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Richard Wagner in April

Der fliegende Holländer

Richard Wagner (1813 – 1883)

21
Monday
April
16:00 - 18:15
D prices: € 144.00 / 112.00 / 82.00 / 50.00 / 30.00
Buy tickets
Information about the work

Romantic opera in three acts Music and text by Richard Wagner
World premiere: 2nd January 1843 in Dresden
Premiered at the Deutsche Oper Berlin: 7th May 2017

approx. 2 hrs 15 mins / no interval

In German language with German and English surtitles

Pre-performance lecture (in German): 45 minutes prior to each performance

recommended from 13 years
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Our thanks to our partners

Kindly supported by Förderkreis der Deutschen Oper Berlin e. V.

21
Monday
April
16:00 - 18:15
D prices: € 144.00 / 112.00 / 82.00 / 50.00 / 30.00
Buy tickets
Cast
the content

About the work
The Dutchman is a cursed man, an outsider, a driven individual. Richard Wagner came upon the character of the famous drifter via Heinrich Heine, who lent the Romantic material his typically ironic touch. Wagner’s interest was tweaked not by Heine’s packaging of the story, which relegated the Dutchman-based action to the margins, but by the tale of the enigmatic mariner, which led to him writing his first opera about the man’s quest for a woman who could offer him redemption. The Dutchman, restlessly plying the borderlands between life and death, encounters Senta, who appears equally ill-at-ease and rootless and yearns for a masculine character, the Dutchman, a figment of her imagination.

Written in 1841 and performed for the first time in Dresden in 1843, Wagner’s opera, following on the heels of RIENZI, a work in the grand opéra tradition, harks back to the German idea of Romantic opera as exemplified by Weber or Marschner. THE FLYING DUTSCHMAN also marks the beginning of a new and characteristically Wagnerian style, a new form of musical drama. This is the first of many works by Wagner to place the theme of redemption through love in death at the core of the piece.

About the production
Director and choreographer Christian Spuck, artistic director of the Staatsballett Berlin since 2023, has given us a realm of dream images and fantastical visions, of obsession and projection – a world that has lost touch with reality. Most affected by this is Erik, the huntsman, who seems to be the only figure capable of true love. But he can no longer get through to a Senta who is wrapped up in her dreams. Erik is in the nightmarish situation of watching Senta increasingly cut herself off from him until she eventually commits suicide.

Our recommendations

Tristan and Isolde
Tannhäuser and the Singers' Contest at Wartburg
Lohengrin
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
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22
DEC

Advents-Verlosung: Das 22. Fensterchen

On 7 March 2025, the first part of Tobias Kratzer's Strauss trilogy, ARABELLA, celebrates its revival as part of our ‘Richard Strauss in March’ weeks, with Jennifer Davis as Arabella , Heidi Stober as Zdenka/Zdenko, Thomas Johannes Mayer as Mandryka, Daniel O'Hearn as Matteo and, as in the premiere series, Doris Soffel and Albert Pesendorfer as the Waldner couple. Today we are giving away our DVD, which will not be available in shops until 14 February 2025. We would like to express our heartfelt thanks to NAXOS for giving us the very special opportunity to put ARABELLA in our lottery pot for you almost eight weeks before the official sales launch.

In today's Advent Calendar window, we are giving away two DVDs of ARABELLA – a lyrical comedy in three acts by Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal. If you would like to win one of the two DVDs, please write an e-mail with the subject ‘The 22nd window’ to advent@deutscheoperberlin.de.

Vienna, circa 1860. The financially strapped Count Waldner is lodging with his family in a Viennese hotel. His only path to solvency is for him to secure an advantageous marriage for one of his two daughters – and the family can only afford to present Arabella, the eldest, in the upper circles of society. To conceal the family’s indigence, the parents have raised Zdenka as a boy, dressing her accordingly. Arabella is not short of suitors but has resolved to wait for ‘Mr Right’. When Mandryka, an aristocrat from a distant region, arrives, he and Arabella are instantly smitten. Arabella only asks to be able to bid farewell to her friends and suitors at the Fasching ball that evening. At the ball, Arabella says goodbye to her admirers. There is also the young officer Matteo, with whom Zdenka is secretly in love and with whom she has formed a friendship under the guise of her disguise as a boy. Matteo, however, desires Arabella and is distraught when he realises the hopelessness of his love. Zdenka devises a plan: she fakes a letter from Arabella in which she promises Matteo a night of love together. But instead she wants to wait for him herself in the darkness of the hotel room. Mandryka learns of Arabella's alleged infidelity and goes to the hotel with the ball guests to surprise Arabella in flagrante delicto. Arabella, innocent of this, is initially shocked and saddened by Mandryka’s suspicions but forgives him when the mix-up is revealed for what it is. The two agree to marry, as do Zdenka and Matteo.

Richard Strauss’s orchestral richness and opulence coupled with the period Viennese setting of the work led to ARABELLA being falsely pigeonholed as a light-hearted comedy of errors from its 1933 premiere onwards. In the estimation of Tobias Kratzer, however, who triumphed at the Deutsche Oper with his production of Alexander von Zemlinsky’s THE DWARF, this final collaboration between Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal marks a collision of two world views: the traditional roles of men and women on the one hand – as expressed in Arabella’s famous solo “Und du sollst mein Gebieter sein” – and a modern idea of social interaction on the other – as illustrated by Zdenka with her questioning of gender-based identities. Here, Kratzer turns the spotlight on this disunity between the various character portrayals in ARABELLA and explores these role-specific tensions on a continuum stretching from 19th-century Vienna to the present day. In the category of stage design, Manuel Braun, Jonas Dahl and Rainer Sellmaier were honoured with the renowned German Theatre Award DER FAUST 2023 for this production.

In this recording, under the baton of Sir Donald Runnicles, you will experience Albert Pesendorfer, Doris Soffel, Sara Jakubiak, Elena Tsallagova, Russell Braun, Robert Watson, Thomas Blondelle, Kyle Miller, Tyler Zimmerman, Hye-Young Moon, Lexi Hutton, Jörg Schörner and others, as well as the chorus and orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin. The performances on 18 and 23 March 2023 were recorded by rbb Kultur and Naxos for this DVD.

We would like to thank the Naxos label for the great collaboration over the past few years, which documents recordings of DER ZWERG, DAS WUNDER DER HELIANE, FRANCESCA DA RIMINI, DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN, DER SCHATZGRÄBER, DIE MEISTERSINGER VON NÜRNBERG and ANTIKRIST. Richard Strauss' ARABELLA and INTERMEZZO will be released in the course of 2025.



Closing date: 22 December 2024. The winners will be informed by email on 23 December 2024. The DVDs will then be sent by post. There is no right of appeal.