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Schedule - Deutsche Oper Berlin

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La bohème

Giacomo Puccini (1858 – 1924)

09
Monday
December
18:00 - 20:30
C prices: € 108.00 / 90.00 / 64.00 / 40.00 / 26.00
Buy tickets
Information about the work

Opera in 4 acts
Based on the novel „Scènes de la vie de bohème“ by Henri Murger
Libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa
First performed on 1. February, 1896 in Turin
Premiered at the Deutsche Oper Berlin on 25. December, 1988

2 hrs 30 mins / 1 interval

In Italian with German and English surtitles

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

recommended from 12 years
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Cast
Our thanks to our partners

The children's chorus is supported by Dobolino e. V.

09
Monday
December
18:00 - 20:30
C prices: € 108.00 / 90.00 / 64.00 / 40.00 / 26.00
Buy tickets
Cast
the content

About the work
A garret in Paris on a cold winter’s day around Christmas. Rodolfo, a writer, and Marcello, a painter, are working on their masterpieces. They have no money to buy food, pay the rent or fuel the stove. Colline, a philosopher, returns from the pawn shop empty handed, having failed to get rid of some books. Only Schaunard, a musician, has managed to come up with some victuals, kindling, cigars and cash, so off they go to Café Momus - without Rodolfo, who’s trying to work. Mimì, the embroiderer from next door, arrives to ask for a match to light her candle with. She collapses and loses her key; cue for Rodolfo to fall in love with Mimì, who is terminally ill with TB, although he dumps her two months later because the prospect of her ailment getting steadily worse in her freezing home is too much for him. Six months go by. Musetta, Marcello’s ex, arrives with Mimì, whose condition is grave. Musetta sells some earrings with a view to buying medicine; Colline gives up his coat. Gratitude and happiness for a short while. Rodolfo thinks Mimì is sleeping and her body regenerating, …but in fact she’s dead.

With his EDGAR [1889] and MANON LESCAUT Puccini had already made his name as a maestro of musical colour, but it was not until LA BOHÈME that he achieved the marriage of material and score that moved Claude Debussy to raptures: »No one in my mind has captured the essence of Paris so well as Puccini in LA BOHÈME«. Puccini’s impressionistic style is a blend of subjective feeling and objective tonal painting. From the very beginning the music is working its charm, be it through the sound painting, atmospheric touches or local colour conveyed by the score: Rodolfo and Marcello burning the script; the poet flicking water on Mimì’s unconscious brow to cool her down; in Act 2 the chorus representing the crowd in contrast to the orchestra embodying the military parade; in Act 3 the restrained, austere music conveying the atmosphere of a chilly winter’s morning.


About the production
Götz Friedrich’s production from 1988 transposes the action from 1840s Paris to the end of that century, i.e. to Puccini’s own present day. His version of the work, with its colourful depictions of Belle Époque Paris and the outsized stage sets, continue to captivate audiences 35 years later.

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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.