The Rake's Progress in Berlin

The Rake's Progress, Staatsoper Berlin (Shiller-Theater), December 10 2010

Conductor ..... Ingo Metzmacher

Director ..... Krzysztof Warlikowski

Set and Costume Designer ..... Małgorzata Szczęśniak

Light Designer ..... Felice Ross

Video ..... Denis Guéguin

Chorus Master ..... Frank Flade

Choreographer ..... Claude Bardouil

Trulove ..... Andreas Bauer

Anne ..... Anna Prohaska

Tom Rakewell ..... Florian Hoffmann

Nick Shadow ..... Gidon Saks

Mother Goose ..... Birgit Remmert

Baba the Turk ..... Nicolas Ziélinski

Sellem ..... Erin Caves

Keeper of the madhouse ..... James Homann

Staatsopernchor

Staatskapelle Berlin

It's the place where my prediction from the sixties finally came true: "In the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes." I'm bored with that line. I never use it anymore. My new line is, "In fifteen minutes everybody will be famous."

    Andy Warhol's Exposures (1979)

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.