Follies

Adam’s Passion is the moving first collaboration between two “masters of slow motion who harmonize perfectly with each other” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung). In the spectacular setting of a former submarine factory, American director and universal artist Robert Wilson creates a poetic visual world in which the mystical musical language of the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt can cast its meditative spell. Three of Pärt’s major works – Adam’s Lament, Tabula rasa, and Miserere, as well as Sequentia, a new work composed especially for this production – are brought together here using light, space, and movement to create a tightly-woven Gesamtkunstwerk in which the artistic visions of these two great artists mirror each other.

Every night, a father tells his son a bedtime story. As if by challenge, the child always chooses the same book, with scores, orchestra photos and images of animals. It’s about Camille Saint-Saëns’ “Carnival of the Animals”. Under the impetus of the gentle complicity of father and son, this somewhat austere book is transformed, comes to life and makes music: the carnival animals come to life...

Andy Sommer's documentary tells the story of Austrian conductor and composer Gustav Mahler and tries to realistically recreate his life during the period when he commanded the Vienna Opera.

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.

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 purity of classical dance meets the opulant exoticism of the Maharajas' India in this 150-year-old ballet, glorified by Nacho Duato for the Mikhailovsky Ballet.

A decade before the French Revolution, in a country riven with bitter polemics, Gluck throws the history of opera into confusion by raising it to an unheard-of peak of tragic intensity. Experiencing his two Iphigenias in a single evening goes beyond the norms of operatic life: it is to enter the very heart of the curse on the family of King Atreus of Mycenae, to follow a logical destiny through a cycle of endless violence. How does the victim of Aulis become the murderess of Tauris? That is the burning question that Dmitri Tcherniakov must adress, plunging the spectator into the midst of a household haunted by the dead and setting in train an implacable process of dehumanization, with parallels to our world today. Conducting Le Concert d’Astrée, Emmanuelle Haïm drives this dual tragedy to the summit of its expressive power, leaving humanity to be translated through arias of the utmost poignancy.

To bring together again, for the first time since their premiere on a December evening in Moscow, Tchaikovsky’s opera Iolanta and ballet The Nutcracker, was the audacious challenge that Russian stage director Dmitri Tcherniakov accepted for the Palais Garnier in Paris in March 2016 : a revolutionary production, which was to become one of the key events of the Paris Opera season.

A dramatic, energetic adaptation of Heinz Spoerli's ballet based on Grieg's Peer Gynt by the Zurich ballet. Marijn Rademaker is excellent as the title character, clearly telegraphing the emotional range required. Each of the characters and the dramatic scenes are supported by the orchestral passages and songs provided by Grieg; some spoken word passages extracted from the Ibsen play.

Star pianists Martha Argerich and Maria João Pires join British conductor Daniel Harding and the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande in Geneva's Victoria Hall to perform two major works by Mozart and Mahler. Programme: W. A Mozart: Concerto for Two Pianos in E flat major Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 1 in D major

When she is finally released from an evil spell by the kiss of a young prince, the Sleeping Beauty awakes and is – inspite of a hundred years of sleep – as beautiful as a young woman. The love of the prince is simply stronger than the curse that rests on the haunted princess. The artistic director of the Staatsballett Berlin, Nacho Duato, has brought new life to this beloved classic, which itself is over a hundred years old and for which Tchaikovsky has composed the unforgettable music. The ballet Sleeping Beauty follows in its plot the French version by Charles Perrault: At her baptism Princess Aurora is cursed by the evil fairy Carabosse. On her 16th birthday the curse becomes reality. Aurora pricks herself on a spindle and falls into a hundred-year-long sleep. Finally, Prince Desiré finds the way to Aurora’s bed and kisses the princess awake. The inevitable end: a fairytale wedding.

To inaugurate the Strasbourg Philharmonic Orchestra's 2023-2024 season, conductor Aziz Shokhakimov invites international pianist and soloist Kirill Gerstein for a special evening. The programme includes Franz Liszt's Piano Concerto No. 2, a romantic work dotted with octaves, thirds, leaps and glissandi.

In a court trial, Joan of Arc is charged with high treason ... Dmitri Cherniakov presents a modern reinterpretation of Tchaikovsky’s least frequently performed opera, set entirely in a courtroom, with soprano Elena Stikhina in the title role.

In this strikingly modern 2016 production from the Zurich Opera House, Tcherniakov transposes the opera’s intrigue from forest and castle to living room and psychiatric office. The love story of the original work remains riveting, but Tcherniakov brings an unexpected psychological element to his mise en scène, with Prince Golaud as a psychiatrist and Mélisande as a young woman suffering from PTSD. You’ve never seen Pelléas like this!