Opera

A storm rages off the coast of Crete, forcing King Idomeneo, who is returning from the Trojan War, to make an ill-fated promise to Neptune: if the enraged god lets him reach land safely, he will sacrifice... more

Hofmannsthal wrote to Strauss in 1911 that the new opera was to Zauberflöte as the Rosenkavalier was to Figaro. And indeed, much in this work is reminiscent of Mozart's "grand opera": the encounter between... more

Claus Guth banishes all orientalism and looks at his title heroine with a dissecting, psychoanalytical eye. more

The Deutsche Oper Berlin presents this new production of the famous Verdi opera. more

In setting »La Dame aux Camélias« to music, Verdi explored, in a shockingly direct way, two big themes of the 19th century: prostitution and consumption. Götz Friedrich’s production stresses the futility... more

The Viennese aristocracy are no strangers to family feuds: boorish Baron Ochs auf Lerchenau interrupts the morning tête-à-tête between his cousin, the Marschallin, and her young lover Octavian. more

The rebellion of Sicily against its French occupiers in 1282, known as the "Sicilian Vespers", could easily be linked to Verdi's present and the conquest and colonisation of Algeria that began in 1830.... more

In his opera about the hunchbacked court jester, Verdi took the tension between the improbabilities of the plot and the emotional overwhelming power of musical theatre to extremes. Jan Bosse's production... more

Bizet described his opera as an "operetta with a bad ending" - and rightly so, because what is unique about CARMEN is the mixture of romantic opera, realistic drama and Offenbach operetta. Ole Anders Tandberg's... more

In the permanent memory of her father's murder, Elektra tyrannises life at court and falls into a veritable frenzy of revenge. To give his opera the force of Attic tragedy, Strauss exploited the possibilities... more

Mixing Viennese folk theatre, Masonic mystery and fairy tale, this opera is probably the most performed in the German-speaking world and, in Günter Krämer's colourful, highly visual production, a favourite... more

Langgaard's monolithic work creates an eschatological mystery play that pays homage to the fin de siècle with music reminiscent of Strauss and Wagner, but which does not deny Hindemith and Schönberg. Ersan... more