Clara Schumann was very likely the most important pianist of her time. Her life – as a daughter, artist, wife, mother, carer, manager, and muse – was full of ups and downs, and she devoted it entirely to music. In a world dominated by men, she displayed a degree of independence and self-determination that was astonishing for a woman of her time.

Cathy Marston follows the path of this exceptional artist, and focuses on Clara and her divorced parents, her relationship with Robert Schumann, and her connection with Johannes Brahms in her ballet, which premiered in 2024. She tells of devotion and passion, inspiration and responsibility.

Clara

Zurich Opera House

Be someone else for a night? It’s not just frustrated Rosalinde and her employee Adele, who would much rather have been an artist, who dream of it. Together with Gabriel von Eisenstein, who has just been sentenced to prison, and Dr. Falke, who is bent on revenge, they go to Prince Orlofsky's crazy ball. Here, of all places, all the masks drop. Austrian director Anna Bernreitner stages this most Viennese of all operettas in costumes by renowned fashion designer Arthur Arbesser. It’s an evening with champagne moods, missed opportunities, and the lightness inherent in darkness, musically directed by the Swiss conductor Lorenzo Viotti.

The Bat

2nd La Scintilla Concert

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.

Hansel and Gretel

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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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.

The strength of destiny

The court of the Duke of Mantua is host to lavish parties. But in this society, having fun means humiliating and degrading others, and the most cynical joker of all is Rigoletto. He wants to protect his daughter Gilda from the corrupt world, so he locks her away. But the young woman goes her own way. Together with «Il trovatore» and «La traviata», «Rigoletto» cemented Verdi’s international fame as an opera composer. The opera is gripping theater in which all roles are ideally cast: from the king to the avenger, from the lover to the murderer.

Rigoletto

The «Japanese tragedy» by Giacomo Puccini shows how the American naval officer Pinkerton embraces Japanese culture, marrying Cio-Cio-San, a young geisha, for the duration of his stay. When he later returns with his «real» wife to take the child he had with Cio-Cio-San back to his homeland, the young woman is left with only one way out. With his ambitious composition, Puccini combined Eastern and Western motifs, producing one of his most successful operas at the start of the 20th century. Director Ted Huffman brings the opera to the stage in stunningly beautiful images and with great narrative tension.

Madama Butterfly

The Orchester der Oper Zürich starts the concert season under a new, old name. After thirteen years as Philharmonia Zurich, the orchestra will return to its original moniker. The Philharmonic Concerts will once again alternate between the Opernhaus and the Tonhalle Zürich.

Altstaedt & Chan

This four-part ballet evening brings together two legendary dance pieces and two world premieres.

The Ballett Zürich has a long-standing relationship with the American choreographer William Forsythe. His «New Suite» from 2012, set to music by Bach, Händel, and Berio, combines eight technically demanding duets from different creative periods, forming a showcase of his work «en miniature». Hans van Manen made dance history in 1979 with his video ballet «Live». Created in the pioneering days of video technology, this piece for two dancers, a pianist, and a cameraman explodes the boundaries of the stage space, revealing itself to be a masterful puzzle game about the mechanisms of perception.

Timeframed

This opera’s 1875 premiere in Paris caused a scandal, after the title character’s anarchic nature and lustful femininity disturbed the bourgeois audience’s sensibilities. But Bizet’s opera soon began its triumphal march, becoming a myth of modern times. To this day, «Carmen» fascinates audiences with its relentless drama and the elemental power of its melodies. Andreas Homoki’s production pays homage to the place where the opera was created, the Opéra comique in Paris. 

Carmen

Special Chamber Concert Morton Feldman

For Figaro and Susanna, it was supposed to be the most beautiful day of their lives: their wedding day. But their employer, Count Almaviva, who is equally in love with Susanna, does everything he can to delay the wedding. Twenty-four turbulent hours begin, in which the power of Eros throws every character in the play into confusing emotional states. Director Jan Philipp Gloger sets Mozart’s masterpiece in the present day, highlighting the way a supposedly irresistible man gets ensnared in a complex code of conduct designed to prevent abuse of power and sexual assault.

The Marriage of Figaro

Katharina Rosenberger and Dzovinar Mikirditsian explore the themes of memory and remembrance in two new works. Together with the Geneva-based percussion collective Eklekto, they are creating a performance as an open «work-in-progress», one that takes a look behind the scenes between music theater, radio art and concert, and in which the audience becomes part of the action. Zurich composer Katharina Rosenberger was awarded the Swiss Music Prize 2023, among others, for her border-defying works.

Furrows of Memories

Jussen & Rustioni

Tonhalle Zürich

Recital Asmik Grigorian

Special «Cardillac» Chamber Concert

Cardillac cannot part with his art. The jeweler must kill anyone who buys jewelry from him. E.T.A. Hoffmann’s novella «Das Fräulein von Scuderi», one of the first German detective stories, served as source material for Paul Hindemith. His 1926 opera is a milestone in the development of music theater. A century years after its premiere, theater and filmmaker Kornél Mundruczó stages this thriller about obsessions, control, and self-alienation. 

Cardillac

Giuseppe Verdi’s «Messa da Requiem» is one of the most popular pieces in the concert repertoire. In a sensational co-production by the Oper Zürich and Ballett Zürich, Christian Spuck brought the oratorio for four solo voices, choir, and orchestra to the stage in 2016, as a combination of dance, abstract scene, space, and light. In his internationally acclaimed production, Spuck focuses on the human creature in the face of death and embarks on a sensitive search for traces of the whence and whither of the human being, between the terrifying proximity of death, loneliness, community solidarity, and mourning.

Events in Zürich

Clara

Opernhaus Zürich

The Bat

Opernhaus Zürich

2nd La Scintilla Concert

Opernhaus Zürich

Hansel and Gretel

Opernhaus Zürich

The Artelize Podcast and ...

Artelize

The Artelize Podcast - A ...

Artelize

The Artelize Podcast: A l...

Artelize

The Artelize Podcast and ...

Artelize

The strength of destiny

Opernhaus Zürich

Rigoletto

Opernhaus Zürich

Madama Butterfly

Opernhaus Zürich

Altstaedt & Chan

Opernhaus Zürich

Timeframed

Opernhaus Zürich

Carmen

Opernhaus Zürich

Special Chamber Concert M...

Opernhaus Zürich

The Marriage of Figaro

Opernhaus Zürich

Furrows of Memories

Opernhaus Zürich

Jussen & Rustioni

Opernhaus Zürich

Recital Asmik Grigorian

Opernhaus Zürich

Special «Cardillac» Chamb...

Opernhaus Zürich

Cardillac

Opernhaus Zürich

Requiem Mass

Opernhaus Zürich

Celebratory concert for R...

Opernhaus Zürich

Portrait Concert Olga Neu...

Opernhaus Zürich