© Jan Windszus Photography
Dear friends,
in the summer of 2023, we set sail from our home port in central Berlin and embarked for new shores, calling in at many sites around town since then. You, dear audience, have journeyed with us, placed your trust in us, and joined us in discovering new works, new places, and new forms of theatre. To kick off the 2024/25 season as the opera for all of Berlin’s urban communities, we invite you to join us once again for a very special experience: on 21 September, we’ll launch our new season with George Frideric Handel’s MESSIAS oratorio, at Hangar 1 of Tempelhof Airport. Answering the venue’s grand dimensions, director Damiano Michieletto will work with five hundred singers from the city’s many diverse choirs and embed them within an entirely new theatrical concept.
In the course of our regular rehearsal and performance activities, the Schiller Theatre has proven to be a well-functioning venue. It’s not just that the highlights of our home-base repertoire can shine here in all their glory. The audience also enjoys a special closeness to what’s happening onstage, making every performance even more vivid!
In the course of our regular rehearsal and performance activities, the Schiller Theatre has proven to be a well-functioning venue. It’s not just that the highlights of our home-base repertoire can shine here in all their glory. The audience also enjoys a special closeness to what’s happening onstage, making every performance even more vivid!
The season’s first premiere at the Schiller Theatre will be Stephen Sondheim’s dark, macabre musical Sweeney Todd, in a production by Barrie Kosky—whose second offering in the upcoming season will be Philip Glass’s Akhnaten. Kirill Serebrennikov, having already staged Così fan tutte and The Marriage of Figaro, will now complete Mozart’s Da Ponte trilogy with Don Giovanni, in a vision that reflects the zeitgeist of today.
The fantastic Dagmar Manzel will not only walk the boards as Mrs Lovett in Sweeney Todd and as Cleopatra in our revival of The Pearls of Cleopatra, she’ll also be premiering her own production of Hansel and Gretel on 25 January. If you’ve already seen her previous children’s opera, Pippi Longstocking, you know you can look forward to exuberant imagination and expressive power from an exceptional talent. Speaking of which: as the kick-off for Schall&Rausch, our festival for brand-new experimental music theatre, Herbert Fritsch and Herbert Grönemeyer have taken inspiration from Eugène Labiche’s The Italian Straw Hat and conjured up a new music theatre experience entitled Horse Eats Hat, in cooperation with Theater Basel. Opening in February, and only for a short festival run at the Schiller Theatre!
For another of our children’s opera premieres, we’ve once again enlisted the composing powers of Franz Wittenbrink (who also did Pippi Longstocking) to create a new musical setting for Otfried Preussler’s The Little Witch, promising us all a wild and exciting broomstick ride.
You can once again see the season’s conclusion in a big tent we’re pitching in central Berlin in mid June. That’s where we’re presenting Gerd Natschinski’s My Friend Bunbury, the second offering in our spotlight on East Germany’s Heiteres Musiktheater (light-hearted music theatre), this time under the direction of audience favourite Max Hopp.
As Music Director since November 2023, James Gaffigan has become a pillar of our leadership team. Within a very short time, he’s come to know and love not only the special spirit of the city, but also the incomparable vivacity of the Komische Oper Berlin. He’ll be conducting our premiere productions of Sweeney Todd and Don Giovanni, on top of four extraordinary symphony concerts. With the first one, good-naturedly entitled James’ Choice, he’ll be presenting us with his personal calling card.
Our promise to you, which remains steadfast today: no matter when, where, and what we perform, with every trip to the Komische Oper Berlin during the 2024/25 season you can always expect an innovative and intoxicating blend of top-quality music theatre to engage both heart and mind. We look forward to seeing you!
© Jan Windszus Photography
You can now browse through the schedule and book your favourite productions from 25 March. Insider tip: With the OpernCard25 you can book exclusively from March 18!
Season
2024/25
Out into the city
We are renovating for you! Since September 2023, the Komische Oper complex on Behrenstrasse has been undergoing extensive renovation, modernization, and expansion. The show goes on... ...and how! During the renovations, performances will happen not only at the Schiller Theatre, but also at Tempelhof Airport and the old Kindl brewery site, as well as in a big tent and throughout Berlin’s many distinctive neighbourhoods.
© STUDIO.jetzt
© Paolo Fantin
Symbol darüber
Tempelhof Airport / Hangar 4
Columbiadamm 10
12101 Berlin
After the great success of The Raft of the Medusa, the Komische Oper Berlin is kicking off the new season by returning to Hangar 1 of Tempelhof Airport with Handel’s Messiah (see p. 19). Tempelhof Airport was built from 1936 to 1941 and was once the world’s largest building, featuring 307,000 square metres of indoor space along with a roof that could hold seating for eighty thousand air-show spectators. While serving as a monumental showpiece during the Nazi era, the airport later became a symbol of freedom during the post-war era with the Berlin Airlift. Since its closure in 2008, its seven hangars have accommodated refugees, social projects, cultural events, and sporting meets.
Premiere
Chamber Concert
© Jan Windszus Photography
Schiller Theatre
Bismarckstraße 110
10625 Berlin
Without the Schiller Theatre, there’d be no Komische Oper Berlin! Opened in 1907, it became a supplementary venue for the Prussian State Theatre in 1921. Walter Felsenstein directed here in the 1930s, under Intendant Heinrich George. The Schiller Theatre was bombed out in 1944, so its artists shifted their work to the Hebbel Theatre. It was there that Felsenstein created his legendary production of La vie parisienne by Jacques Offenbach, which ultimately earned him the intendant job at what was once the Metropol Theatre on Behrenstrasse. This is where he founded the institution now considered the birthplace of modern music theatre: the Komische Oper Berlin. The Schiller Theatre was rebuilt in 1950/51, and has served as a venue for the Komische Oper Berlin since the 2023/24 season.
Premieres
Repertoire
Symphony Concerts
© Jan Windszus Photography
Symbol darüber
Kindl Site
Berlin-Neukölln
For the third time now, the Komische Oper Berlin will be guesting at the former Kindl brewery site with Schall&Rausch, the festival for brand-new experimental music theatre. Founded in 1872 by a group of Rixdorf innkeepers, this facility became one of Germany’s biggest breweries during the early twentieth century, thanks to its bestselling namesake export: Kindl Pilsner. After the Second World War, the Neukölln location, despite occasional good periods, could no longer match its previous successes and was closed in 2005. Today, the former brewery site has gained a new character by housing various NGOs, the SchwuZ Queer Club, and the KINDL Centre for Contemporary Art, now offering politics, art, and entertainment instead of—or alongside—a cold bottle of beer.
Schall&Rausch
Symphony Concert
© Jan Windszus Photography
Tent
In the middle of Berlin
In the 2023/24 season, the magnificent Queen of Flanders tent, overflowing with light-hearted music theatre, was pitched right outside Berlin’s City Hall. The royal pleasure craft has now set sail again, voyaging to its next exciting location in the heart of Berlin. Where exactly will its anchorage be? As soon as we get the coordinates, we’ll be sure to announce this right away on our website. So it’s doubly worth your while to check back regularly!
Premiere
© Felix Löchner
Symbol darüber
Konzerthaus Berlin
Gendarmenmarkt 2
10117 Berlin
Designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel, Berlin’s Konzerthaus was first opened in 1821 as a theatre. This is where Carl Maria von Weber’s Der Freischutz (The Marksman) premiered, and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony had its first Berlin performance. Almost completely destroyed during the Second World War, the building was reopened as a theatre in 1984 and became a concert hall in 1992. In addition to the Konzerthaus, the Ernst-Reuter-Saal in Reinickendorf will also host a symphony concert of the Komische Oper Berlin.
Symphony Concert
Ernst-Reuter-Saal
Eichborndamm 213
13437 Berlin
The Ernst-Reuter-Saal was built in 1957 and is located in a side wing of the Reinickendorf town hall. Designed as a concert hall, it still retains the style of the 1950s. When it opened, it was considered one of the halls with the best acoustics in Germany. The architectural design, in which orchestras, renowned singers and actors of the time participated, ensured this at the time. The result can still be seen and heard today.
Symphony Concert
© Jan Windszus Photography
Symbol darüber
... and all over Berlin!
Out to the city, into the neighbourhoods! The Komische Oper Berlin is the opera company for all of the city’s urban communities. For over ten years now, the Opera Dolmuş (see p. 134) has been delivering music theatre to various local neighbourhoods as part of the Selam Opera! programme. Meanwhile, the music theatre outreach programme Jung – für alle! has been collaborating with schools and other institutions from Spandau to Köpenick, and from Reinickendorf to Zehlendorf. And the opera can pop up anywhere, be it at the market hall or the airport, whether as a pop-up opera piece or a chamber concert. Keep your eyes and ears open, as the Komische Oper Berlin is sure to appear somewhere nearby ...
Ready, steady, go for Tickets!
On Monday, March 18, 2024, 11 a.m., the exclusive advance sale begins for OpernCard25 holders, subscribers and members of the Förderkreis. Tickets can be booked online, by phone or directly at the opera box office (Unter den Linden) - one week before the general advance sale starts on March 25, 2024!