Staatstheater Hannover is set to deliver a captivating series of operatic masterpieces, each brimming with emotion, intrigue, and timeless storytelling. From Puccini's 'Turandot' exploring deep-seated trauma, to the comedic yet politically charged 'The Marriage of Figaro' by Mozart, and the intense tragedy of 'Penthesilea', these operas promise to captivate audiences. The lineup also includes the introspective 'Homo Economicus', the poignant 'The Dead City', the comedic chaos of 'The Barber of Seville', and Verdi's tragic saga 'The Troubadour'. Join us as we delve into these unforgettable performances.

Opera Extravaganza: A Journey Through Emotion and Storytelling at Staatstheater Hannover

"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.

The Troubadour

Staatstheater Hannover

“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

"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

"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

Ballhof

"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

“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

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

"And now, everyone!" — Under the direction of the State Opera Chorus Director Lorenzo da Rio, the (hopefully) fully-seated opera house, accompanied by piano, will sing Advent, winter, and Christmas carols of various origins. Can you share your favorites with us in advance? We're sure one or two ensemble members will drop by with a favorite song.

Advent singing for everyone

“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

“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

The Rosenkavalier

“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.

Hanover State Opera Choir

13 - 25 Jun, 2026

The Troubadour

May 17 - Jun 24, 2026

The Barber of Seville

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