(Photo: Matthias Horn) Richard Wagner’s Dutchman is condemned to sail the oceans until a woman’s unconditional fidelity releases him from his curse. At the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Swiss director Milo Rau has assigned the unfortunate mariner an altogether different framework: from the Holocaust to the founding of Israel, from the 1972 Munich Olympics to Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial, with the contemporary {…}
On Oct. 24, 2026, Milo Rau’s production of Richard Wagner’s opera “The Flying Dutchman” will premiere at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin. Rau’s new production will be staged as “road movie” through the history of Germany’s relationship with Israel, from the Holocaust to the present day. In preparation for the production Rau and his team conducted research in Israel, the {…}
(Photo: Geoffroy Schied) Beethoven’s only opera has always occupied a singular and somewhat anomalous position in the repertory. Despite repeated revisions, the composer never entirely reconciled the conventions of Singspiel with the elevated moral and philosophical aspirations that animated the work. Yet it is precisely this unresolved tension that has guaranteed “Fidelio” its enduring fascination. At once a domestic drama, {…}
(Photo: Krzysztof Mystkowski/ Baltic Opera Festival) Richard Wagner’s “Die Walküre” unfolds in a world governed by contracts, power structures, and inherited systems of control. Yet beneath its mythological surface lies a drama about the moment when those systems begin to fail. In John Fulljames’s production, presented at the Forest Opera in Sopot as a co-production of the Royal Danish Theatre {…}
The Polish National Opera has announced its 2026-27 season. New Productions Keri-Lynn Wilson conducts the world premiere of Maxim Kolomiiets’ “The Mothers of Kherson” in a production by Barbara Wysocka. The cast includes Izabela Matuła, Hanna Sosnowska-Bill, Weronika Wojtkowska, Elissa Pfaender, Małgorzata Walewska, Jadwiga Postrożna, Andrei Bondarenko, Katarzyna Wietrzny, Tomasz Rak, Ólafur Sigurdarson, Tadeusz Szlenkier, and Adrian Domarecki. Performance Dates: Oct. 16-27, 2026 Paweł Mykietyn’s {…}
Welcome back as we explore the latest CD and DVD releases from around the opera world. This week audiences get remasters, rare works, world premieres and many star-studded releases. Musiques de cinéma Erato will release “Musiques de cinéma” featuring Laurence Equilbey and the Insula Orchestra celebrating great works by Bach, Händel, Mozart, Pachelbel, Purcell, Rameau, and Vivaldi, all of which {…}
(Photo: Opera Wroclaw | Juliette) What is reality, what is dream? In “Juliette,” Czech composer Bohuslav Martinů constructs an aural dreamscape in which memory dissolves almost as soon as it forms, and identity flickers with unstable voltage. Michel, a Parisian bookseller, arrives in a drab, run-down French seaside town where the inhabitants suffer from a strange affliction: they can recall {…}
The Polish National Opera is set to present a concert with Tomasz Konieczny and Camilla Nylund. The concert will be held on April 12 at the Moniuszko Auditorium of the Grand Theatre – National Opera. The concert will be dedicated to Richard Wagner and will be conducted by Robert Jindra. The repertoire will include music by “Tristan und Isolde,” “Die Walküre,” {…}
The Gran Teatre del Liceu is set to stream “Tristan und Isolde” on Feb. 15, 2026. The company announced that the production, which was recorded during the company’s run, will be presented on Liceu OPERA+. Lise Davidsen and Clay Hilley lead the cast which also includes Tomasz Konieczny, Roger Padullés, Ekaterina Gubanova, Albert Casals, and Milan Perišić. Bárbara Lluch directed {…}
Barcelona’s venerable Teatro Liceu hasn’t experienced this level of anticipation in a decade. It may be surprising that Wagner would stimulate such activity in a Mediterranean city, but the city of Gaudí is the most Wagnerian of Spanish locales and it’s long had a connection to the composer’s works. But that aside, the likely reason for the excessive buzz was {…}
(Photo credit: Kevin Libal) The Cleveland Orchestra has announced the fourth edition of its annual Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel Opera & Humanities Festival, running May 15–24, 2026. The 2026 festival explores the theme of “Courage,” with trumpeter and composer Terence Blanchard serving as Festival Curator. Here are the opera and vocal performances on offer. The festival opens with “The {…}