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Schedule - Deutsche Oper Berlin

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Die Frau ohne Schatten

Richard Strauss (1864 – 1949)

08
Saturday
February
17:00 - 21:00
C prices: € 108.00 / 90.00 / 64.00 / 40.00 / 26.00
Buy tickets
Information about the work

The Woman without a Shadow

Opera in three acts
Libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal
First performed on 10th October 1919 in Vienna
Premiere at the Deutsche Oper Berlin on 26 January 2025

4 hrs 15 mins / Two intervals

In German language with German and English surtitles

Introduction in German language - 45 mins before beginning

recommended from 16 years
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Cast
Our thanks to our partners

The performances on 26 and 30 January will be recorded by rbb. The premiere on 26 January will be broadcast live on radio3 by rbb. Further broadcasts on the radio are planned. The premiere is presented by Siegessäule and taz.

08
Saturday
February
17:00 - 21:00
C prices: € 108.00 / 90.00 / 64.00 / 40.00 / 26.00
Buy tickets
Cast
the content

About the work
According to Hugo von Hofmannsthal in a 1911 letter to Richard Strauss, in which he set out his idea for another collaboration between the two men, their next opera would be to THE MAGIC FLUTE what THE KNIGHT OF THE ROSE had been to FIGARO. And the work that premiered a full eight years later did indeed have strong echoes of Mozart’s »grand opéra«: there is the clash of different social classes, the fairytale-like, highly symbolic storyline and above all the strong feeling that ground-breaking change is underway which is challenging accepted orthodoxy and forcing issues of human interaction and values to the top of the political agenda. And in both cases enlightenment is gained only through ordeal and adversity. Here the shadow has a pivotal function as a metaphor for female fertility: the barren Empress and her nurse bargain with the dyer’s wife for her shadow. Only when the Empress rebels against achieving marital happiness and maternal contentment at someone else’s expense does a path to social harmony open up.

About the production
Tobias Kratzer has chosen this monumental fantasy opera to close his cycle of Strauss works at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. Where ARABELLA explores how hard it can be to even start a relationship based on equal rights and INTERMEZZO depicts what can happen in a marriage that has gone stale, in THE WOMAN WITHOUT A SHADOW Kratzer focuses on the challenge of rekindling a bond that has weakened through years of poor nurturing – an approach that extends far beyond the domestic sphere due to the ethical issues surrounding surrogate motherhood.

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08
DEC

Adventsverlosung: Das 8. Fensterchen

We are already looking forward to the revival of Rued Langgaard's ANTIKRIST in April 2025, a production that is both musically exuberant and scenically imaginative.

Today, we are giving away two DVDs of this production in Ersan Mondtag's staging in our Advent calendar. 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 8th window’.

The Antichrist makes his entrance into a godless world. Sent by Lucifer into the world, he adopts many guises. Mankind is tested and tempted by pride, lust, lies, despondency and hatred in an “all-against-all altercation”. Langgaard’s opera is suffused with fin de siècle atmosphere and pessimism, warning of catastrophe and denouncing the vices of the modern age: egotism, arrogance, frivolity. Langgaard, though, was also an optimist, convinced of the transformative, transcendental power of art and the importance of music as a thread connecting people to the godhead. So it is that the world is freed of all evil and sorrow in the culminating chorus scene in ANTIKRIST. In the eyes of multi-award-winning director Ersan Mondtag, Langgaard’s opera foretelling a doomsday frenzy is a parable of our own times.

Under the baton of Stephan Zilias, this award-winning production by Ersan Mondtag features Thomas Lehman, Jonas Grundner-Culemann, Valeriia Savinskaia, Irene Roberts, Clemens Bieber, Maire Therese Carmack, Flurina Stucki, AJ Glueckert, Andrew Dickinson, Joel Allison, as well as the chorus and orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin. The performances on 10 and 12 February 2023 were recorded for this DVD. This DVD was awarded the ‘Diamant d'Opéra’ by ‘Opéra Magazine’ in December 2024.

We would like to thank the Naxos label for the great collaboration over the past few years, which includes 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: 8 December 2024. The winners will be informed by email on 9 December 2024. The DVDs will then be sent by post. There is no right of appeal.