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Schedule - Deutsche Oper Berlin

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Giuseppe Verdi in May

Nabucco

Giuseppe Verdi (1813 – 1901)

23
Friday
May
19:30 - 22:15
C prices: € 108.00 / 90.00 / 64.00 / 40.00 / 26.00
Buy tickets
Information about the work

Dramma lirico in four parts
Libretto by Temistocle Solera
First performed on 9. March, 1842 at Milan
Premiered at the Deutsche Oper Berlin on 8. September, 2013

2 hrs 45 mins / 1 interval

In Italian language with German and English surtitles

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

recommended from 14 years
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Cast
Our thanks to our partners

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

23
Friday
May
19:30 - 22:15
C prices: € 108.00 / 90.00 / 64.00 / 40.00 / 26.00
Buy tickets
Cast
the content

About the work
Giuseppe Verdi’s third opera was his break-out work. By the end of the gestation of NABUCCO the 29-year-old had found his musical style, one that audiences latched onto immediately. It was first and foremost the sheer impact of the chorus scenes and the daringly loud orchestral movements that announced a new chapter in the history of opera. NABUCCO was the first opera to make the chorus one of the main protagonists and the material was ideal for this, with the liberation of the Israelites from Babylonian captivity providing ample occasion for crowd scenes conveying the yearnings and stirrings of an oppressed people. And to top it all, it was not an aria but the “Va, pensiero” Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves, sung by the Jewish deportees on the banks of the Euphrates, that became the best known number in the opera – and the most famous Verdi tune of all.

Aside from this NABUCCO reveals Verdi’s feel for situations that lend themselves to being staged and his predilection for eccentric characters. NABUCCO is namely not simply an opera with choral sections; it is also a drama about the disintegration of a family in the form of half-sisters Fenena and Abigaille, who are polar opposites, and their father Nabucco, the authoritarian patriarch [Engl.: Nebuchadnezzar]. On the one hand we have Fenena, who is in love with Ismaele, a Jewish prince, and has converted to Judaism. Meanwhile a jealous Abigaille is scheming to usurp the throne of her father. In a fit of megalomania, Nabucco declares himself an earthly king but also a god, upon which God strikes him down and he becomes crazed and incoherent. Abigaille seizes her chance, crowns herself queen with the support of the army and has her father arrested.

While in jail, Nabucco hears that Abigaille has resolved to have her sister Fenena executed. He regains his reason and beseeches the Jews’ own god to help him. Freed, he gathers his troops, rescues Ferena and sets the Israelites free.


About the production
This dramatic tale beginning with the Israelites’ captivity in Babylon under King Nebuchadnezzar is one of Verdi’s most popular operas. Hans Neuenfels’s controversial production in 2000 was the last time that the work has been mounted at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. In 2013, the bicentenary of Verdi’s birth, Keith Warner, a leading light in the international opera community, presented his version of the opera, referencing the period in which it was written, a time of transition from feudalism to an industrialised society. Warner focuses on the differences between the two nations: the Hebrews with their writing system and a culture of democratised education, and the militaristic Babylonians with their concept of power wielded by an autocratic ruler.

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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.