(Photo: Jan Windszus Photography) The Komische Oper Berlin’s colonization of Tempelhof Airport has by now hardened into ritual. Once again, Hangar 4 – cavernous, echoing with its aviation past – becomes a stage for the improbable. Tickets to “Jesus Christ Superstar” sold out so quickly, that two shows were added to meet the demand, proof that the company has mastered {…}
Historically, Wagner stagings have stirred up controversy. They are–to put it bluntly–like a fashion show: seasonally recurrent, fanciful (for better or for worse), and tailored, if you will, to fit just about anything, the blatant as much as the abstruse. New productions, then, warrant a healthy degree of skepticism–especially when, as so often happens, the integrity of the work is {…}
(Photo: Monika Rittershaus) After thirteen years as artistic director at the Zurich Opera House, Andreas Homoki leaves his post to Matthias Schulz and presents his last production in Zurich: a staged performance of Mendelssohn’s oratorio “Elias.” Mendelssohn wrote the oratorio in 1846, in a style reminiscent of Baroque oratorios, with Bach and Handel as its clear inspirations. The music blends Baroque and classical polyphony {…}
(Photos: Paul Leclaire) Opernhaus Zürich revives its 2021 production of Richard Strauss’s “Salome,” directed by Andreas Homoki. The striking set design by Hartmut Meyer features two massive, crescent-shaped rotating structures—an evident nod to the libretto’s many references to the moon. One of these structures serves as a raked stage representing the terrace of Herod’s palace, while the other hovers above {…}
(Credit: Toni Suter) In 1850, Richard Wagner premiered a new opera inspired by a figure from medieval German literature: Lohengrin, a member of the Grail Knights’ brotherhood and the son of Parsifal, its king. The story draws from the Legend of the Knight of the Swan, in which a mysterious knight arrives on a magical swan to rescue a damsel {…}
