“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

"Jump in at the deep end. You'll see how it goes."
Far in the far north, a lone fisherman is kayaking when he suddenly discovers something that takes his breath away: a group of seals have shed their fur and transformed into human women. He falls in love with one of the seal women and quickly takes her fur. She is actually willing to leave her native element, the water, and marry the fisherman — on one condition: after seven years, he must return the fur to her. Their child grows up happily, but the seven years are soon over. Will the fisherman keep his promise?
Whether it's the tense cracking of the ice or the lightheartedness of deeply felt love: this Inuit fairy tale takes us into musically touching soundscapes that go straight to the heart. With The Seal Woman's Child, Valérie Junker has staged a story of love, loss, and acceptance.

The Seal Woman's Child

Ballhof Two

The Rosenkavalier

“Crash, boom, rumble, bang!”
Mr. Wum is often angry, even if he doesn't know why. "With a bang, with a thud, with anger in his stomach, with anger everywhere," he says, moving through his apartment. That alone would be special enough, but the other people in his house are also, well, very special people. Mr. Bum next door likes loud marching music and the household noise that goes with it, Mrs. Dong likes to hum to herself, and Mrs. Ding loves beautiful things so much that her apartment is completely crammed full—and so are the garbage cans in the yard. So the four of them really get on each other's nerves. The only solution: Everyone moves into their own house. But nobody wants that. Luckily, there's also the very best second solution!

First children's concert

Second Symphony Concert

“In its beginnings, all music was pure ‘chamber music,’ meaning it was intended for a small space and a small audience.”
Gustav Mahler
The members of our orchestra present chamber music! Hear passionate and finely curated programs in which we combine well-known repertoire with works by female composers that are absolutely worth discovering. Towards a new sense of normality, towards a new, genuine diversity!

Second Chamber Concert

New Town Hall

“Ha, do you call your cowardice God?”
Political instability reigns in the Duchy of Brabant: Since the disappearance of the heir to the throne, Gottfried, the succession has been unclear. Elsa, the eldest daughter of the deceased duke, is accused of murdering her brother in order to rule in his place. However, the accuser is himself driven by power interests, and the influence of King Henry, who is supposed to administer justice, is questionable. A trial by ordeal is intended to restore order, with the accuser and a representative of Elsa fighting each other. In this seemingly hopeless situation, a mysterious stranger—Lohengrin—takes Elsa's side. He wins the fight, but the mysterious circumstances cast doubt on the trial by ordeal. Even Lohengrin's success with the Brabant masses cannot establish lasting order. Only the clarification of the crime and an admission of guilt bring new stability—but also bring about the departure of the fairytale savior and the end of the seemingly unconditional love affair. Almost 40 years after Hans-Peter Lehmann's legendary production, the Hanover State Opera is staging a new production of Lohengrin . Just as Richard Wagner's opera connects the historical figure of Henry I with the legend of the Holy Grail, and martial choirs with ethereal sounds, Richard Brunel's production combines the question of the connection between power and justice with imagery inspired by depth psychology.

Lohengrin

"Am I still Don Juan? No, I don't know anything about him anymore. The role is over. Something has ended, and something else is beginning."
Don Giovanni—the epitome of the ruthless, charismatic seducer. His life is marked by interpersonal encounters, affairs, and relationships. He savors life to the fullest, finding himself in the midst of a frenzied feast. But now Don Giovanni crosses the line: in a duel, he kills the Commendatore, which suddenly leaves a pool of blood in his life book, which was previously meticulously filled with women's names.
The production by Bastian Kraft and his team questions Don Giovanni about the life images of this radically ruthless man, who already sees his own death approaching and yet clings to life once more. More and more memories of his life so far intrude on him. But the voices of the dark figures he encounters—opponents, rivals, lovers—also grow louder and louder. Don Giovanni's actions do not remain without consequences. The images of a single night are overwritten and blurred beyond recognition.

Don Giovanni

An offer for children and young people from grades 5 to 8 — but also for other curious people who have time in the morning: The approximately one-hour program features selected works from a symphony concert, explained and performed by General Music Director Stephan Zilias and the Lower Saxony State Orchestra Hannover.

First youth concert

“It was actually an opera that I tried to compose, but ultimately couldn’t compose.”
Pascal Dusapin on Waves
At first, Pascal Dusapin considered writing a musical theater work based on Virginia Woolf's novel The Waves . It ultimately evolved into a kind of organ concerto, a "duo for organ and orchestra." Dusapin explains: "Very abstract questions occupied me while working on Waves , questions of tectonics—how different surfaces shift against and into each other." The forces of these tectonic plates, turned into music, initially unfold through the interaction and interaction of "normal" trumpets and signal trumpets. The signal trumpets are positioned to the left and right of the organ. They sound "as if from the organ," in the same boat. The organ itself also begins with these notes, with a characteristic rhythm; everything blends together, magnificently orchestrated. 

First Symphony Concert

Opening ceremony

Opernplatz

“Have you tortured me enough?”
Floria Tosca lives entirely for music and her love for the artist Mario Cavaradossi. When Cavaradossi is sentenced to death for his political activism against an inhumane regime, the singer too is on the brink. The jealous Baron Scarpia tries to blackmail Tosca: If she wants to save her lover from execution, she must give herself to Scarpia. Tosca pretends to accept the deal – and stabs Scarpia. But the path to freedom is deceptive. Scarpia's power extends beyond death.
In hardly any other opera are personal passion and political arbitrariness so closely intertwined and yet so cruelly exposed as in Giacomo Puccini's Tosca from 1900. The relentless reckoning with abuse of power and machinations, coupled with a deeply moving love story, continues to electrify audiences today, with a score that combines gripping drama and nerve-wracking tension with moments of enchanting beauty. Arias like Tosca's "Vissi d'arte" and Cavaradossi's "É lucevan le stelle" are not without reason considered icons of Italian vocal art.

Tosca

Beijing, in a fairytale setting: At the imperial court, Princess Turandot has made her own marriage a law: Anyone wishing to marry her must answer three riddles correctly; anyone who fails is executed. When a stranger appears, he decides to take on the challenge. He is the only one who succeeds in solving the riddles and, in turn, gives the princess a task: If Turandot can reveal his name by dawn, he is prepared to renounce her hand and die.
Behind the murderous brutality of Turandot's law and her cold-blooded rejection of all suitors lies a deep transgenerational trauma. These unsolvable tasks serve only as self-protection: An ancestor was brutally abused and murdered by her husband. Jakob Peters-Messer's production examines Puccini's fairytale opera for this deep psychological cause and simultaneously reveals the inherent ambivalence of tragedy and grotesque comedy.

Turandot

"Allow me to introduce myself: My name is Schwartenmagen. Mr. Schwartenmagen. From the Presswurst family. And who are you?"
Lisa and Hagen are baking a birthday cake for their father. Because the refrigerator no longer has everything the recipe calls for, they improvise a bit: orange juice, leeks, and carrots are added to the butter and flour in the mixing bowl. Will the "all-in-all universe cake" taste good? Lisa and Hagen's father will never get to try it, because suddenly the children are confronted with a greedy sausage that lives in their refrigerator, has already stolen eggs and milk, and is becoming increasingly brazen. But the siblings stick together and defend themselves and the family kitchen with ingenuity and a hearty pinch of chili.

Sausage

Ballhof

Northern Germany's most glamorous party will once again take place at the Hanover State Opera in February 2026: The Opera Ball is a grand show, a festive dance event, lavish decorations, fantastic music, and a lively party—a feast for all the senses! We'll reveal more details in October.

The Opera Ball of the Hanover State Opera

“This is a delicate matter, how will it end?”
Countess, Susanna and Figaro
On the occasion of Figaro and Susanna's wedding, Count Almaviva wants to once again indulge in the long-abolished "right of the first night," setting in motion a machine of confusion, intrigue, and doubt that ultimately leads to the exposure of the Count's abuse of power, but also to the possibility of forgiveness.
Only a composer like Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart could have come up with the downright ludicrous idea of ​​setting Beaumarchais's La folle journée ou Le mariage de Figaro to music in 1786 , the most politically explosive comedy of those years—a portrait of a society in upheaval and a nobility once again exercising their privileges and blindly running towards their own ruin. The very first bars of the overture make it irresistibly clear: in this play, every bar, every syllable, every whisper carries the undertone of nervous excitement. There is a standstill only at the turning points, those precious moments in which Mozart reveals the inner lives of his heroes. But the adventure continues, and only the onset of night can bring this "mad day" to an end.

The Marriage of Figaro

"Not a pretty sight. Modernity begins."
Christa Wolf on Kleist's Penthesilea
A woman and a man, united by a politically senseless war, obsessed with defeating the other: the Amazon Penthesilea and the Greek Achilles. When Heinrich von Kleist transformed this ancient myth into a play in 1808, he reversed the story's gruesome ending: It wasn't Achilles who slays Penthesilea and then falls in love with the dead woman's body, but Penthesilea who falls in love with Achilles, kills him, and mauls his corpse.
Kleist's tragedy irritated his contemporaries: eroticism and aggression appear interchangeable, women fight like men, hunters become prey, and Penthesilea becomes an animal. This was not how Kleist's contemporaries imagined either antiquity or the theater. It didn't help that the most gruesome scenes weren't shown on stage, but merely reported: Penthesilea was never performed during the author's lifetime. It wasn't until the second half of the 20th century that this idiosyncratic work garnered interest and understanding.

Penthesilea

"If it had been 'Lehman Sisters' and not 'Lehman Brothers,' the world might look very different today."
Christine Lagarde
When Adam Smith, the founder of political economy, was working on his major work, The Wealth of Nations , he lived with his mother, Margareth Douglas. According to Adam Smith, the principle that everyone should pursue their own advantage was the foundation for the well-being of society as a whole. As he developed this fundamental idea, his mother looked after his everyday well-being. And she probably cooked him dinner the day he wrote: "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, and the baker that we look for our food, but from their looking after their own interest."
250 years after the first publication of The Wealth of Nations, composer Andrea Tarrodi and her librettist Helena Röhr ask themselves: Did Adam Smith perhaps overlook something? Are our current ideas about economics still only based on half the truth?
The internationally sought-after Swedish composer Andrea Tarrodi is famous for her colorful, impressionistic orchestral works. She also performs as a singer-songwriter.

Homo Economicus

"How far should our grief go, how far may it go, without uprooting us?"
Paul
After the death of his wife Marie, Paul lives a withdrawn and isolated life in his apartment. He only remains in contact with his friend Frank and Brigitta, who runs his household. But when Paul meets the dancer Marietta on the street, who bears a striking resemblance to Marie, his life, marked by grief, takes a turn: While Paul tries to make Marietta more and more like his deceased wife, the inner conflict between reality and ideal becomes increasingly overwhelming. Marietta initially plays along, but refuses to allow her independence and freedom to be restricted.

The dead city

“By the very nature of things, there is a very close relationship between celebration and play.”
Johan Huizinga
The Hanover State Opera's Children's Festival is a festival and so much more: It's both a large-scale musical theater performance for children and a look behind the scenes of the operatic world. It's a musical theater performance with professionals in the orchestra, on stage, and in the workshops, but also with children and young people on stage who have rehearsed extensively and implemented their own creative ideas with the directing team. Furthermore, the children in the audience support and shape the performance at many interactive stations in the foyer. And at the end, it all comes together again on the State Opera's grand stage! Marveling and participating, trying things out, and discovering go hand in hand in this two-hour festival for the whole family.

The Children's Festival at the State Opera

“You’re so lucky: the cheese fell right on the macaroni!”
Figaro
Figaro is not only the barber, but also the life coach, matchmaker, and information center of Seville. At least, that's how he introduces himself, but what we experience in Rossini's opera casts doubt on this self-characterization: His strategies for the enamored Count Almaviva to establish contact with Rosina, jealously guarded by her guardian, fail from the outset—and when Figaro intervenes, things only get worse. A good premise for a turbulent comedy, which director Nicola Hümpel magnifies with two live cameras: The production presents us with a group of egotists trying to manipulate one another. Eager to always present themselves in the best possible light, they compete for the best positions in front of the cameras, which mercilessly magnify every errant facial expression and every hidden tension.

The Barber of Seville

"He was your brother... You are avenged, Mother!"
Azucena
When Count Luna and the troubadour Manrico not only find themselves as enemies in a bloody civil war, but also fall in love with the same woman, a fatal tragedy unfolds: Leonora poisons herself, and Manrico is executed by Luna, who then learns that he killed his own brother, believed to be long lost. Manrico had grown up unrecognized by Azucena, who once witnessed the old Count Luna burn her mother at the stake. Deeply traumatized, Azucena swore revenge, kidnapped the count's younger son, and accidentally killed her own child in his place.
With his drama "El Trovador" ( The Troubadour) , Antonio García Gutiérrez wrote the most successful and popular stage work of the Spanish Romantic era in 1836. Giuseppe Verdi was so captivated by this dark romance of love and hate, jealousy and revenge that he used it as the basis for his opera Il Trovatore in 1849/50, without a commission and thus without a guarantee of a premiere . In it, he found the age-old motif of fraternal strife intertwined with the questions of fate, chance, and inner necessity that had always fascinated him. He knew how to carve his characters out of this bizarre story in a highly sophisticated way. His musical imagination was ignited by their contradictions, their imprisonment, and their longings.

Lower Saxony State Orchestra Hanover

3 - 23 Dec, 2025

Hansel and Gretel

Dec 13, 2025 - Jan 9, 2026

Tosca

Nov 9 - Dec 17, 2025

The Rosenkavalier

Feb 2 - Mar 11, 2026

Turandot

5 - 23 Feb, 2026

Sausage

3 - 23 Dec, 2025

Hansel and Gretel

Nov 13 - Dec 1, 2025

The Seal Woman's Child

Lower Saxony State Orchestra Hanover