Deutsche Oper Berlin presents its program highlights for the month of April 2025.
Abb. oben: Photo: DIE MEISTERSINGER VON NÜRNBERG © Thomas Aurin
The cooperation between the Deutsche Oper Berlin and the Hanns Eisler School of Music is entering its seventh year: NEUE SZENEN VII, a chamber opera triptych by Zara Ali, Haukur þór Harðarson and Huihui Cheng, will be performed at the Tischlerei on 27 April – three world premieres in which artists of the younger generation take a stand on current issues of our time in very different ways. Further performances on 30 April, 1 and 3 May.
What will a future look like in which researchers no longer just work on artificial intelligence, but have learnt to copy humans in computers? A scenario outlined by economist Robin Hanson in his book ‘The Age of Em – Work, Love and Life when Robots Rule the Earth’. The composer Zara Ali from Memphis (Tennessee) is currently working on the staging of Hanson’s physical-digital hermaphrodites and, under the title ‘WHAT JOY’, shows how such ‘ems’ perceive taste and attempt to transmit the pleasure they experience when listening to music. To this end, the brain of a conductor is ‘hacked’ to turn it into an interface for the musical perception of the ‘ems’ of the world. Zara Ali has developed this humorous science fiction work together with author Hannah Dübgen, in which she explores the question of what makes people human.
The Chinese composer Huihui Cheng, who attended a school for musically gifted children in Beijing at the age of 14, explores climate change in her chamber opera ‘WATER DESERT’, which she wrote together with the writer Giuliana Kiersz: Should she leave her flood-threatened home to make a new start in a foreign country? Or should she stay, with the risk of drowning in the water? Two women are faced with this existential decision, the consequences of which are negotiated in a sensitive soundscape about a man-made natural disaster.
Finally, Berlin-based Icelander Haukur Þór Harðarson – co-founder of the composers’ collective Errata – wants to ‘challenge himself with experimental approaches’ in new music theatre. Together with Cyprus-based librettist Sophie Fetokaki, he has taken the ancient story of Antigone as the starting point for ‘CAVE’. The conflict between reason of state and morality is thematised in the form of a text that draws on adaptations and adaptations of the material and understands the figure of Antigone as a symbol of burning questions in times of war and crisis that remain open across time and cultural boundaries to this day.
As part of a competition in summer 2023, the three composer-writer teams were selected to write a new piece of music theater, which will be premiered on April 27 in a three-part evening in the Tischlerei of the Deutsche Oper Berlin. The three pieces will be performed, sung and staged by students from the Hanns Eisler School of Music in Berlin.
Cast highlights: four Wagner operas in April 2025:
The performances of TANNHÄUSER UND DER SÄNGERKRIEG AUF WARTBURG on April 5 and 13 with Klaus Florian Vogt as Tannhäuser, Samuel Hasselhorn as Wolfram von Eschenbach, Tobias Kehrer as Landgrave Hermann and Elisabeth Teige as Venus and Elisabeth will take place under the cast and musical direction of John Fiore.
Under the musical direction of the Deutsche Oper’s Principal Guest Conductor Ivan Repušić, audiences can experience performances of LOHENGRIN with Attilio Glaser in the title role on April 6, 11 and 20. The German-Italian tenor is known in his home country for his exposed performances as Alfredo, Rodolfo and Tamino. He is joined by Flurina Stucki as Elsa, Nina Stemme as Ortrud and Jordan Shanahan, who was recently acclaimed as Barak, as Friedrich von Telramund.
On April 12, 19 and 27, DIE MEISTERSINGER VON NÜRNBERG will once again be performed under the baton of Ulf Schirmer with Thomas Johannes Mayer as Hans Sachs, Albert Pesendorfer as Veit Pogner, Philipp Jekal as Beckmesser, Magnus Vigilius as Stolzing and the two role debuts of Chance Jonas-O’Toole as David and the highly esteemed Elena Tsallagova as Eva
Finally, there will be two performances of DER FLIEGENDE HOLLÄNDER on April 21 and 26 with Derek Welton (April 21) and Joachim Goltz (April 26) in the title role, Patrick Guetti as Daland, Flurina Stucki as Senta and Kieran Carrel as Erik. Giulio Cilona on the podium.
Jazz on the big stage: “On Broadway” on 17th April 2025
Under the title “On Broadway”, you can hear jazz with a large line-up. The BigBand and the Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin give a joint concert with symphonic jazz classics and pieces that were written on and for Broadway and pay homage to New York’s theater and show business mile. The program includes George Gershwin’s “An American in Paris”, excerpts from PORGY AND BESS, pieces from Leonard Bernstein’s ON THE TOWN as well as compositions by Cole Porter and John Kander. Katharine Mehrling will be the soloist at the concert, with Burkhardt Ulrich as presenter.
WHERE?
Deutsche Oper Berlin
Bismarckstraße 35
10627 Berlin-Charlottenburg
