Richard Strauss

The story of three women searching for more potent, meaningful lives. Each is alive at a different time and place, all are linked by their yearnings and their fears. Their stories intertwine, and finally come together in a surprising, transcendent moment of shared recognition.

Based on the short story of the same name by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, it is about a young man living in Saint Petersburg who suffers from loneliness. He gets to know and falls in love with a young woman, but the love remains unrequited as the woman misses her lover, with whom she is finally reunited.

The composer Richard Strauss (1864-1949) is still a shining light today. But behind his radiant aura lies a dark shadow. His life was full of contradictions. During the "Third Reich", he was president of the Reich Chamber of Music and at the same time protector of the Jewish part of his family. Who was this Richard Strauss?

Capriccio is the final opera by Richard Strauss, completed in 1942, and is subtitled "A Conversation Piece for Music." The opera explores the debate between the importance of words and music through the story of Countess Madeleine, who is courted by a poet and a composer, ultimately leaving the question of which art form is superior unresolved.

Jessye Norman is a regal Ariadne, the mythological Greek heroine in this opera-within-an-opera, opposite the passionate Bacchus of the great James King. Kathleen Battle delivers the coloratura fireworks of Zerbinetta, the leader of a commedia dell’arte troupe that finds itself stranded on Ariadne’s island. Tatiana Troyanos and Franz Ferdinand Nentwig star as the young Composer and the Music Master in the opera’s prologue. James Levine brings out all the color and charm of Strauss’s brilliant chamber-sized score with its equal amounts of pathos and humor. Bodo Igesz’s production features sets by esteemed designer Oliver Messel.

The Orchestra of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, conducted by Antonio Pappano and featuring soprano Dorothea Roschmann, performs works by Giacomo Puccini, Richard Strauss and Sergei Rachmaninoff.

The story is set at the beginning of the Christian era on a large terrace of Herod’s palace, during the reign of Herod Antipas. At night, on a terrace of the palace, Salome, Herod’s stepdaughter, is gazed at passionately by Narraboth, captain of the guard. Jochanaan, a prophet, is imprisoned in a cistern for having slandered Herod. He proclaims the coming of Jesus, but his message is met with incomprehension by the guards. Salome hears the prophet. She manages to convince the guards to bring Jochanaan out so she can see him. Both fascinated and frightened by his prophecies, Salome falls passionately in love with this man. Richard Strauss’s opera at the 2018 Salzburg Festival, directed by Romeo Castellucci at the Felsenreitschule. In her debut in the title role, Asmik Grigorian distinguished herself with her talents as a singer and actress.

Aufführung vom 09.02.2020 in derf Staatsoper Berlin. André Heller is staging "Der Rosenkavalier" (his first opera production) at the Berlin State Opera. The story of a young nobleman caught between two women in Maria Theresa's Vienna is full of bold twists and fantastic entanglements. And as if made for an imaginative realization with all the means of modern theater. André Heller can rely on a first-class ensemble... André Heller is a chansonnier, actor, circus founder, vaudeville maker and stager of spectacles in which a variety of genres are combined with exuberant fantasy. In Berlin, Heller follows in the footsteps of Max Reinhardt, who ruled the Berlin stages at the beginning of the 20th century and revolutionized the theater with a multitude of innovations. Reinhardt also staged the world premiere of "Der Rosenkavalier" in 1911. It will be interesting to see how today's multimedia genius deals with the legacy of the great theater genius of yesteryear.