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About the Chorus - Deutsche Oper Berlin

The chorus is the beating heart of any opera company’s onstage presence, and none more so than the Chor der Deutschen Oper. One of the busiest choruses of their calibre anywhere in the world, they can be seen and heard night after night devoting heart and soul to a vast range of works; equally at home in new productions and in their enormous repertoire, the Chor der Deutschen Oper performs around 35 titles over the course of the season, from the great Wagner operas such as Lohengrin and Tannhäuser for which they are particularly renowned, to world premières such as Detlev Glanert’s recent International Opera Award-winning Oceane.

The Chor der Deutschen Oper has been captivating its audiences since the inaugural performances of Fidelio at the house’s opening in 1912. When their first chorus director, Hans Leschke, left after a few years to devote himself to the study of sedges in California, he handed the reins to his assistant Hermann Lüddecke, whose leadership was to provide a stabilising influence well into the post-war years; his Germanic approach can be heard to great effect in such celebrated recordings as the Eugen Jochum Carmina Burana, which cemented the chorus’s world renown. The second half of the twentieth century was dominated by their work with the influential Walter Hagen-Groll, who built upon and expanded Lüddecke’s stylistic approach and left a powerful legacy, leaving a great number of celebrated recordings to the chorus’s name.

The changing times brought a more internationalist outlook, and a fresh renaissance ocurred under the leadership of American William Spaulding, under whose tenure the chorus was crowned Opernwelt’s Chorus of the Year three times in quick succession from 2008 to 2010, and enjoyed rave reviews for its guest performances of Tannhäuser and Verdi’s Requiem at the BBC Proms.

Since current chorus director Jeremy Bines’s arrival from Glyndebourne in 2017, the Chor der Deutschen Oper has continued to inspire, impress and delight the opera-goers of Berlin and the world, gaining triumphant critical praise for their performances in such epic works as Le prophète and Das Wunder der Heliane, as well as playing pivotal roles in the Opera Award-winning production of Detlev Glanert’s Oceane in 2019, DOB’s monumental Meyerbeer cycle (completed just before lockdown in 2020), and the Grammy-nominated DVD of Der Zwerg.  They were proud to be nominated for Chorus of the Year at the International Opera Awards 2021, and since the opening of the 2021-2 season have been singled out by critics for their performances of Britten’s War Requiem in the Berlin Philharmonie, and in DOB’s new Götterdämmerung. – Jeremy Bines

European Chorus Award, presented by Pro Europa Foundation
Opera Chorus of the Year 2008, Opera Chorus of the Year 2009, Opera Chorus of the Year 2010, presented by magazine "Opernwelt"

Jeremy Bines joined the Deutsche Oper Berlin as Chorus Director at the start of the 2017/18 season. Born in Belfast, and of British, Irish and German heritage, Bines studied at Cambridge University and the National Opera Studio in London. Having worked for a number of years as a freelance répétiteur for such companies as the Royal Opera Covent Garden and English National Opera, Bines took up a post as Chorus Master of the Royal Danish Opera in 2007, and then of the celebrated Glyndebourne Festival in 2009. He remains Glyndebourne’s longest-serving Chorus Master, and during his time there was responsible for the chorus’s successes in productions such as Billy Budd, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Saul and Béatrice et Bénédict, consistently winning critical acclaim: “The chorus is the soul of everything that Glyndebourne is and stands for: every year, one can only marvel at the fresh beauty of the sound it produces as well as its resourceful and imaginative acting… Glyndebourne’s chorus is special” (Telegraph, 29 July 2015). A skilled conductor, he also conducted performances of A midsummer night’s dream and La bohème with the London Philharmonic Orchestra in the Glyndebourne Festival.

 

Highlights of Bines’ tenure at the Deutsche Oper Berlin include his highly-praised work on with the chorus on productions of Le Prophète, Das Wunder der Heliane, Oceane, La Sonnambula and, more recently, Britten’s War Requiem in the Philharmonie (“The star of the evening was the chorus” – Berliner Morgenpost, 11 September 2021).

Ehrenmitglieder des Chores

Dr. Richard von Weizsäcker

Rolando Villazón 

 

Chordirektion

Erster Chordirektor  Jeremy Bines

Stellvertretender Chordirektor  Thomas Richter

Chor-Repetitor  Jamison Livsey

Leiterin des Chorbüros  Stefanie Kötter

Stellvertretende Leiterin des Chorbüros  Nora Schliermann

 

Chorvorstand

Obfrau  Natalie Buck

Stellvertreter  Ingo Witzke

weiteres Mitglied  Thaisen Rusch

 

Sopran

1. Sopran  Sibylle BennerOlivia BrettNatalie Buck — Sin-Ae Choi — Kristina Clemenz — Carolina Dawabe Valle — Younghee Ko — Stephanie LloydSeong-Hee Park — Rachel Pinevska — Alyson Rosales —  Julie Wyma

2. Sopran  Sonja BisgielValeria Delmé —  Suzanne Fischer — Constance Gärtner — Imke Hout — Barbara Kindermann — Amelie Müller —  Angelika Nolte — Antje Obenaus — Gyumi Park— Andrea Schwarzbach — Yuuki Tamai

Alt

1. Alt  Ekaterina BaevaBirgit Bauer — Nicole Drees — Mirjam Groth — Kristina Griep — Heidrun Häßner — Mahtab Keshavarz — Cordula Messer — Elke Redmann — Maja Siebenschuh — Veronika Verebély — Asahi Wada

2. Alt  Senta Aue — Brigitte Bergmann — Isolde Claassen — Margarita Greiner  — Nicole Hyde — Inga Maleike — Lorena MedinaSeungeun OhIreene Ollino —  Marie Pierre Zanon

 

Tenor

1. Tenor  Ljudmil GeorgievJohn IrvinJwa-Kyum Kim — Myungwon Kim — Seung Yeop Lee — Hyun Chul RimThaisen RuschMichael SchöneJoel ScottAram Youn

2. Tenor  Haico Apel — Daniel Badura — Ho-Sung Kang — Robert Klöpper — Jan Müller — Robert Neumann — Olli RantaseppäFrank Wentzel — Chunho You

Bass

1. Bass  Heiner Boßmeyer — Oliver Boyd — Kwang-Seok Cho — Mike Fischer — Alexander HoffmannDaesoon KimTadeusz Milewski — Hong-Kyun Oh — Piotr Wawrowski

2. Bass  Holger GerberdingPeter HjulerMarek Picz — Tomasz Rakocz — Rüdiger ScheiblBjörn StruckRené Tischlinger-Turri — Ingo Witzke

 

VdO, Ortsvorstand
Vereinigung deutscher Opernchöre und Bühnentänzer e.V.

Vorsitzender  Björn Struck

Stellvertreterinnen  Natalie Buck — Senta Aue

 

Kinderchor

Leiter  Christian Lindhorst

The Children's and Young People's Choir of the Deutsche Oper Berlin, with around 150 singers, is a strongly integrated ensemble partner of the house. Here the children and young people receive sound musical and vocal training in age-appropriate choral groups with the aim of performing on the opera stage together with the professionals and showing their skills in concerts. In the 2022/23 season, the children's choir can again be seen in many productions, e.g. CARMEN, HÄNSEL UND GRETEL, LA BOHÈME, TOSCA, TURANDOT as well as in the traditional "Spring Singing" in the Tischlerei.

Watch here a video-Feature about our children's chorus

Aside from the opera performances at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, all the choral groups also appear at other venues in Berlin and further afield. Our youngest budding singers in the Mini Chorus focus for example on rehearsing carols in the run-up to Christmas. The Children’s Chorus, the Concert Chorus, the Voice-Changers (our company of young male singers) and the Youth Chorus cover a repertoire stretching from the Renaissance to contemporary music. In July 2018 the Concert Chorus was travel to Tshwane, South Africa, for the World Choir Games.

 

Vocal development: Soloists of our chorus

Tanja Ammon, Senta Aue, Rosemarie Arzt, Natali Buck, Kristina Griep, Nicole Hyde

 

Head of Children’s Chorus

Christian Lindhorst

 

Your contact for questions and registrations

Tino Breitbarth
Stage manager of the Children's Chorus and the Young Chorus
Kontakt: breitbarth@deutscheoperberlin.de

The Children's Chorus is supported by Dobolino e.V. and Engel & Völkers Commercial Berlin.

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05
DEC

Adventskalender in der Tischlerei: Das 5. Fensterchen

Today in the Tischlerei: ‘Rossini, Liszt and more’
with Kangyoon Shine Lee (tenor) and Songyeon Catarina Kim (piano)
5pm / Tischlerei
Duration: approx. 25 minutes / free admission


The evening begins with musical declarations of love: love is illuminated in all its facets – from the idealised, the yearning to the devoted and the melancholy – in three songs by Franz Liszt and an aria from Rossini's IL BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA. Franz Liszt's ‘Enfant, si j'etais roi’ (‘Child, if I were king’) and ‘Oh! Quand je dors’ (‘Oh! When I sleep’) are settings of poems by Victor Hugo. In the first, the beloved is given everything imaginable – but it can never be enough. The second poem describes a nocturnal vision of the beloved, who appears like an angel, kisses the sleeping person and fills them with heavenly love. Liszt's ‘Liebestraum Nr. 3’ (‘Oh dear, as long as you can love’) is one of a series of three songs that Liszt later arranged in a purely instrumental form and which became emblematic of romantic piano music. The original text was written by Ferdinand Freiligrath and deals with the transience of love and the resulting need to cherish and cultivate it in the here and now. You will hear the Korean pianist Songyeon Catarina Kim at the piano. She then lovingly accompanies our ensemble member Kangyoon Shine Lee in an aria that he will sing again on our main stage from 31 March 2025, when he takes on the role of Count Almaviva in Katharina Thalbach's production of Rossini's IL BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA: the cavatina ‘Ecco, ridente in cielo’. In it, Almaviva sings about the beauty of the morning and his ardent love for Rosina – it is a lyrical and romantic beginning to an otherwise predominantly comedic opera. It is followed by the song ‘La danza’ from Rossini's collection of songs ‘Les soirées musicales’, published about 20 years later, which describes the joyful hustle and bustle of a Neapolitan festival. The musical basis for this song is the tarantella, a fast, rhythmic folk dance from southern Italy. The programme will conclude with a contemplative Christmas favourite, ‘O Holy Night’.

Lyric tenor Kangyoon Shine Lee was born in Seoul. He first graduated from the Korea National University of Arts before studying with Kammersänger Prof. Roman Trekel at the Hanns Eisler School of Music Berlin from 2022. In 2021, Kangyoon Shine Lee won the Belvedere Competition and received an engagement at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. He made his house debut on 27 December 2022 as Almaviva in Rossini's IL BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA and also sang in DAS WUNDER DER HELIANE. In the 2024/25 season, he will be part of the ensemble here at the theatre and can be heard in roles such as Tamino in Mozart's MAGIC FLUTE and the children's version THE FAIRY TALE OF THE MAGIC FLUTE, as Count von Lerma / DON CARLO, Cavalier Belfiore / IL VIAGGIO A REIMS, Malcolm / MACBETH, Walther von der Vogelweide / TANNHÄUSER and Pang / TURANDOT.

The South Korean pianist Songyeon Catarina Kim studied piano at Kyunghee University in Seoul. She has won numerous Korean and international competitions. Since 2021, she has been studying Lied interpretation with Prof. Wolfram Rieger at the Hanns Eisler School of Music Berlin. She is currently studying chamber music with Prof. Wolfram Rieger as part of her concert exam. During her studies, she was a répétiteur in lessons with KS Prof. Roman Trekel, Prof. Anna Korondi, KS Prof. Ewa Wolak, Prof. Martin Bruns and Prof. Christine Schäfer, as well as a répétiteur in masterclasses with KS Brigitte Fassbaender and KS Prof. Thomas Quasthoff. She has also worked as a répétiteur for scenic instruction at the Immling Festival, the Darmstadt Theatre and the Erfurt Theatre. In the 2024/25 season, she will work as a répétiteur at IMMMERMEEEHR at the Deutsche Oper Berlin.