Editorial and Overview Season 2023/24

Speechless

Being or becoming speechless – both are ambivalent states. Not being able to grasp or explain something in words, as can happen in moments of horror or marvel, is something we have all experienced, with very different thoughts and feelings. And like so many phenomena, speechlessness has several aspects that need to be considered jointly to be truly understood. The upcoming season will provide an opportunity to explore several of these perspectives.

The water nymph Rusalka in Antonín Dvořák’s opera of the same name is rendered speechless when she decides to transfer to the human world: the price for this is the loss of her voice and thus language as a means for communication. Verdi’s opera »Aida« can also leave one speechless when the music develops so powerfully with its immense tableaux. Modest Mussorgsky’s »Khovanshchina«, also a work from the late nineteenth century, leads to a world of political intrigues and a religious fanaticism that triggers a fatal chain of events. Subjects that are surprisingly relevant today will be treated on stage, for example in a new production of Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s opera »Médée«, a masterpiece of French tragédie en musique, where a central figure of ancient mythology is reinterpreted and given additional facets, embedded in current contexts of migration, acceptance, and rejection. »Melancholie des Widerstands« (Melancholy of Resistance), the world premiere of an opera by Marc-André Dalbavie commissioned by the Staatsoper based on the novel by Hungarian writer László Krasznahorkai, is a parable on current society that presents a world full of bizarre figures and situations in which dark, unfathomable threats become palpable. All five premieres on the main stage oscillate in a special way between myth and history, romanticism and realism, dream and reality, eloquence and speechlessness, even if it is communicated through language.

This season we will also continue »Linden 21«, our format for experimental and unusual opera, with two new works: »Don’t You Nomi?«, which seeks to approach the visionary countertenor Klaus Nomi, who died at a tragically young age, and »The Timeless Moment«, where the experience of the sound worlds of Claude Debussy and Tristan Murail will open new horizons.

Two festivals during the season will set special accents. During the autumn, the BAROCKTAGE will present three different works that all circle around the figure and the subject »Medea«: alongside the premiere of Charpentier’s French Baroque opera from the late seventeenth century, there will be a reencounter with Luigi Cherubini’s classical »Medea/ Médée«, performed for first time here by an early music ensemble, and a melodrama by Georg Anton Benda, who was much admired by none less than Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Mozart himself will be featured at the BAROCKTAGE with his amazing early work »Mitridate, Re di Ponto«, while the concerts will spotlight Charpentier and his contemporaries.

At Easter, the FESTTAGE will present two rounds of Wagner’s monumental »Ring«-cycle, a pinnacle of the European opera, conducted for the first time at Staatsoper Unter den Linden by Philippe Jordan. The FESTTAGE concert of Staatskapelle Berlin will focus on Bruckner, while the Opernkinderorchester, which for several years now has enriched this festival, will perform music by Dvořák: these two composers will play an outstanding role in this season’s concert program. The centennial of Bruckner’s birth is being celebrated in 2024, and his music will be featured several times at Staatskapelle concerts (as well as Gustav Mahler, whose symphonic oeuvre would be unthinkable without that of Bruckner). Dvořák will be the focus of both symphony and chamber music concerts. Throughout the entire season, the key works of the composer’s important and widely varied chamber oeuvre will be performed at Apollosaal, while the music of Dvořák will also be featured at recitals and choral concerts.

The opera repertoire will range from Mozart to the twenty-first century. With »Le nozze di Figaro« and »Don Giovanni«, two recent new productions of the Mozart-Da-Ponte operas will return to the stage, along with the production of »Zauberflöte« directed by Yuval Sharon, which with its modern aesthetic has increasingly attracted attention in recent years. By starting off the season with the premiere of »Aida« along with »Don Carlo« and »Macbeth«, the focus will be placed on three major Verdi operas, and over the course of the season two more Verdi operas will be performed, as well as four works by Puccini, including the recent successful productions of »La fanciulla del West« and »Turandot«. Wagner will be included with the »Ring«-cycle and »Lohengrin«, Strauss with the comedy »Der Rosenkavalier« and the tragedies »Elektra« and »Daphne«. In addition, the season will spotlight new music with performances of two works premiered at the Staatsoper in recent years »Violetter Schnee« (Violet Snow) by Beat Furrer and »Sleepless« by Peter Eötvös, along with the premiere of the new work »Melancholie des Widerstands«, attesting to our commitment to contemporary opera.

To match this highly varied opera program with around thirty works, an equally broad range of conductors will be performing with us during this season at the Staatsoper and with the Staatskapelle: Zubin Mehta, Simon Rattle, Christian Thielemann, Philippe Jordan, Simone Young, Joana Mallwitz, Nicola Luisotti, Robin Ticciati, Rafael Payare, Iván Fischer, Elim Chan and Marie Jacquot, to mention just several, and quite a few of them will be celebrating their debut performance with us this season.

In November 2022, we were able to celebrate Daniel Barenboim’s eightieth birthday, and, in deep gratitude, his thirty years as general music director of the Staatsoper and the Staatskapelle. In January 2023, Daniel Barenboim was forced to step down due to health reasons. But we are very happy that he will be joining the Staatskapelle for a concert tour to Canada and the U.S. this season, performing the symphonies by Johannes Brahms.

We continue to place great importance on our children and youth program. With the Opernkinderorchester (for which for the first time a work is being especially composed this season) and the Kinderopernhaus, which in the meantime has become a fixture in many areas of Berlin, the Staatsoper reaches out far into the city, in the sense of participation and direct involvement. We again we be presenting targeted offerings for a young audience, such as the children’s opera »Schneewittchen« (Snow White), an entire series of children’s concerts for various age groups, numerous workshops, rehearsal visits, and more.

With »Staatsoper für alle« (Staatsoper for All) on Bebelplatz and a large- scale season opening, we hope to continue to reach and delight as wide an audience as possible. Six years after returning to the unique opera house Unter den Linden, which offers so many possibilities of performing this ever-fascinating art form, we have now truly arrived and want to show every day and each evening what the music and the stage can offer.

Welcome to the new season!

Matthias Schulz,
Intendant       


ROLE DEBUTS
 

• Rosie Aldridge – Die Küsterin Buryjovka (JENŮFA)
• Steve Davislim – Schreiber (CHOWANSCHTSCHINA)
• Elsa Dreisig – Sifare (MITRIDATE, RE DI PONTO)
• Andrés Moreno García – Rodolfo (LA BOHÈME)
• Mika Kares – Fürst Iwan Chowanski (CHOWANSCHTSCHINA)
• Christiane Karg – Rusalka (RUSALKA)
• Anna Kissjudit – Ježibaba (RUSALKA)
• Wolfgang Koch – Jack Rance (LA FANCIULLA DEL WEST)
• Maria Kokareva – Musetta (LA BOHÈME)
• Siyabonga Maqungo – Mitridate, König von Pontus (MITRIDATE, RE DI PONTO)
• Sally Matthews – Leonore (FIDELIO)
• Jaka Mihelač – Peter (VIOLETTER SCHNEE)
• Clara Nadeshdin – Natascha (VIOLETTER SCHNEE)
• Evelin Novak – Gräfin Almaviva (LE NOZZE DI FIGARO) /
  Emma (CHOWANSCHTSCHINA)
• Carles Pachon – Sharpless (MADAMA BUTTERFLY)
• Marina Prudenskaya – Ortrud (LOHENGRIN) /
  Marfa (CHOWANSCHTSCHINA)
• Adriane Queiroz – Elisabeth von Valois (DON CARLOS)
• Marina Rebeka – Aida (AIDA) / Médée (MEDEA)
• Stephan Rügamer – Fürst Wassili Golizyn (CHOWANSCHTSCHINA)
• Anna Samuil – Fremde Fürstin (RUSALKA)
• Gabriela Scherer – Donna Elvira (DON GIOVANNI)

CONDUCTORS OPERA AND BALLETT
Iro Arad, Bertrand de Billy, Pierre Dumoussand (house debut), Peter Eötvös, Thomas Guggeis, Domingo Hindoyan, Symeon Ioannidis, Marie Jacquot (house debut), Philippe Jordan, Axel Kober, Nicola Luisotti (house debut), Joana Mallwitz (house debut), Giuseppe Mentuccia, Marc Minkowski, Andrés Orozco-Estrada, Rafael Payare (house debut), Matthias Pintscher, Markus Poschner, Kristiina Poska, Max Renne, Simon Rattle, Ivan Repušić, Christophe Rousset, Speranza Scappucci, Giedré Šlekytė, Alexander Soddy, Marius Stravinsky, Robin Ticciati (house debut), Victorien Vanoosten, Simone Young, Massimo Zanetti

CONDUCTORS CONCERT
Daniel Barenboim, Elim Chan (house debut), Finnegan Downie Dear, Iván Fischer (house debut), Manfred Honeck (house debut), Philippe Jordan, Zubin Mehta, Giuseppe Mentuccia, Rafael Payare (house debut), Simon Rattle, Jordi Savall, Giedré Šlekytė (debut in a concert), Christian Thielemann, Lorenzo Viotti, Vinzenz Weissenburger, Jaap van Zweden (house debut)

DIRECTORS
Constanze Albert, Ruth Berghaus, Calixto Bieito, Andrea Breth, Romeo Castellucci, Patrice Chéreau, Silvia Costa (house debut), Dieter Dorn, Eike Gramss, Claus Guth, André Heller, Alvis Hermanis, Philipp Himmelmann, Vincent Huguet, Lindy Hume, Harry Kupfer, Thom Luz, Julia Lwowski (house debut), David Marton (house debut), David McVicar, Damiano Michieletto, Satoshi Miyagi, Kornél Mundruczó, Georg Schüttky, Peter Sellars (house debut), Yuval Sharon, Bartlett Sher, Gail Skrela, Lydia Steier, Philipp Stölzl, Dmitri Tcherniakov, Wim Wenders

SOLOISTS OPERA
Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke, Maria Agresta, Rosie Aldridge (House debut), Roberta Alexander, Emily D’Angelo, Tanja Ariane Baumgartner, Olaf Bär, Stansislas de Barbeyrac, Giorgio Berrugi (house debut), Adriana Bignagni Lesca, Jeanine De Bique (house debut), Vera-Lotte Boecker, Pavol Breslik, David Butt Philip (house debut), Joseph Calleja, Pavel Černoch, Alfredo Daza, Sarah Defrise, Jasmin Delfs (house debut), Annalisa Derossi, Elsa Dreisig, Karl-Michael Ebner, Amartuvshin Enkhbat (house debut), Yusif Eyvazov, Michael Fabiano, Paolo Fanale, Riccardo Fassi, Christof Fischesser, Ferruccio Furnaletto, Lucio Gallo, Elīna Garanča, Aida Garifullina, Paul Gay, Martina Gedeck, Christopher Gillett, Renato Girolami, Adriana González, Günther Groissböck, Ekaterina Gubanova, Federica Guida (house debut), Samuel Hasselhorn, Angela Hicks (house debut), Pavlo Hunka, Bonita Hyman, Philippe Jaroussky (house debut), Marco Jentzsch (house debut), Caroline Jestaedt (House debut), Brandon Jovanovich, Anja Kampe, Mika Kares, Christiane Karg, Otto Katzameier, Simon Keenlyside, Julia Kleiter, Matthias Klink, Wolfgang Koch, Tomasz Konieczny, Dmitry Korchak, Magdalena Kožená, Johannes Martin Kränzle, Aleksandra Kurzak, Ana Maria Labin, Ivan Magrì, Claudia Mahnke, Christopher Maltmann, Jan Martiník, Antonio Di Matteo (house debut), Sally Matthews, Elena Maximova, Najmiddin Mavlyanov (house debut), Reinoud Van Mechelen, Waltraut Meier, Ricarda Merbeth, Jaka Mihelač, Vida Miknevičiūtė, Stephen Milling, Mara Miribung, Ljudmyla Monastyrska, Valentina Nafornița, Anna Netrebko, Camilla Nylund, Aleksandra Olczyk, Thomas Oliemans, Pene Pati, Olga Peretyatko, George Petean, Melissa Petit (house debut), Sandrine Piau, Daniele Pintaudi, Saimir Pirgu, Stefan Pop, Anna Princeva, Anna Prohaska, Sahy Ratia, Marina Rebeka, Serena Sáenz, Luca Salsi, Carolyn Sampson (house debut), Fabio Satori, Gabriela Scherer (house debut), Erwin Schrott, Golda Schultz (house debut), Hanna Schwarz, Ekaterina Semenchuk, María José Siri, Olivia Stahn, Anna Stéphany (house debut), Samuel Streiff, Falk Struckmann, Cheryl Studer, Vladislav Sulimsky, Luca Tittoto (house debut), Tómas Tómasson, Freddie De Tommaso, Lauri Vasar, Rolando Villazón, Marina Viotti, Carlo Vistoli, Klaus Florian Vogt, Linard Vrielink, David Wakeham, Nils Wanderer, Mathias Weibel, Zachary Wilson, Pretty Yende, Sonya Yoncheva

SOLOISTS CONCERT
Sara Aristidou, Nicolas Altstaedt, Joyce DiDonato, Meike Droste, Reinhold Friedrich, Leonidas Kavakos (house debut), Maria Kokareva, Magdalena Kožená, Gidon Kremer, Johan Krogius, Lang Lang, Jiyoon Lee, Igor Levit (debut with Staatskapelle Berlin), Stephen MacLeod, Dorothee Oberlinger, René Pape, Marina Prudenskaya, Jean Rondeau, Simone Schneider, Max Urlacher, Klaus Florian Vogt, Alisa Weilerstein, Sonya Yoncheva

GUEST ORCHESTRAS AND ENSEMBLES
Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Concerto de Cavalieri, Ensemble 1700, Freiburger Barockorchester, La Capella Reial de Catalunya, Le Concert des Nations, Les Musiciens du Louvre, Quatuor Nevermind, Vocalconsort Berlin, Voces Suaves

ENSEMBLE
Katharina Kammerloher, Anna Kissjudit, Evelin Novak, Marina Prudenskaya, Adriane Queiroz, Victoria Randem, Anna Samuil, Natalia Skrycka

Florian Hoffmann, Arttu Kataja, Adam Kutny, Siyabonga Maqungo, Andrés Moreno García, Gyula Orendt, David Oštrek, René Pape, Stephan Rügamer, Andreas Schager, Grigory Shkarupa, Roman Trekel, Bogdan Volkov

INTERNATIONAL OPERASTUDIO
Dionysios Avgerinos, Ekaterina Chayka-Rubinstein, Friedrich Hamel, Taehan Kim, Maria Kokareva, Regina Koncz, Johan Krogius, Gonzalo Quinchahual, Rebecka Wallroth, Supported by Liz Mohn Kultur- und Musikstiftung

ADVANCE TICKET SALES
The regular tickets for the FESTTAGE 2024 including the »Ring«-cycle and concerts go on sale on 4th April 2023 at 12 noon, for subscriptions 2023/24 on 11th April 2023 at 12 noon and tickets for all opera and concert performances 2023/24 go on sale on 29th April 2023 at 12 noon. The early pre-sale for members of the Friends, subscribers and holders of the Staatsoperncard starts on 22nd April 2023 at 12 noon for all opera and concert performances 2023/24. Further information: https://www.staatsoper-berlin.de/en/.

MAIN PARTNERS
The Staatsoper Unter den Linden sincerely thanks the Verein der Freunde und Förderer der Staatsoper Unter den Linden and its main partners BMW and the Hilti Foundation for their support.