Andreas Schager

Opening the 2026 Bayreuth Festival in its 150th anniversary year, this live stream presents Wagner’s Rienzi, his early grand opera and once his greatest success, in the Festspielhaus for the first time. The staging is entrusted to award-winning directors Alexandra Szemerédy and Magdolna Parditka, while Nathalie Stutzmann conducts a superb cast led by Heldentenor Andreas Schager in the title role, with Gabriela Scherer as Irene and Jennifer Holloway as Adriano. With its massed choruses, public spectacle and private tragedy, Rienzi promises to open this landmark Bayreuth Festival in unmissable style.

Wagner’s mystic masterpiece Parsifal at the Staatsoper Berlin, staged by Dmitri Tcherniakov and conducted by Daniel Barenboim. Wagner’s last opera, Parsifal is a medieval epic story marked by Christian, Buddhist and esoteric references. It is about redemption and renewal, but this new production by Russian director Dmitri Tcherniakov adds a jarring note : revenge. This “Festival Play for the Consecration of the Stage” is similar to a Medieval epic, a blend of metaphysical dreams and esoteric battles with constant spiritual references. This new production is directed by Dmitri Tcherniakov, conducted by Daniel Barenboim and sung by an international cast of excellent singers: Andreas Schager, Anja Kampe, Wolfgang Koch, René Pape, Tomas Tómasson and Matthias Hölle.

Raised by a scheming dwarf and unaware of his true family origins, a young man embarks on an epic journey.

Rediscover one of the world’s most famous operas with Dmitri Tcherniakov’s modern staging at the Staatsoper Berlin. Performed repeatedly at the opera, the story of Tristan and Isolde is known far and wide—a love potion, a challenge to the king, a tragic destiny—its themes have become staples of the musical repertoire.

The sailor's daughter Senta takes pity on the centuries-old legendary figure of the Flying Dutchman. He was condemned by Satan to sail the world's oceans until a woman frees him from this curse through her loyalty. One day, when Senta's father returns home from a long voyage with a mysterious man, Senta is the only one who recognizes the Flying Dutchman in the sinister foreign captain. At the cost of self-destruction, she decides to redeem him. Director Christine Mielitz and her set designer Stefan Mayer see Daland's and the Dutchman's ships as an image of the entire world, of life itself, in which we all have to find our way around.

The young composer Max is due to marry Agathe, but before his wedding he must finish his opera on which he has been working for quite some time. Despite all his efforts, Max is plagued by worries that he will fail to complete the piece and so makes almost no progress. Visions and hallucinations haunt him, the boundaries between dream and reality seem to blur and overlap. Caspar tries to persuade him finally to give in to the hidden and dark creative powers within him and so overcome his inability to write; Caspar’s efforts are finally rewarded.

Production Bayreuth 2024. There is no arrival in Tristan and Isolde, only the longing for the unattainable, for the place “where the end of deception promised me my heart”. Two people who strive to fall out of the roles ascribed to them, to escape the supposed lies of the day. Two people suffering from life, whose declaration of love consists of wanting to restore a moment that has irretrievably passed. Two nocturnal devotees who, in their regressive desire to be uplifted and completely abandon themselves, lose touch with reality and who, in their desire to abandon their ego to another and escape their own history, ultimately fail themselves. “To long to die, not to die of longing.”