Johann Strauss worked on a ballet based on the well-known fairy tale of Cinderella at the end of his life. Only a fragment of the piece survived. Axel Ranisch and Martina Eisenreich have created their own work inspired by this: In Vienna, 1899, Strauss is working on his ballet, but who is the mysterious librettist? And what does Ida Grünwald have to do with the project, when she is supposed to be merely typing the libretto? The story behind the creation of the Johann Strauss ballet, its storyline, and an unusual Cinderella narrative set in our present day – this fairy tale opera blends timelines and explores themes of self-discovery, emancipation, creativity, and the power of imagination.

Vienna, 1899: Johann Strauss is working on a new ballet. A competition is held to find a suitable libretto, but only one truly sparks the composer’s imagination...

The Cinderella Ballet: The talented seamstress Grete works in her stepmother’s fashion salon. Grete dreams of designing her own clothing, but her stepsisters, Yvette and Fanchon, mock her relentlessly. When the painter Leon enters the salon, everything changes.

Cinderella's Dream

Volksoper Wien

“Crunchy, crunchy crunch, who’s going to crunch my house?”
Hanover's cult production of Hansel and Gretel is back—and here it is! Steffen Tiggeler's work has been on the State Opera's program since 1964, making it the longest-running production of this fairytale play, lovingly composed in Wagnerian style by Engelbert Humperdinck and with a nostalgic libretto by his sister Adelheid Wette.
Hansel and Gretel, the children of a broom-making couple, live in dire poverty. There's hardly any food on the table at home. So, while their father senses trouble, their mother sends them into the forest to gather berries. Hansel and Gretel get lost and fall into the clutches of the evil gingerbread witch, who wants to turn them into gingerbread and consume them herself. Gretel manages to outwit the gingerbread witch, who throws them both into the oven. In the happy ending, all the gingerbread children who had previously fallen into the clutches of the witch are freed. Father and mother also find Hansel and Gretel safe and sound.

Hansel and Gretel

Staatstheater Hannover

For the tenth time in the long history of the magnificent Schönbrunn Palace Theatre, the children's opera "Hansel and Gretel" will be performed. A 60-minute reduced version especially for children will be performed. The Webern Sinfonietta will perform in a production by Robert Simma.

Engelbert Humperdinck: Hansel and Gretel

Schönbrunn Palace

This opera is the world in a theatrical nutshell: it deals with growing older, with trials and tribulations, with intransparent decisions. One person searches for individuality, another is too lazy to do so. Others postulate that the community is the only adequate place for the individual. Power has either been legitimised by long tradition or usurped by new regimes. Values such as assimilation and loyalty are set against self-assertiveness and independence. There is loving and dreaming, cheating and trusting. Suicides are prevented, tests passed, adventures survived. Who is right? Who has been wronged? The world of the magic flute is opaque, and everyone is looking for a pathway: within it, into it or out of it. Who holds the reigns? Who can be trusted? Could it be music?

EPSG:4326

Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute)

Staatsoper Hamburg

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

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

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

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“Lie to me, I promise, I’ll believe”. Is a seducer always a cheat? Or is he himself being cheated on in return? Don Giovanni is the incarnation of the irresistible lover; a man who lightheartedly rushes from one conquest to another, who refuses to submit to any kind of moral claims on his person and who pays for his freedom with an incapability of forming an honest relationship with a woman or another person. Even his numerous mistresses are not really in love with Don Giovanni himself, but only make use of him as a mirrored image to project their own different needs.

Don Giovanni

Stuttgart Opera

Their relationship goes through ups and downs as they share the joys and challenges of an artist's life with their friends Marcello, Musetta, Schaunard and Colline. But tragic circumstances and the poverty of the times put their love to the test. A timeless story of love, loss and the pursuit of beauty.

La Bohème

Vienna State Opera

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.

Madame Butterfly

Deutsche Oper Berlin

As Florestan wanted to expose Don Pizarro's brutal and lawless despotism, the latter had imprisoned him in a state prison run by him out of revenge, where Florestan was forced to vegetate under inhumane conditions.

Fidelio

The composer Engelbert Humperdinck based his work on the most famous of all fairy tales. The operatic version of the story of the siblings Hänsel and Gretel, who lose their way in the forest and nearly fall victim to the Knusperhexe, or witch, has always inspired audiences. The music takes well-known folk melodies and combines them with large, shimmering soundscapes that move between dream and reality, and between fears and fantasies. Zurich-born director Thom Luz has received numerous awards for his theater work. With «Hansel and Gretel», he makes his long-awaited opera debut, and unleashes the poetic power of theatrical magic. Lithuanian conductor Giedrė Šlekytė musically directs.

Zurich Opera House

Medea

San Carlo Theatre

A treasured holiday tradition, Mozart’s heartwarming fairy tale takes the stage in the Met’s abridged, English-language production by Julie Taymor—the Tony Award–winning director of Broadway’s The Lion King. Featuring some of opera’s most popular melodies and brought to life with colorful sets and costumes and dazzling puppetry, it’s perfect for audiences of all ages.

The Magic Flute—Holiday Presentation

Lincoln Center

After a night in the forest, far away from their parents, Hansel and Gretel can't believe their eyes: a house made entirely of gingerbread! At first the witch living in the house sounds quite friendly, but soon she shows her true colours: Hansel is locked in a cage. Will Gretel succeed in saving her brother?

Karl Dönch's production of Engelbert Humperdinck's fairy tale opera has lost none of its fascination over the years! The indispensable classic in the repertoire of the Volksoper never fails to thrill, complete with the witch's flight over the orchestra pit.

A colorful gingerbread house in the middle of the forest, in which two hungry children seek refuge. But there lives an evil witch with gruesome baking recipes. Engelbert Humperdinck's most famous opera is full of contrasts, both on stage and in the music. It combines traditional children's songs with Wagnerian orchestral sound, creating a magical soundscape that captivates both young and adult audiences alike. The fairy-tale opera, in which the siblings successfully overcome danger together, returns to the stage in the 2005 production by Jürgen Rose. It is conducted by the new Cologne General Music Director Andrés Orozco-Estrada.

Cologne Opera

Christmas Eve 1914, a lone soldier stepped out of the trenches singing Stille Nacht. This a cappella opera, sung in English, shares the stories of soldiers along the Western Front in the spontaneous Christmas Truce of World War I.

All is Calm

Kentucky Opera Center for Cultural Health

In 1853, the US battle fleet forced Japan to open its ports and enter into business with America. “The vigorous pressing of America’s handshake given kindly, but offered with zeal and capable of both striking and embracing at the same time – rocked the isolation of the Japanese and made them sensitive for their relationship towards the rest of the world“, according to the recollection of Captain M. C. Perry, then commander of the fleet. Puccini himself never visited Japan, but with his “Japanese tragedy“ about the geisha Cio-Cio-San and her love for American Naval officer Pinkerton, he created an affecting testimony for any form of one-sided cultural transfer. By choosing the “American way of life“ Cio-Cio-San accepts a cut-off from her past and her cultural traditions, but is left behind, pregnant and full of hope for the future which is finally cruelly dashed.

Madama Butterfly

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

The last hours of the singer Flora Tosca and artist Mario Cavaradossi's passionate love: they couldn’t escape the vortex of power and violence. Their attempts to break free from the unscrupulous Police Chief Scarpia’s system were in vain. The strength in Puccini’s opera lies in striking portrayals of extreme emotions, violence, jealousy and persecution. The composer decided on this work while watching a performance of Victorien Sardou’s play, with Sarah Bernhardt as Tosca. His music lives in the keenly sketched characters, their outpourings contrasting with lyrical moments. Director Andreas Kriegenburg homed in on their private lives, while liberating the characters from clichés: they could be people of today, broken by a brutal police state. Strong visual effects and detailed portraits of the three key protagonists turn his production into a study of the abuse of power and resistance.

Tosca

Oper Frankfurt

Bass-baritone Alfred Walker and soprano Brittany Renee headline one of the defining works of American music theater. With its fusion of opera, jazz, and Broadway, the Gershwins’ enduring masterpiece features a number of tunes whose popularity has transcended the opera house, including the classics “Summertime” and “It Ain’t Necessarily So.” Hailed by The Washington Post as “a Porgy of its time that speaks to ours,” James Robinson’s vivid staging features electrifying choreography by Camille A. Brown, with an all-star ensemble portraying the community of Catfish Row.

Porgy and Bess

Heartache, heartbreak, the whole nine yards – four starving artists – love in a shabby attic loft – the swank boulevards where people live life with a capital "L", but Mimi is destined to die. Her tiny hand: ice cold! Otto Schenk's incredibly opulent, eternally valid production continues to fascinate audiences. All of Paris is magically transported onto the stage here.  So beautiful you could cry!

Max-Joseph-Platz

War, flight, hatred and revenge characterize the grand portrait that Giuseppe Verdi created in «La forza del destino». Amid this unpredictable interplay of forces, Leonora and Alvaro search for each other, fight for their love, experience persecution, find refuge in faith, and are crushed by inexorable fate. Director Valentina Carrascothe Catalan, who was a member of the Catalan theater collective La Fura dels Baus, uses Verdi’s monumental scenes as an opportunity to question the values of war and peace in the 21st century, creating a dystopian fantasy. Anna Netrebko returns to Zurich as Leonora. General Music Director Gianandrea Noseda is on the podium.

Cinderella's Dream

Volksoper Wien

Hansel and Gretel

Staatstheater Hannover

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Die Zauberflöte (The Magi...

Staatsoper Hamburg

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Don Giovanni

Staatsoper Stuttgart

La Bohème

Wiener Staatsoper

Madame Butterfly

Deutsche Oper Berlin

Fidelio

Wiener Staatsoper

Hansel and Gretel

Opernhaus Zürich

Medea

Teatro di San Carlo

The Magic Flute—Holiday P...

The Metropolitan Opera

Hansel and Gretel

Volksoper Wien

Hansel and Gretel

Oper Köln

All is Calm

Kentucky Opera

Madama Butterfly

Staatsoper Stuttgart

Die Zauberflöte (Everding...

Staatsoper Berlin

Tosca

Oper Frankfurt

Porgy and Bess

The Metropolitan Opera

La Bohème

Bayerische Staatsoper

The strength of destiny

Opernhaus Zürich