moves us.

Opera Lecture: The Woman Without a Shadow

A three-part ballet evening with music by three composers who counted among the avant-garde artists of their day: Hector Berlioz, Claude Debussy und Igor Stravinsky. From Roméo et Juliette, the unexpectedly successful "Symphonie dramatique" that Berlioz completed in 1839, Sasha Waltz has choreographed the major love scene between the protagonists, which features delicate sound and multifarious orchestration. Debussy is represented with his Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, about which Pierre Boulez said, "the flute of the faun brought new breath to the art of music"

Sacre

Bebelplatz

It is the summer of 1789. A festivity is being prepared in the castle of Countess de Coigny. Charles Gérard, a servant of the Countess´ voices his hatred of the French aristrocracy´s decadence. His aged Father is forced to labour all day long and Gérard himself leads the undignified life of a lackey. Moreover, he is secretly and unhappily in love with Madeleine de Coigny, the daughter of the House with whom he was raised. The political situation is very tense. When the visitors attending the ball finally arrive, they try to distract themselves from the disquieting news from Paris with the help of arcadian idylls and games. The young poet André Chénier is among the guests. Madeleine requests him to recite a poem. He sings of love and laments the injustice of the powers that be in such a convincing manner that Madeleine is deeply moved and forced to quit the room. The doors are suddely opened and a mob of irate people led by Gérard shocks the ball guests. However, the Countess manages to pacify and disperse the mob. The dancing continues.

Andrea Chenier

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

Opera Lecture: Lash

“Distant Resonance” is an artistic research project scheduled to run for three years. “Sounding Situations” is teaming up with Kampnagel, Radialsystem Berlin, the Deutsche Oper Berlin and various other institutions to explore the ways in which its own sound and sensation and story are connected to and resonate with distant locations. The first part of the “Wagner Worldwide” trilogy is set to premiere in the Tischlerei of the Deutsche Oper Berlin.

Wagner worldwide

A woman finds herself on the verge of death when a seemingly endless cascade of questions comes pouring out of her, all directed toward a beloved, coveted and absent Other. With these are memories of a life well lived, of the longing for love and sex, of the faltering of her yearning and the tragedy of death behind it. The woman breaks down into four different facets of her own personality, each depicted by a different performer, representing the various perspectives and viewpoints of one individual. What forms is a web of interconnections between seeing and being seen, touching and being touched, feeling and being felt, understanding and being understood. It is a sensual play about sex, the body, love and death – with a surprising ending. LASH is the first opera by celebrated German-British composer Rebecca Saunders. With it, she is creating a work about the base, existential experiences of the human body that we spend our lives in and with which we experience and comprehend the world around us. The work is based on the strikingly pictorial texts of video artist and writer Ed Atkins.

Lash

All little explorers are welcome! In a cosy setting, children from the age of 3 are invited to experience new worlds of sound, to join in, to move and to be enchanted by the sounds of the musicians.

Concert for Kids

Strobe lighting is used during the performance. At the end of the performance, a shot with a blank cartridge sounds on stage.

Queen of Spades

This chamber music evening is all about mythological transformation stories in text and music: Richard Strauss' "Metamorphoses", Benjamin Britten's "Narcissus" and works by Karol Szymanowski and Thea Musgrave will be performed.

Chamber Music VI: In the mirror

It has been a tradition for decades that the students of the Staatliche Ballett- und Artistikschule Berlin present the results of their training work in a festive gala held every year on the stages of Berlin’s opera houses. From the youngest to the graduates, the school’s students are involved in a programme that shows the multifaceted nature of professional dance education, while challenging the adolescent artists to present what they can do and show how they are enjoying themselves in their unique vocation.

State Ballet and Artistry School

EPSG:4326

Sustainable Listening #6

Apollosaal

Runde zwei Jahrzehnte bereits besteht Preußens Hofmusik, die Kammerorchesterreihe der Staatskapelle Berlin, in deren Mittelpunkt Musik aus dem 17. und 18. Jahrhundert steht, nicht zuletzt auch Komponisten und Werke, die mit der Geschichte der Staatsoper und der Staatskapelle in besonderer Weise verbunden sind. In der Jubiläumssaison von Preußens Hofmusik rückt das Ensemble Johann Sebastian Bach ins Zentrum, der von König Friedrich II. von Preußen sehr verehrt wurde, dessen Söhne zeitweilig in Berlin aktiv waren und dessen so folgenreiche Renaissance wesentlich von Berlin ausging. Inspirierte weltliche wie geistliche Kantatenwerke Bachs erklingen, dazu bekannte Instrumentalmusik wie die staunenswerte Kunst der Fuge.

Preußens Hofmusik III

Mark Twains Kinderbuchklassiker über Freundschaft, wilde Abenteuer, das Erwachsenwerden und die erste zarte Liebe mit der Musik des Deutsch-Amerikaners Kurt Weill.

Events in Berlin

Symphony Concert: Voices

Komische Oper Berlin

La traviata

Deutsche Oper Berlin

Tosca

Deutsche Oper Berlin

My Friend Bunbury

Komische Oper Berlin

The Artelize Podcast and ...

Artelize

The Artelize Podcast - A ...

Artelize

The Artelize Podcast: A l...

Artelize

The Artelize Podcast and ...

Artelize

The Magic Flute

Deutsche Oper Berlin

Rigoletto

Deutsche Oper Berlin

Opera Lecture: The Woman ...

Deutsche Oper Berlin

Sacre

Staatsoper Berlin

Andrea Chenier

Deutsche Oper Berlin

Carmen

Deutsche Oper Berlin

Opera Lecture: Lash

Deutsche Oper Berlin

Wagner worldwide

Deutsche Oper Berlin

Lash

Deutsche Oper Berlin

Concert for Kids

Deutsche Oper Berlin

Queen of Spades

Deutsche Oper Berlin

Chamber Music VI: In the ...

Deutsche Oper Berlin

State Ballet and Artistry...

Deutsche Oper Berlin

Sustainable Listening #6

Staatskapelle Berlin

Preußens Hofmusik III

Staatskapelle Berlin

Tom Sawyer

Komische Oper Berlin