This season marks a period of transition for us: after 17 years, Sir Donald Runnicles will bid farewell to you, our audience, as General Music Director, and from the autumn of 2026 onwards, a new Artistic Director, Aviel Cahn, will shape the artistic future of this theatre.

At the same time, this transition also offers us a space for experimentation: to try out new formats and also explore areas of musical theatre hardly represented at the Deutsche Oper Berlin so far.

The programme we present to you in this brochure reflects all these different aspects: with new productions of TRISTAN UND ISOLDE and VIOLANTA, Schoenberg’s monumental “Gurrelieder” and two cycles of DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN, Donald Runnicles’ era at this theatre draws to a close.

Detlev Glanert’s DIE DREI RÄTSEL is the first children’s opera ever presented on the main stage – a work requiring children and teenagers not only in the auditorium, but also on stage and in the orchestra. For the first time in decades, we present a baroque opera, Handel’s GIULIO CESARE; and with Lortzing’s highly entertaining ZAR UND ZIMMERMANN, we emphasize the qualities to be rediscovered in the German “spieloper” genre.

And speaking of new formats: we invite you to enjoy our reimagined opening festivities, the “Opera Day”, as well as various events accompanying selected repertoire works – the full spectrum of musical theatre awaits you here at the Deutsche Oper Berlin!