Thomas Blondelle

At first glance, Hofmannsthal's libretto ARABELLA is a comedy of mistaken identity which, had it been composed by Rossini, could have been a snappy buffo opera. But the music of Richard Strauss, who pulls out all the stops of his orchestral art, from the late romantic intoxication to the most modern discord, creates a subtle, colorful panorama of a society in transition, whose late-bourgeois values ​​are crumbling. One's own identity and interpersonal relationships have to be tested from scratch. Central is – even more than the title character, who oscillates between romance and rebellion – Arabella's younger sister Zdenka, who, disguised as a man by her parents for lack of money for girls' clothes befitting their status, has to struggle all the more desperately with her/his role as an outsider.

Herod lusts after his stepdaughter Salome and insists on seeing her dance. Salome longs to kiss the mouth of the imprisoned John the Baptist – a prophet of doom who loses himself in hate speech.

The tetralogy of four operas that form Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung) explores the conjunction of love and power in a mythic landscape in which true power resides in possession of the Ring. Composed over more than a quarter of a century, monumental in scale, and structured after the precedent of Greek drama, the cycle was first performed in 1876. Staged by the award-winning director Stefan Herheim, this innovative new production from Deutsche Oper Berlin features a leading international cast conducted by Sir Donald Runnicles.

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