The city of Bayreuth and five German theaters will jointly launch “Silenced Voices,” a digital research and memorial platform commemorating persecuted opera ensemble members, on July 20, 2026.

Per an official press release, the platform makes permanently accessible nearly 300 biographies of artists and stage professionals who were expelled from German opera houses, persecuted, and in many cases murdered by the Nazi regime between 1933 and 1945, building on research from the traveling exhibition “Silenced Voices: The Expulsion of Jews from the Opera 1933-1945,” which was shown in six German cities between 2006 and 2012. The project is a collaboration between the Hamburg State Opera, the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin, the Stuttgart State Opera, the Semperoper Dresden, and the Dresden State Theater, sponsored by the city of Bayreuth and conceived by the Hamburg-based agency kulturarbeiten GbR.

Biographies on the platform are narrated by current members of the participating institutions, including Nora Schmid, Artistic Director of the Semperoper Dresden; Tobias Kratzer, Artistic Director of the Hamburg State Opera; Omer Meir Wellber, General Music Director of the Hamburg State Opera and the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra; and Christian Thielemann, General Music Director of the Staatsoper Unter den Linden.

“As successors to those responsible at the time, we are committed to keeping the memory of the injustices committed then alive today and in the future,” the directors of the participating theaters said in a joint statement. “As democratic institutions, we consider remembering even the negative aspects of our institutions’ past to be one of our central responsibilities.”

The platform will be presented for the first time by curators Sven Fritz and Jens Geiger-Kiran at a press conference at Bayreuth City Hall on July 20 at 12 p.m., hosted by Bayreuth Mayor Andreas Zippel. On July 26, the opening day of the 150th Bayreuth Festival, a public memorial service will be held at 9:30 a.m. at the permanent Bayreuth installation of “Silenced Voices,” in cooperation with the Jewish Community of Bayreuth.

Philosopher and publicist Michel Friedman will attend the exhibition and participate in the service, accompanied by Bayreuth Festival Director Katharina Wagner. A memorial concert will follow at the Bayreuth Festival Hall, featuring a commemorative address by Friedman.