Wednesday, April 7, 2010

DSO 2010-2011: Unter den Linden ---> Schiller Theater

As everybody knows, the Deutsche Staatsoper (DSO) in Berlin will move from its ultra-chic location in East Berlin (Unter den Linden) to the Schiller Theater [West Berlin], the latter being within 5-10 minutes walking distance from their competition - the Deutsche Oper Berlin (DOB).

DSO will be in their new residence for three years the time needed to complete the heavy renovation  works on their theater at Unter den Linden [are you  following?! ;) ].


More important news is that they released a detailed program of their 2010-2011 season which to me looks excellent. Of new productions we note:
  • New production of The Ring (co-produced with La Scala) directed by Guy Cassiers: René Pape will not sing in  Rheingold but he will sing Wotan in the Walkure, with Irene Theorin as Brunnhilde (plus Ekaterina Gubanova, Anja Kampe, Mikhail Petrenko and Simon O'Neill). Add to that Barenboim conducting ==> April 2011 a must-go trip to Berlin! ;)
  • New production of The Rake's Progress directed by (our fave) Krzysztof Warlikowski and with Ingo Metzmacher conducting. Two excellent singers: Anna Prohaska and Florian Hoffmann [of courrrse, I do plan a trip to Berlin in December 2010]
  • New production and a new project of René Jacobs' will be Antigona (an opera by Tommaso Traetta), directed by Vera Nemirova and with Bejun Mehta, Veronica Cangemi, Jennifer Rivera (Brava Jen!), Kenneth Tarver
  • New production of Candide staged by Vincent Boussard (and Christian Lacroix) with Maria hot Bengtsson as Cunegonde. 
  • New production of Three Sisters, so much praised opera by Peter Eötvös in July 2011(dir Rosamund Gilmore)
  • New production of Wozzeck directed by Andrea Breth (good!) and with Nadja Michael and Roman Trekel (Barenboim will conduct the Staatskapelle)
  • Metanoia (a terrible name!), an opera by Jens Joneleit; new production directed by Christoph Schlingensief. Staatskapelle with Anna Prohaska, Annette Dasch et al will be conducted by Daniel Barenboim.
  • Matsukadze (ballet/opera) by Toshio Hosokawa --VERY en vogue FYI!-- will come from Brussels to Berlin in mid-July 2011.
There will be a revival of their excellent Entführung with either Maria Bengtsson or Christine Schäfer, an interesting production of Don Carlo with René Pape and Nadia Krasteva, but the most important revival should be Phaedra by Hans Werner Henze, a production by Peter Mussbach with Natascha Petrinsky in the title role.

6 comments:

  1. This cycle worth the trip but it will be very expensive... Die Walküre is included in the Festtage...

    Jacobs rare opera is also very appealing...

    I'm looking for the right dates in my schedule... xDD

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  2. Another Schlingensief - things the world doesn't need! ... Warlikowski - watch his Onegin in Munich and see if he remains your favourite ... Cheers!

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  3. Haha Mei! ;) I'll wait for the Deutsche and Komische before making my operatic travel plans.
    Sure they included the Walkure in the Festtage: it's good and it will be 30-50% more pricey.

    Anonymous, I don't know anything done by Schlingensief, but already calling an opera Metanoia [in Italian (la) noia = boredom ] isn't really a success-recipe ;)

    As for Warli, I was told his Onegin in Munich wasn't good BUT his Parsifal, Macropoulos, Krol Roger and especially Iphigénie en Tauride (!) were all cutting edge productions, "disturbing" (thought provoking) in their own ways. He's the best you can find in modern theater today if you ask me, but I can understand the folks who don't like the modern theatrical expression enter the opera houses so fast.

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  4. I do like modern! But his Onegin is bad.
    Modern doesn't mean it's allowed to be bad!
    Not the idea about homosexuality in that work, an interesting idea as such!, just they way he executed it. Some good scenes in it, but generally speaking it is not good.

    His King Roger (on DVD) I didn't warm up to, either.

    The others I haven't seen!

    Despite of this, I really like your blog :). So maybe you can convince me otherwise (probably not ;).

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  5. Thx ;)

    It's too bad you started with Warlikowski's least good production. Several different people told me his Onegin was bad (I didn't see it). Now after that first strong dislike it will be hard for you to get to like his work.

    As for Krol Roger, pity you didn't see it live (will be in Madrid next year). The reason is that it is impossible to film that with no bias: many things are happening at the same time and if you focus on one, you may miss many important details (thus the bias). I saw the show 6 times and when I saw it on Arte-Live-Web it felt different. That's the finest of theater you can find around these days. His productions are always destabilizing (never shocking!) which to me is a sign of good theater. One can of course not be sensitive to his expressive forms...

    Cheers

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  6. Metanoia opera by Jens Joneleit! What an experience! The music breezed me through the whole scope of music history with the last movement 'The Day After Tomorrow' ending on C-Major. Wow! What a Sucker Punch...title is not good...was called HERE AND HEUTE ...much better title!

    Bizarro libretto--a discourse between thinking and doing...Music and the musical singing/talking was particularly interesting. Great evening at the opera! Highly recommend it!

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