The librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal puts these words into the field marshal’s mouth. She knows that the affair with her young lover Octavian is finally over. So she proposes him to her cousin Baron Ochs as a messenger of love, a Rosenkavalier. Ochs has his eye on Sophie, the daughter of an up-and-coming middle-class family. His goal is to rejuvenate the old nobility with new money. What Ochs doesn't expect: Octavian falls in love with Sophie and thwarts his plans.
It is a lively rococo fantasy that Richard Strauss creates with Der Rosenkavalier and in the framework of which he creates a social study about old nobility, new money and class arrogance.

With the production of Strauss' Rosenkavalier, the internationally renowned director Georg Schmiedleitner is presenting himself for the first time in Mainz. Known for his gripping access to material and fine direction of characters, he penetrates the deepest depths of opera characters. In Strauss's masterpiece he will look behind the facade of lavish sounds and rococo gestures.

EPSG:4326

Der Rosenkavalier

Staatstheater Mainz

A woman who was remarkably emancipated for her time is at the center of Kaija Saariaho's monodrama Emilie . Emilie du Châtelet was a French mathematician, physicist and philosopher during the Enlightenment.

Emilie (DE)

Can artificial intelligence develop consciousness? Where is the boundary between man and machine? Does only humans have the right to a self-determined existence? The science fiction opera humanoid tells a gripping story about the relationship between people and technology, about diving and getting lost in digital worlds.

Humanoid

“Ladies and gentlemen, some call him Lucky, some call him Zimmy, I just call him Bobby – here is Bob Dylan!” George Harrison once announced Bob Dylan.

Things Have Changed

In Radio Star , a musical panorama is unfolded that moves exploratively between catchy tunes and unknown sounds and turns the radio itself into a musical instrument, such as in Karlheinz Stockhausen's composition Pole for singers and 2 shortwave receivers. And last but not least, the question is asked: Did video kill the radio star?

Radio Star

Based on the novel of the same name by Polish author and Auschwitz survivor Zofia Posmysz, Weinberg created an opera about guilt and renewed confrontation with the past. In his opera, completed in 1968 but only staged for the first time in 2010, the Polish-Jewish composer, who lost his parents and sister in the Shoah, combines late romantic opulence with twelve-tone technique, folk songs and dance music to create a haunting memorial against obfuscation and forgetting.

Die Passagierin

Pagliacci tells the story of an acting troupe: the aging actor Canio learns that his younger wife Nedda is having an affair with another man. Nevertheless, he has to put on a good face every evening on stage as “Bajazzo”. Canio threatens to break because of it.

The ability of the composer Ruggero Leoncavallo to reconcile the playful theater-on-the-theater level, the ambiguous emotional situation and the dark mood makes this opera a thrilling crime thriller.

In Giacomo Puccini's first opera Le Villi, the composer's talent as a melodist and harmonizer - his typical "melancholic tone" - can be clearly heard. Anna and Roberto celebrate their engagement. Soon afterwards, Roberto has to travel to Mainz to collect an inheritance, where he falls for a seductive stranger. Anna feels betrayed by him and dies of grief. Her soul unites with the Willis, the souls of dead women who suffered a similar fate. Roberto finally returns full of remorse, but he is drawn into a frenzied dance by the Willis...

Le Villi / Pagliacci

Every child knows about pirates, but who actually are the Pirates of Penzance ? In Gilbert and Sullivan's classic of the English operetta repertoire, the pirate apprentice Frederic dreams of finally leading a decent life because he only ended up in a pirate apprenticeship instead of a private apprenticeship because of a hearing problem with his nanny Ruth. When Frederic meets the lovely daughters of a major general - whose comprehensive education is unfortunately sparse in the military sector - and falls in love with the loveliest of them, the humorous chaos begins: torn between his sense of duty and Due to his overwhelming aversion to being a pirate, Frederic and Ruth, the band of pirates who want to get married under their victorious pirate king on the hunt for the major general's daughters and a group of police officers unwilling to fight, slide through the events to ravishingly comic music, in which the absurd is declined until one faces it Laughing results without a fight.
An absolute must, not just for fans of British humor!

The Pirates of Penzance

Pagliacci tells the story of an acting troupe: the aging actor Canio learns that his younger wife Nedda is having an affair with another man. Nevertheless, every evening he has to put on a good face on the stage as "Bajazzo" and play the game. Canio threatens to break up.

In Giacomo Puccini's first opera Le Villi, the composer's talent as a melodist and harmonist - his typical "melancholic tone" - is clearly heard. Anna and Roberto celebrate their engagement. Soon after, Roberto has to travel to Mainz for an inheritance, where he falls for a seductive stranger. Anna feels betrayed by him and dies of grief. Her soul reunites with the Willis, the souls of dead women who have suffered a similar fate. Roberto eventually returns, full of regrets, but the Willis engage him in a frenzied dance...

Le Villi /Pagliacci

Nabucco, king of the Babylonians, raids the Hebrews and destroys their temples. His daughter Fenena defects to the enemy camp. Her love for the slave Ismaele is a thorn in the side of her half-sister Abigaille. She is not only fighting against Fenena, but against the subjugated Jewish people.

But then Abigaille finds a document that reveals that she is the daughter of a slave and will therefore never be entitled to the crown. Only an intrigue and the mental decline of her power-obsessed father Nabucco can pave her way to the king's throne...

Nabucco

Only a single hit separates Max from his happiness. If he succeeds in making a successful test shot in front of the prince, forester Kuno grants him the hand of his daughter Agathe and the forest. But the fear of failure paralyzes Max and makes him resort to forbidden means. In the dark Wolves Gorge, Kaspar seduces him into casting free bullets. Six of these magic bullets hits every imaginable target unfailingly. With the seventh bullet, however, the devil takes a human victim. The next day, when the seventh bullet is in Max's rifle during the all-important test shot, all the bleak omens seems to come true.

Staatstheater Mainz

Jun 29, 2024

Der Rosenkavalier

May 11 - Jul 1, 2024

Emilie (DE)

Staatstheater Mainz