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

Deutsche Oper Berlin

In describing the attributes of his 1851 melodrama based on Victor Hugo’s acclaimed play “Le roi s’amuse” Verdi also puts his finger on the challenges that any director has to address: RIGOLETTO is namely a masterpiece whose particularity lies in the clash between the characters’ psychology and the improbable action of a fantasy storyline.

Rigoletto

“Amore, sommissione, dolcezza” – the traits that Giuseppe Verdi gave his eponymous heroine, Aida, who embodies pure love, tenderness and submissiveness. And these characteristics put her firmly in the tradition of 19th-century female protagonists who were not so much fully rounded personalities as sex objects and a focus for male fantasies, women whose inevitable fate was to die of a broken heart. And Aida is no different.

Aida

The season kicks off at Tempelhof Airport’s Hangar 4, which is opening its portals for another spectacular extravaganza: after last season saw hundreds of choral singers performing Handel’s Messiah, this time we’ve got hundreds of dancers in Jesus Christ Superstar! Director Andreas Homoki and set designer Philipp Stölzl are transforming the space into a monumental rock show, the perfect setting for a real superstar...

Je­sus Christ Su­per­star

Tempelhof Airport

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

‘Imagine that the universe is beginning to sound and resonate’, Gustav Mahler once said about his Eighth Symphony. This extraordinary work is often called the ‘Symphony of a Thousand’, because Mahler’s vision called for such a huge ensemble: two mixed choirs, a boys’ choir, eight soloists, a massive orchestra, an organ, and an additional brass section. ‘Veni, creator, spiritus!’ It is with this Pentecost hymn invoking the Holy Spirit that the symphony’s first movement begins. For the second movement, Mahler draws upon the final scene of Goethe’s Faust II: ‘The noble part of the spirit has been saved from evil’. Angels and other celestial ‘flight attendants’ lift Faust’s soul—rescued from the clutches of the devil—up to the realm of the ‘Eternal Feminine’. Faust, an early pioneer of grand visions and soaring ideas, fits perfectly into the industrial architecture of Tempelhof. It is here that Mahler’s Eighth Symphony will truly ‘sound and resonate’ as never before, especially with Music Director James Gaffigan himself in the cockpit, guiding our flight through Mahler’s universe.

The thou­sand at Tem­pel­hof

The Nibelung dwarf Alberich robs the Rhinemaidens of the Rhinegold to forge a ring that confers "endless power". Meanwhile, Wotan, the father of the gods, is forced into action. To reward the giants Fasolt and Fafner for building the castle Valhalla, he steals the Nibelungs’ treasure with the help of Loge, the cunning fire god. Alberich curses the ring and all its future owners – the tragedy takes its course.

Das Rheingold

Bebelplatz

Wotan wants to secure power through his descendants. The twins Siegmund and Sieglinde seem to be the perfect choice. One day, fate brings them together. However, for Wotan’s wife Fricka, the sibling’s love is a thorn in her side, and even Wotan himself feels emotionally torn. When his favourite daughter, the Valkyrie Brünnhilde, revolts against him, he puts her to sleep, casting a circle of fire around her that only a fearless person can walk through.

Die Walküre

Béla Bartók and Antonín Dvořák each gave the music of their homeland a face, a voice, and a sound, each in his own unique way. Melodic and rhythmic elements that can be considered characteristic of Hungary and Bohemia have found their way into many of their works. Bartók's Violin Concerto No. 1, an early work from 1907/08, born of deep emotional connection, embodies his style with its elegy and vitality. Similarly, with his Symphony No. 8, composed in 1889, Dvořák succeeded in creating music that captivates with its inventiveness and experimental spirit, as well as its melodic and rhythmic qualities, while simultaneously proving immensely diverse and colorful.

EPSG:4326

Symphony Concert I

Berliner Philharmonie

Gustav Mahler described his ‘Song of the Earth’, which was not premiered until 1911 after his death, as the most personal work he ever wrote. Antonello Manacorda precedes the symphonic song cycle in his concert with the orchestral piece ‘Blossoming II’ by the multi-award-winning Toshio Hosokawa. With Okka von der Damerau and David Butt Philip.

Symphony concert as part of the Musikfest Berlin

King Henry I, “the Fowler”, is in Brabant to hold the Assizes and assert the nobles’ duty to provide militias to assist in military campaigns. Since the death of the Duke of Brabant, however, the succession has been a source of conflict. His children, Gottfried and Elsa, are wards of Count Telramund, but Gottfried has vanished and Telramund suspects Elsa of having killed him. A duel between her accuser and Elsa’s champion is organised to decide the issue. At the last moment a knight appears in a boat drawn by a swan, ready to defend Elsa’s honour. He is also prepared to take her as his wife on condition that she never ask him his name or where he hails from. Elsa agrees and the knight defeats Telramund.

Lohengrin

A concert in cooperation with Berliner Festspiele / Musikfest Berlin. We are delighted to continue our collaboration with Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg and EuroArts at this year's Big Band concert as part of the Musikfest Berlin! ‘Jazz de Paris’ at the Philharmonie Berlin will be broadcast live on ‘radio3’ and will subsequently be released on CD and digitally on all major streaming platforms.

Jazz de Paris

Company member Dominik White Slavkovský creates Chicxulub or The Devil’s Flea, a dance piece for children aged 6 and up – and for grown-ups who aren’t afraid of eccentric encounters with dinosaurs, off-the-wall characters, and a wildly imaginative world

Chicxulub or The Devil's Flea

The milk jug is broken, and the precious cream has spilled onto the floor. And the stocking knitting and broom binding are far from finished. In her anger, the mother has sent her two children, Hansel and Gretel, into the nearby forest to pick strawberries. At the beginning of the second part of the first act – this is where the music begins in the auditorium – the two children are alone in the springtime forest. The flowers are blooming, the wind is blowing through the pine trees and sweet fruits are plentiful. It's a wonderful way to spend the day. As evening falls, the children have lost their way. To keep them from getting too scared in the eerie forest, the Sandman appears.

What's coming up? ... Hansel and Gretel, Act 1, Part 2

Calaf has solved Princess Turandot's riddles. But Turandot categorically refuses to marry the stranger, so Calaf offers her a way out. If she knows his name by the next day, he will kill himself and she will remain unmarried. And so an entire country sets out in search of this one name, and no one is allowed to sleep that night: ‘Nessun dorma’. In this act, you will experience how love can still blossom from this situation.

What's coming up? ... Turandot, Act 3

The Parisian demi-monde is celebrating wildly in the salons of the courtesan Violetta Valéry. Alfredo Germont enters the hall, and with him the love he celebrates in his famous drinking song. Violetta, who has never experienced such romantic, fiery affection, is torn between responding and fear. In this first act of Giuseppe Verdi's melodramma, the opera hits flow seamlessly into one another, from exuberant choruses to grand duets and finally the famous ‘È strano! è strano!’ sung by the title heroine.

What's coming up? ... La traviata, Act 1

Rigoletto, the hated and feared courtyard jester at the court of Mantua, has tried everything to keep the existence of his beloved daughter secret from the womanising Duke and the cynical court society. But to no avail: Gilda has fallen in love with the Duke. So, at the beginning of the third act, Rigoletto sees only one way out: to confront his daughter with the Duke's erotic excesses. At the end of the third act, Rigoletto will have lost everything, and only the Duke's ‘La donna è mobile’ echoes through the night.

What's coming up? ... Rigoletto, Act 3

Repelled by the dispassion of the Wartburg society of minnesingers, Tannhäuser, a singer-knight, removes to the interior of the Venusberg in search of fulfilment. Eventually his longing for Elisabeth leads him to leave again. Back at the Wartburg castle, Tannhäuser takes part in a singing contest whose theme is the nature of love, but when he sings that love is ideally about sensual satisfaction, he is cast out and sent to Rome to seek papal absolution. He returns from Rome without the hoped-for indulgence and resolves to return to the Venusberg. Then a miracle occurs and he finds redemption after all.

Tannhäuser and the Singers' Contest at Wartburg

For our "Expedition TIRILI" we usually travel light and without an elaborate stage set to the daycare centres of Berlin and Brandenburg. Now the "Expedition TIRILI" is also making a stop in the rank foyer of the Deutsche Oper Berlin for a few play dates and invites you to experience the sounds on the sand-coloured carpet and on brightly coloured seat cushions.

Expedition Tirili

In September, the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra (hr-Sinfonieorchester Frankfurt) returns to the Berlin Music Festival after a long hiatus. The program includes Rebecca Saunders' Piano Concerto "to an utterance," Gustav Mahler's posthumously composed Adagio from his 10th Symphony, and Helmut Lachenmann's "My Melodies – Music for Eight Horns and Orchestra." The pianist Tamara Stefanovich and the entire horn section of the hr-Sinfonieorchester will perform as soloists at the Berlin Philharmonie.

Events in Berlin

The Magic Flute

Deutsche Oper Berlin

Rigoletto

Deutsche Oper Berlin

Aida

Deutsche Oper Berlin

Je­sus Christ Su­per­star...

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 thou­sand at Tem­pel­...

Komische Oper Berlin

Das Rheingold

Staatsoper Berlin

Die Walküre

Staatsoper Berlin

Symphony Concert I

Staatskapelle Berlin

Symphony concert as part ...

Deutsche Oper Berlin

Lohengrin

Deutsche Oper Berlin

Jazz de Paris

Deutsche Oper Berlin

Chicxulub or The Devil's ...

Deutsche Oper Berlin

What's coming up? ... Han...

Deutsche Oper Berlin

What's coming up? ... Tur...

Deutsche Oper Berlin

What's coming up? ... La ...

Deutsche Oper Berlin

What's coming up? ... Rig...

Deutsche Oper Berlin

Tannhäuser and the Singer...

Deutsche Oper Berlin

Expedition Tirili

Deutsche Oper Berlin

Berlin Music Festival

Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra

Luminous Night | Autumn C...

Berliner Symphoniker

Jesus Christ Superstar...

The thousand at Tempel...