Newsletter

News about the schedule Personal recommendations Special offers ... Stay well informed!

Subscribe to our newsletter

Subscribe to our Newsletter and receive 25% off your next ticket purchase.

* Mandatory field





Newsletter

Schedule - Deutsche Oper Berlin

Skip Media Container

Der Zwerg (The Dwarf)

Alexander von Zemlinsky (1871 – 1942)

10
Tuesday
December
19:30 - 21:00
B prices: € 92.00 / 72.00 / 52.00 / 32.00 / 24.00
Information about the work

Opera in one act
Libretto by Georg C. Klaren, based on Oscar Wilde's „The Birthday of the Infanta“
First performed on 28th May, 1922 in Cologne
Premiered at the Deutsche Oper Berlin on 24th March, 2019


As a prologue
Arnold Schönberg (1874 – 1951)
Begleitungsmusik zu einer Lichtspielscene für Orchester op. 34 (1930)

1 hr 30 mins / no interval

In German language with German and English surtitles

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

recommended from 14 years
Share this post
Cast
10
Tuesday
December
19:30 - 21:00
B prices: € 92.00 / 72.00 / 52.00 / 32.00 / 24.00
Cast
the content

It’s Princess Donna Clara’s 18th birthday and she’s getting showered with presents from all sides, but one gift in particular, from the Turkish Sultan, stands out from the crowd: a real-life dwarf! Amidst all the splendour and beauty the misshapen man attracts her special attention, charming her with his singing and fascinating her all the more for seeming to be blissfully unaware of his physical appearance. The dwarf falls madly in love with the princess and is blind to the coquettish game that she is playing. But then he comes face-to-face with his reflection for the first time in his life. Realising the truth of his situation, he falls down dead. Alexander Zemlinsky’s THE DWARF is based on Oscar Wilde’s fairy tale “The Birthday of the Infanta” and received its world premiere in 1922. Following Zemlinsky’s death in 1942 in American exile the work quickly slipped from public awareness, not to be rediscovered until the 1970s. Since then it has been drawing crowds as a subtle, vibrant seismogram of a highly complex and psychological constellation.

With THE DWARF, Alexander von Zemlinsky came to terms with his traumatic love affair with Alma Schindler, who had left him, a relatively short and outwardly unattractive man, to marry Gustav Mahler. In his production, director Tobias Kratzer has not dealt with this autobiographical background to the opera in this way, but has staged the piece as a modern fairy tale about the birthday of a rich, spoilt and ruthless daughter from a wealthy family. However, he prefaced Zemlinsky's one-act opera with a prologue. This contains the orchestral piece "Begleitungsmusik zu einer Lichtspielszene" by Arnold Schönberg, who was a student of Zemlinsky and later married Zemlinsky's sister Mathilde. Schönberg's orchestral piece was written to accompany a silent film yet to be shot - and becomes the soundtrack to a piano lesson between Zemlinsky and his pupil and later lover Alma, which also tells the story of their brief and passionate relationship.

Our articles on the subject

Seven questions for ... Mick Morris Mehnert
Dr Takt on Arnold Schönberg's »Begleitungsmusik zu einer Lichtspielscene« / Measures 172-177
The mockery of others
The Composer in the Mirror
Death through Realisation
Six questions for ... David Butt Philip
Elena Tsallagova – My feel-good location: the opera house at Glyndebourne
Enter Onepager
1

slide_title_1

slide_description_1

slide_headline_2
2

slide_title_2

slide_description_2

slide_headline_3
3

slide_title_3

slide_description_3

slide_headline_4
4

slide_title_4

slide_description_4

Create / edit OnePager
24
DEC

Advents-Verlosung: Das 24. Fensterchen

With ARABELLA [again from 7 March] and INTERMEZZO [again from 13 March], our Strauss cycle has already shown in an amazing way how relevant the operas of Richard Strauss still are today. Be among the first to experience Tobias Kratzer's take on the great fairy-tale opera that Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal created in 1919 with DIE FRAU OHNE SCHATTEN [THE WOMAN WITHOUT A SHADOW].

Today – on Christmas Eve – we are giving away two pairs of tickets for the premiere of DIE FRAU OHNE SCHATTEN on Sunday, 26 January 2025 at 5 p.m. If you would like to take part in the draw, please send an e-mail to advent@deutscheoperberlin.de today with the subject line ‘The 24th window’.

Tobias Kratzer has placed the monumental fairy-tale opera at the end of his Strauss cycle at the Deutsche Oper Berlin: in ARABELLA, he looks at the difficulties of even beginning a relationship on equal terms, while INTERMEZZO shows the portrait of an everyday married life. In DIE FRAU OHNE SCHATTEN, director Tobias Kratzer also focuses on a very contemporary discourse: because the Empress cannot have children, she tries to persuade the dyer's wife to become a surrogate mother in order to save their relationship. But is this morally justifiable at all, or is it just exploiting the frustrated dyer's emotional plight? And isn't it much more important to find a way of living together that offers everyone the greatest possible chance of happiness?

In a letter to Richard Strauss written as early as 1911, Hugo von Hofmannsthal described his idea for a further collaboration, saying that this new opera would be to THE MAGIC FLUTE what DER ROSENKAVALIER was to LE NOZZE DI FIGARO. And indeed, the work that was finally premiered eight years later is reminiscent of Mozart's ‘grand opera’: the encounter of different social classes, the fairytale-like plot laden with symbolism, but above all the awareness of an elementary turning point in time that questions the previous order and makes reflection on the fundamental values of human coexistence an urgent issue. And in both cases, this realisation can only be gained through difficult trials. The shadow, as a symbol of female fertility, plays a central role here: the Empress, who is unable to have children herself, and her nurse, act it out in their marriage to the frustrated dyer's wife. But it is only when the Empress realises that she does not want to build her marital and child happiness at the expense of others that the path opens up for social coexistence.

Experience this opera conducted by our General Music Director, Sir Donald Runnicles, with such great performers as Jane Archibald, Marina Prudenskaya, David Butt Philip, Jordan Shanahan and Catherine Foster in the main roles.

We thank you all for your vivid interest in our Advent calendar and very much hope to have brought you joy in the Advent season with our Foyer programme and our online raffles. Now it only remains for us to wish you a very Merry Christmas!



Closing date: 24 December 2024. The winners will be informed by email on 27 December 2024. The tickets will be sent to the winners online as Ticket direct. There is no right of appeal.