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Open exhibition

‘Masses’ by Ed Atkins

A video sound costume installation

02
Sunday
February
11:00
0,00 €
Free admission / No ticket booking required
Information about the work

In the Rangfoyer of the Deutsche Oper Berlin

Open until 3:00 p.m. / Last admission at 2:40 p.m.

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02
Sunday
February
11:00
0,00 €
Free admission / No ticket booking required
Cast
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Ed Atkins is particularly attracted to the costumes from the Deutsche Oper Berlin's collection: the masses of different fabrics are lined up in dense rows on sober clothes rails like a compressed store of stories and memories. Each individual item of clothing would tell its own story if you took it off the rail: about the opera in which it was used, about the people who wore it and about the dreams it triggers in anyone who looks at it. For him, this analogue part of his installation forms a counterpart to his video installations, which stage fragments of stories from today's flood of images from digital media, some whimsical, some disturbing. This tension between costumes, opera stories and contemporary films forms the narrative core of Ed Atkins‘ work as a visual and narrative artist – at the same time, he is a contributor to the libretto of Rebecca Saunders’ world premiere LASH on 20 June 2025 on the stage of the Deutsche Oper Berlin.

Ed Atkins is one of the most versatile British artists of his generation and has attracted international attention as a visual artist, writer, and filmmaker. Atkins lives and works in Copenhagen. Recent institutional solo exhibitions include ‘Refuse’ at Tank, Shanghai (2022), ‘Get Life / Love's Work’ at the New Museum, New York (2021), as well as exhibitions at the Kunsthaus Bregenz and K21 Düsseldorf (both 2019), at the Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, at the MMK Frankfurt and DHC/ART in Montréal (all 2017), at Castello di Rivoli and Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo in Turin, at The Kitchen New York, SMK Copenhagen (all 2016), Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (2015), The Serpentine Gallery London (2014), Julia Stoschek Collection Düsseldorf (2013) and MoMA PS1 (2012). Atkins was included in the 56th and 58th Venice Biennales, the 13th Lyon Biennale, and Performa 13 and 19.

An anthology of Ed’s texts, ‘A Primer for Cadavers’, was published by Fitzcarraldo in 2016, and an extensive artist’s monograph from Skira was released in 2017. An epic soliloquy, ‘Old Food’, was published by Fitzcarraldo in 2019, and a book of Atkins’ drawings for children was published by Koenig Books in 2021. ‘Sorcerer’, co-written and -directed with Steven Zultanski, was presented at Teater Revolver in Copenhagen in March, 2022.

In 2025, Ed will present his largest solo show to date at Tate Britain, and a book of confessions, ‘Flower’, will be published in April by Fitzcarraldo Editions.

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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.