Join us on an enchanting journey through the world of Theater Lübeck, as we explore a diverse array of performances that captivate the senses and challenge the mind. From gripping narratives of historical reflection to family-friendly musical adventures, Theater Lübeck offers a vibrant season of events that promise to entertain and enlighten audiences of all ages. With performances ranging from musicals and orchestral concerts to family shows, each event is a testament to the power of art to evoke emotion, provoke thought, and unite communities.

Theater Lübeck: A Symphony of Stories and Soundscapes

The dolls in Bruno's toy shop are keeping a big secret: every night they come to life and show each other their dances. But one day the doll couple Claire and Philippe are to be separated! Now all the dolls come together and think about what they can do to help Claire and Philippe. Theater spirit Johann von Rasselstein tells the exciting story of the dolls from Bruno's magic shop and the Philharmonic Orchestra plays lively music that not only dolls can dance to.

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Children's concert The Magic Shop

Munich Kammerspiele

At this youth concert, young people get to know the flute in all its facets, because the two works by Frank Martin and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart couldn't be more different. Exciting virtuosity in Martin's ballad meets Mozart's delicate lightness, packaged in the form of a classical solo concerto. With Stathis Karapanos, we were able to get an international star for this concert. The young people sit on the stage at the youth concerts and thus have the opportunity to engage in direct interaction with the musicians.

Youth concert for the  3rd Symphony concert

Music and Congress Hall

When the 22-year-old Mozart was working on his second flute concerto, the later composer of the "Magic Flute" was not particularly fond of the instrument: "Then I'll be stuffed" (i.e. reluctant), he told his father, "if I have to write for an instrument that I don't like." And so he quickly managed to get his client, Ferdinand Dejean, to arrange his oboe concerto - a sleight of hand that of course does not detract from Mozart's cheerful and energetic music.

3rd  Symphony Concert

In 1880, Johannes Brahms told his publisher that he could not deny his "melancholy disposition" the opportunity to write a "tragedy overture" following the "Academic Festival Overture". "One laughs, the other weeps". As the latter does not refer to a specific drama, but to "tragic itself", he called it the "Tragic Overture". In 1883, Brahms then worked in complete silence on his third symphony. No passages from letters, sketches or earlier versions provide any information about its origins.

4th  Symphony Concert

It is not unusual for composers to arrange their own chamber music works for larger ensembles. However, the character of the piece often changes fundamentally: William Walton's Sonata for String Orchestra - an arrangement of his String Quartet in A minor - is actually a concerto for string quartet and orchestra, according to the composer Christopher Palmer. Walton does not simply transfer the quartet to the larger ensemble, but plays with the alternation between solo passages reminiscent of the original ensemble and the full tutti sound.

2nd  Symphony Concert

Fifteen years after the end of the Second World War, the German diplomat Walter and his wife Lisa travel by ship from Europe to Brazil, where he is to take up a new position. Everything seems peaceful until Lisa unexpectedly notices a passenger on board who reminds her of Marta, a prisoner in the Auschwitz concentration camp, where she worked as a guard. Lisa never told her husband anything about this past, and repressed it as best she could. But now images of her own involvement and guilt break out; the sea voyage leads inexorably into her own abysses.

The passenger

Theater Lübeck

On the evening of Christmas Day, the choir and soloist ensemble of the Theater Lübeck together with the Philharmonic Orchestra invite you to a festive concert with music for the Christmas season.

Christmas concert

The Philharmonic Orchestra of the Hanseatic City of Lübeck welcomes the New Year with sounds and rhythms from America and Europe. Stefan Vladar conducts and plays George Gershwin's rousing "Rhapsody in Blue" as a soloist. Waltz sounds traditionally come from the metropolis of Vienna, but with "La Valse" by Maurice Ravel, they also come from Paris - extremely intoxicating and delicate...

New Year's Concert

The Lübeck Philharmonic Society is celebrating its 20th anniversary with a special concert in collaboration with the Lübeck Theater and the Lübeck University Orchestra. The program includes works by composers who have received and continue to receive less attention than they deserve due to their origin, gender or skin color. This concert, led by a renowned conductor, thus positions itself artistically for diversity and against discrimination and unequal treatment in the music world.

Music4all – limitless sounds

No composer has ever captured the typical scenery of the seasons in music more inventively than Antonio Vivaldi in 1725 with his cycle "Le quattro stagioni", consisting of four violin concertos: from the soundscape of nature, the birdsong and the rumble of thunder, to seasonal pleasures such as ice skating or wine festivals, to the extreme temperatures of summer and winter, whose effect on people Vivaldi describes in drastic sounds.

5th  Symphony Concert

Time is very confusing for a theater mind. When you have been in the world for so long, you lose the feeling for it. But it seems to be very important to people and we hear that in the music too: many composers have written music about the seasons or times of day. Here you can listen to a clock ticking, hear the big tower clock striking there, or be reminded of an evening sky. The orchestra takes the young audience on a musical journey through time, where one thing is certain: in this children's concert, time certainly does not pass too slowly.

Children's concert With music through year

Around ten years before his opera "The Passenger", which is on the Lübeck Music Theatre's repertoire this season, Mieczysław Weinberg composed his brilliant violin concerto in 1959. Influences from the musical tradition of the Eastern Jewish diaspora, with which he had been familiar since his childhood in Poland, shape the melody and harmony of the work. It is conceived as a symphony in four movements and dedicated to the great Russian violinist Leonid Kogan. In Lübeck, the solo part will be played by a proven Weinberg interpreter, the award-winning violinist Benjamin Schmid.

6th  Symphony Concert

It was the conductor Paul Sacher who inspired Frank Martin to focus on an instrumentation in a concert that one would actually associate with a baroque basso continuo. In the juxtaposition of two string orchestras with soloists on harp, piano and harpsichord, Martin created a constellation that is vaguely reminiscent of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos just before the end of the Second World War. 

7th  Symphony Concert

Together with his sister Maria Anna, known as Nannerl, who was also a gifted pianist, Mozart played his Concerto for Two Pianos, composed in Salzburg in 1779. It represents an important stage in his development of the piano concerto, the genre in which he was particularly successful during his years in Vienna, from 1781 onwards. The high point and conclusion of this phase is the Piano Concerto in C minor, composed in 1786. Of all Mozart's piano concertos, this one most clearly shows him to be a pioneer of Romanticism.

8th Symphony Concert

Summer is coming and the theater spirit is now really gripped by the travel bug. Get on board and off you go on the Trans-Siberian Ghost Train! But where is it going? First, it treats itself to a short stop in Kiev. There, a famous gate leads to another world: the old witch Baba Yaga flies around on her broom, the blind Princess Iolanta dreams of seeing, a group of merchants travels through the steppe and a happy wedding party dances a wild sabre dance.

Children's concert The Trans Siberian Ghost Train

Thomas Mann was an insatiable record listener. When Süddeutsche Rundfunk interviewed him in 1954 for a broadcast of the series "Who wishes what?", he put together the program for his personal "request concert." To mark the 150th birthday of the world-famous writer from Lübeck, the Philharmonic Orchestra is giving a new performance of these favorite works by Thomas Mann - on the stage of the theater in his hometown.

The concert of his life

It is part of the Philharmonic Orchestra's tradition to accompany selected students from the Lübeck University of Music as part of their concert examination at the end of a concert season. Three to four works for solo instruments and orchestra will be on the program at this final concert in the Great Hall of the University of Music. With this evening, the Theater Lübeck and its orchestra once again underline the special importance that the development of aspiring musicians and their entry into professional life have for them.

Soloists' concert of the Lübeck University of Music

Lübeck University of Music, Great Hall

The conductor and composer Anna Skryleva begins the youth concert with one of her own compositions and will give the young listeners an insight into the creation of a composition. Richard Strauss was inspired by a journey in his first tone poem. His music first takes the audience to Campania, describes the dignified ruins of the Eternal City of Rome, takes a short break on the beach in Sorrento and finally ends in the lively city life of Naples.

Philharmonic Orchestra of the Hanseatic City

Dec 25, 2024

Christmas concert

Oct 7, 2024 - Mar 9, 2025

The passenger

Jan 1, 2025

New Year's Concert

Jan 18, 2025

Music4all – limitless sounds

9 - 10 Feb, 2025

5th Symphony Concert

3 - 22 Dec, 2024

Children's concert The Magic Shop

Nov 25, 2024

Youth concert for the 3rd Symphony concert

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Philharmonic Orchestra of the Hanseatic City