2022-23 Season Announcement

We are pleased to present the program for the 2022/23 season with the key word Uferlos (“Borderless”). A term that not only gives us boundlessness and endlessness, but also a feeling of great freedom. Not seeing the shore and possibly not being able to reach it is an oppressive moment, a state of being lost, and existential misery that entails a search for support and orientation. Uferlos has something ambivalent about it, something that presents itself differently depending on one's point of view and stimulates reflection. We look forward to an exciting and eventful season with you!

• Daniel Barenboim's 80th birthday and his 30th anniversary as General Music Director of the Staatsoper Unter den Linden.

• The season opener with Wagner's RING DES NIBELUNGEN, staged by Dmitri Tcherniakov and conducted by Daniel Barenboim. In October 2022, all four music dramas (DAS RHEINGOLD, DIE WALKÜRE, SIEGFRIED, GÖTTERDAMMERUNG) will premiere within just one week, which means that the new RING can be experienced cyclically from the start.

• In addition to the RING, there will be one premiere and four other premieres in the Big House (see Premieres section).

• The format LINDEN 21 with four world premieres (including a work commissioned by the Staatsoper for young people), a new production and a revival (see section Linden 21).

• BAROCKTAGE (December 2 to 11, 2022), with a focus on Mozart and Vivaldi in the music theater and in the concerts, e.g. with the premiere of Mozart's MITRIDATE, RE DI PONTO and the new production of Vivaldi's IL GIUSTINO, which will premiere shortly before.

• FESTTAGE (April 2nd to 10th, 2023) and others with a complete performance series of the RING cycle conducted by Daniel Barenboim as well as Beethoven's MISSA SOLEMNIS with the Staatskapelle Berlin and a piano recital with András Schiff.

• 24 revived music theater works – including two successful premieres of the 2021/22 season, Eötvösʼ SLEEPLESS and Janáček’s DIE MAKROPOLUS, as well as Puccini’s opera TURANDOT, which will premiere at the end of this season (June 18, 2022) directed by Philipp Stölzl.

• There are also around 80 concerts in Berlin. Also concert tours of the Staatskapelle Berlin under the direction of Daniel Barenboim.

• In total, the Staatsoper Unter den Linden will present around 320 events in 2022/23, STAATSOPER FOR ALL in July (with the live broadcast of Verdi's DON CARLO, conducted by Daniel Barenboim and the open-air concert of the Staatskapelle Berlin, conducted by Zubin in 2023 Mehta) as well as numerous projects of the Junge Staatsoper, e.g. with performances by the opera children's orchestra and the children's opera house Unter den Linden.

• We are also paying special attention to the issue of sustainability with a climate concert by the Orchestra of Change and the SUSTAINABLE LISTENING series.

• The Orchestra Academy at the Staatskapelle Berlin celebrates its 25th anniversary.

• The new season will start with an opening party on September 4, 2022.

• Conductors appearing for the first time at the Staatsoper and with the Staatskapelle Berlin: Leonardo Sini, Anu Tali, Marco Armiliato, Giedrė Šlekytė, Antonello Manacorda, Finnegan Downie Dear, Karel Mark Chichon, Gustavo Gimeno, Cristian Măcelaru, Tugan Sokhiev , Edward Gardner, Petr Popelka.

• House debuts Director: Barbora Horáková, Satoshi Miyagi, David McVicar, Nikolaus Habjan, Pauline Beaulieu.

PREMIERES

The start of the 2022/23 season at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden is all about Wagner's RING tetralogy: All four parts will premiere within just one week so the new RING can be experienced from the start – as Wagner intended – a true “mammoth project” for a repertoire house. The rehearsals for the RING have been going on since the beginning of 2022. After two further performance series in autumn 2022, the tetralogy will then be shown again at the FESTTAGEN 2023.

With Michael Volle (Wotan and Der Wanderer), Anja Kampe (Brünnhilde, with role debut in SIEGFRIED and GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG), Vida Miknevičiūtė (role debut Sieglinde), Robert Watson (Siegmund), Andreas Schager (Siegfried), Johannes Martin Kränzle (Alberich), Claudia Mahnke (Fricka), Anna Kissjudit (Erda), Mika Kares (house debut with Fasold, Hunding and role debut Hagen), Stephan Rügamer (Mime) and Rolando Villazón (role debut Loge) as well as the Staatsopernchor and the Staatskapelle Berlin.

Daniel Barenboim will conduct Camille Saint-Saëns' SAMSON ET DALILA and Georges Bizet's CARMEN (both in February 2023), as well as Giuseppe Verdi's DON CARLO (June / July 2023) for the first time. This opera will also be broadcast live on Bebelplatz under his musical direction as part of STAATSOPER FOR ALL. In addition, Daniel Barenboim, who will celebrate his 80th birthday and 30 years as General Music Director of the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in the 2022/23 season, will be performing three subscription concerts with the Staatskapelle Berlin, the concerts at the turn of the year, and symphony concerts with the Staatskapelle Berlin for the FESTDAYS as well as the anniversary concert on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the orchestra academy.

On his milestone birthday (November 15, 2022), Daniel Barenboim will be the soloist at the piano at his birthday concert with the Staatskapelle Berlin, conducted by Zubin Mehta. Furthermore, Daniel Barenboim conducts the Staatskapelle Berlin in guest performances in Asia, Paris and Vienna.

Antonio Vivaldi's IL GIUSTINO, directed by Barbora Horáková, will premiere on November 20, 2022, making her house debut. The Academy for Early Music Berlin is playing under the musical direction of René Jacobs. This is the first time that an opera by this well-known and influential composer of the Baroque period can be experienced at the State Opera. IL GIUSTINO is a comedy of mistaken identity, with a very complex plot. In her interpretation, Horáková brings baroque and contemporary together by staging the opera as a game within a game, in which a school class experiences the plot as a kind of (day) dream and the singers are doubled by children from the present. Shortly after the premiere, IL GIUSTINO can also be experienced as part of the BAROCKTAGE 2022.

The second BAROCKTAGE new production is the premiere of Mozart's MITRIDATE, RE DI PONTO on December 4, 2022, with Les Musiciens du Louvres conducted by Marc Minkowski and directed by Satoshi Miyagi, who, after the production has already been scheduled for the 2020 season /21 was planned, is now making his house debut at the State Opera. Miyagi bridges the gap between western theater tradition and the aesthetics of Japanese kabuki theater.

With Pene Pati (role debut in the title role), Angela Brower, Paul-Antoine Bénos-Dijan, Sarah Aristidou, Siyabonga Maqungo and Adriana Bignagni Lesca.

BAROCKTAGE will take place in 2022 from December 2nd to 11th and will focus on the music of Italy and the composers Vivaldi and Mozart. With Vivaldi not only in concert, but also in music theater, the BAROCKTAGE continue their tradition of illuminating lesser-known facets of early music - after having devoted themselves to Rameau, Scarlatti and Campra in previous editions. In addition to the two new productions of Vivaldi's IL GIUSTINO and Mozart's MITRIDATE, RE DI PONTO, the 2022 festival program will include the revival of Monteverdi's L'INCORONAZIONE DI POPPEA, directed by Eva-Maria Höckmayr and conducted by Jean-Christophe Spinosi. The program of the ten-day festival also includes a round table and nine concerts.

With Richard Strauss' DAPHNE, Romeo Castellucci returns to the State Opera after Scarlatti's IL PRIMO OMICIDIO and deals with this mythological subject for the first time. Thomas Guggeis, who very successfully stepped in as conductor for Straussʼ SALOME in 2018, makes his debut with this opera – in his last season as Staatskapellmeister of the Staatskapelle Berlin before he goes to Frankfurt as GMD.

With Vera-Lotte Boecker, who is making her house and role debut as Daphne, and René Pape and Pavel Černoch, also making their role debuts as Peneios and Apollo. With the Staatskapelle Berlin and the Staatsopernchor.

On March 19, 2023, the second Mozart premiere of the season can be experienced with IDOMENEO. With Simon Rattle as conductor and director David McVicar making his house debut with this premiere already planned for the 2020/21 season. With a.o. Andrew Staples (role debut), Magdalena Kožená, Anna Prohaska, Olga Peretyatko, the Staatsopernchor and the Staatskapelle Berlin. At the age of 25, Mozart created his most experimental opera, IDOMENEO, in which he broke with the traditional form of baroque opera in many places. David McVicar transfers the forces of nature unleashed by the gods to the stage with the help of a 10-person dancer ensemble, choreographed by Colm Seery.

The last premiere of the season on the big stage takes Franz Schubert's DIE SCHÖNE MÜLLERIN as the starting point for a scenic journey through the song cycle, conceived by the Musicbanda Franui together with the director and puppeteer Nikolaus Habjan and baritone Florian Boesch. The world premiere of the music theater evening DIE SCHÖNE MÜLLERIN will take place on May 26, 2023 and is also part of LINDEN 21.

LINDEN 21 includes the productions and projects in the schedule that trace the diverse forms of contemporary music theater. In addition to the world premiere of DIE SCHÖNE MÜLLERIN on the main stage, three other world premieres (including a work commissioned by the State Opera for young people), a new production and a revival are on the program for the 2022/23 season in the old orchestra rehearsal hall:

Although Hans Werner Henze and Hans Magnus Enzensberger discussed a short version of their television opera LA CUBANA, which premiered in 1974, this project did not come to fruition before Henze's death in 2012. With LA PICCOLA CUBANA, the chamber music version of this work will be premiered in a setting designed by Jobst Liebrecht on October 27, 2022, on the 10th anniversary of Henze's death. The musical direction is in the hands of Adrian Heger. The story about variety singer Rachel, against the background of social upheavals in pre-revolutionary Cuba, is staged by Pauline Beaulieu, who is making her house debut with it.

With Victoria Randem and members of the Staatskapelle Berlin.

Under the title IN THE NEBEL EIN LICHT, Jürgen Flimm will develop an evening with music by Leoš Janáček and texts by Botho Strauß, which is based on his libretto text on the biblical »Saul« story.

With Adrian Heger as musical director and Martina Gedeck, Meike Droste, Katharina Kammerloher and Roman Trekel as well as members of the Staatskapelle Berlin (world premiere: December 17, 2022).

On February 25, 2023, Oscar Strasnoy's ROBINSON - chamber opera for self-playing pianos, automata and seven islands, commissioned by the Staatsoper Unter den Linden for young people aged 14 and over, will have its world premiere. The new opera will be staged by Anna Bergmann, who already directed Emmanuel Nunesʼ LA DOUCE at the Berlin State Opera in 2016. Based on Daniel Defoe's classic novel from 1719, the composer Oscar Strasnoy and the author Sigrid Behrens make the connection to the people who lead an island existence in our society today. Her thoughts condense into reflections on various aspects that make up such a life in seclusion, on the run to the inside or in parallel worlds: dealing with time, the fight against loneliness and emptiness and the search for a higher meaning in life. With members of the International Opera Studio and guests.

Georg Friedrich Haasʼ chamber opera THOMAS, with a text by Händl Klaus, will premiere on June 25, 2023 under the musical direction of Max Renne. Originally planned for the 2020/21 season, the chamber opera will be staged by Barbora Horáková, who will be able to direct it twice this season. In his 2013 work, Georg Friedrich Haas focuses on the taboo subject of death, and his chamber opera begins like many other operas end: Matthias dies in his sickbed. His friend Thomas stays behind, surrounded by doctors, nursing staff and the undertaker. Her busyness cannot hide the fact that Thomas, like every survivor, is thrown back on himself, his feelings, his memories.

With Jaka Mihelač, Gabriel Rollinson, Rupert Enticknap, Nils Wanderer, Spencer Britten, Clara Nadeshdin and members of the Staatskapelle Berlin.

There will also be six performances of Simon Steen-Andersen's WALK THE WALK in September 2022, a performance that premiered in Fall 2020.