The Deutsche Oper Berlin is a German
opera
Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a librett ...
company located in the
Charlottenburg
Charlottenburg () is a Boroughs and localities of Berlin, locality of Berlin within the borough of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf. Established as a German town law, town in 1705 and named after Sophia Charlotte of Hanover, Queen consort of Kingdom ...
district of Berlin. The resident building is the country's second largest
opera house
An opera house is a theatre building used for performances of opera. It usually includes a stage, an orchestra pit, audience seating, and backstage facilities for costumes and building sets.
While some venues are constructed specifically for o ...
(after Munich's) and also home to the
Berlin State Ballet
The Berlin State Ballet (german: Staatsballett Berlin, links=no, italic=no) is the principal ballet company in the German capital of Berlin. It was created in 2004 through a merger of the separate ballet companies of the city's three opera house ...
.
Since 2004, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, like the Staatsoper Unter den Linden (
Berlin State Opera
The (), also known as the Berlin State Opera (german: Staatsoper Berlin), is a listed building on Unter den Linden boulevard in the historic center of Berlin, Germany. The opera house was built by order of Prussian king Frederick the Great from ...
), the
Komische Oper Berlin
The Komische Oper Berlin is a German opera company based in Berlin. The company produces opera, operetta and musicals.
The opera house is located on Behrenstraße, just a few steps from Unter den Linden. Since 2004, the Komische Oper Berlin, a ...
, the Berlin State Ballet, and the Bühnenservice Berlin (Stage and Costume Design), has been a member of the Berlin Opera Foundation.
History
The company's history goes back to the ''Deutsches Opernhaus'' built by the then independent city of Charlottenburg—the "richest town of
Prussia
Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an em ...
"—according to plans designed by
Heinrich Seeling
Heinrich Seeling (1 October 1852 – 15 February 1932) was a German architect.
Life
He was born the son of a bricklayer in the Thuringian town of Zeulenroda, then part of the sovereign Principality of Reuss within the German Confederation. Seeli ...
from 1911. It opened on 7 November 1912 with a performance of
Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classical ...
's ''
Fidelio
''Fidelio'' (; ), originally titled ' (''Leonore, or The Triumph of Marital Love''), Op. 72, is Ludwig van Beethoven's only opera. The German libretto was originally prepared by Joseph Sonnleithner from the French of Jean-Nicolas Bouilly, with ...
'', conducted by
Ignatz Waghalter
Ignatz Waghalter (15 March 1881 – 7 April 1949) was a Polish-German composer and conductor.
Early life
Waghalter was born into a poor but musically accomplished Jewish family in Warsaw. His eldest brother, Henryk Waghalter (1869-1961), became ...
. In 1925, after the incorporation of Charlottenburg by the 1920
Greater Berlin Act, the name of the resident building was changed to ''Städtische Oper'' (Municipal Opera).
![Deutsches Opernhaus Berlin 1912](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ca/Deutsches_Opernhaus_Berlin_1912.jpg)
With the Nazi
seizure of power in 1933, the opera was under control of the Reich
Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda
The Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda (; RMVP), also known simply as the Ministry of Propaganda (), controlled the content of the press, literature, visual arts, film, theater, music and radio in Nazi Germany.
The ministry ...
. Minister
Joseph Goebbels
Paul Joseph Goebbels (; 29 October 1897 – 1 May 1945) was a German Nazi politician who was the ''Gauleiter'' (district leader) of Berlin, chief propagandist for the Nazi Party, and then Reich Minister of Propaganda from 1933 to 19 ...
had the name changed back to ''Deutsches Opernhaus'', competing with the
Berlin State Opera
The (), also known as the Berlin State Opera (german: Staatsoper Berlin), is a listed building on Unter den Linden boulevard in the historic center of Berlin, Germany. The opera house was built by order of Prussian king Frederick the Great from ...
in
Mitte
Mitte () is the first and most central borough of Berlin. The borough consists of six sub-entities: Mitte proper, Gesundbrunnen, Hansaviertel, Moabit, Tiergarten and Wedding.
It is one of the two boroughs (the other being Friedrichshain-Kreuzb ...
controlled by his rival, the
Prussian
Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an e ...
minister-president
Hermann Göring
Hermann Wilhelm Göring (or Goering; ; 12 January 1893 – 15 October 1946) was a German politician, military leader and convicted war criminal. He was one of the most powerful figures in the Nazi Party, which ruled Germany from 1933 to 1 ...
. In 1935, the building was remodeled by
Paul Baumgarten
Paul may refer to:
*Paul (given name), a given name (includes a list of people with that name)
*Paul (surname), a list of people
People
Christianity
*Paul the Apostle (AD c.5–c.64/65), also known as Saul of Tarsus or Saint Paul, early Chris ...
and the seating reduced from 2,300 to 2,098 places.
Carl Ebert
Carl Anton Charles Ebert (20 February 1887 – 14 May 1980), was an actor, stage director and arts administrator.
Ebert's early career was as an actor, training under Max Reinhardt and becoming one of the leading actors in his native Germany duri ...
, the pre-World War II general manager, chose to emigrate from Germany rather than endorse the Nazi view of music, and went on to co-found the
Glyndebourne Festival Opera
Glyndebourne Festival Opera is an annual opera festival held at Glyndebourne, an English country house near Lewes, in East Sussex, England.
History
Under the supervision of the Christie family, the festival has been held annually since 1934, e ...
in England. He was replaced by
Max von Schillings
Max von Schillings (April 19, 1868 – July 24, 1933 in Berlin) was a German conductor, composer and theatre director. He was chief conductor at the Berlin State Opera from 1919 to 1925.
Schillings' opera ''Mona Lisa'' (1915) was internationally ...
, who acceded to demands that he enact works of "unalloyed German character". Several artists, like the conductor
Fritz Stiedry
Fritz Stiedry (11 October 18838 August 1968) was an Austrian conductor and composer.
Biography
Fritz Stiedry was born in Vienna in 1883. While still a law student at the University of Vienna, Stiedry's talent for music was noticed by Gustav Mahl ...
and the singer
Alexander Kipnis
Alexander Kipnis ( – May 14, 1978) was a Ukrainian-born operatic bass. Having initially established his artistic reputation in Europe, Kipnis became an American citizen in 1931, following his marriage to an American. He appeared often at the Ch ...
, followed Ebert into emigration. The opera house was destroyed by a
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...
air raid on 23 November 1943. Performances continued at the
Admiralspalast
The Admiralspalast (German for ''admiral palace'') is a 1,756-seat theatre on Friedrichstraße in the Mitte district of Berlin, Germany. Opened in 1910, it is one of the few preserved variety venues of the pre-World War II era in the city.
As a ...
in Mitte until 1945. Ebert returned to serve as general manager after the war.
After the war, in what had now been called
West Berlin
West Berlin (german: Berlin (West) or , ) was a political enclave which comprised the western part of Berlin during the years of the Cold War. Although West Berlin was de jure not part of West Germany, lacked any sovereignty, and was under mi ...
, the company, again called ''Städtische Oper'', used the nearby
Theater des Westens
The Theater des Westens (Theatre of the West) is one of the most famous theatres for musicals and operettas in Berlin, Germany, located at 10–12 in Charlottenburg. It was founded in 1895 for plays. The present house was opened in 1896 and de ...
; its opening production was ''Fidelio'', on 4 September 1945. Its home was finally rebuilt in 1961 but to a much-changed, sober design by
Fritz Bornemann
Fritz Bornemann (12 February 1912 in Berlin – 28 May 2007 in Berlin) was a German architect.
Life and works
Bornemann studied architecture at the Technical University of Berlin. After graduating in 1936, he was Assistant Scenic Designer ...
. The opening production of the newly renamed ''Deutsche Oper'', on 24 September, was Mozart's ''
Don Giovanni
''Don Giovanni'' (; K. 527; Vienna (1788) title: , literally ''The Rake Punished, or Don Giovanni'') is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. Its subject is a centuries-old Spanis ...
''.
![Tod des Demonstranten](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ab/Tod_des_Demonstranten.jpg)
On the evening of 2 June 1967,
Benno Ohnesorg
Benno Ohnesorg (; 15 October 1940 – 2 June 1967)Böttcher, Dirk (2002). "Ohnesorg, Benno" (in German), in: Hannoversches biographisches Lexikon: von den Anfängen bis in die Gegenwart'. Hannover: Schlütersche. p. 275. was a West German ...
, a student taking part in the
German student movement
The West German student movement or sometimes called the 1968 movement in West Germany was a social movement that consisted of mass student protests in West Germany in 1968; participants in the movement would later come to be known as 68ers. T ...
, was shot in the streets around the opera house. He had been protesting against the visit to Germany by the
Shah of Iran
This is a list of monarchs of Persia (or monarchs of the Iranic peoples, in present-day Iran), which are known by the royal title Shah or Shahanshah. This list starts from the establishment of the Medes around 671 BCE until the deposition of th ...
, who was attending a performance of Mozart's ''
The Magic Flute
''The Magic Flute'' (German: , ), K. 620, is an opera in two acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a ''Singspiel'', a popular form during the time it was written that inclu ...
''.
Past ''
Generalmusikdirektor
A music(al) director or director of music is the person responsible for the musical aspects of a performance, production, or organization. This would include the artistic director and usually chief conductor of an orchestra or concert band, the d ...
en'' (GMD, general music directors) have included
Bruno Walter
Bruno Walter (born Bruno Schlesinger, September 15, 1876February 17, 1962) was a German-born conductor, pianist and composer. Born in Berlin, he escaped Nazi Germany in 1933, was naturalised as a French citizen in 1938, and settled in the Un ...
,
Kurt Adler
Kurt Adler (March 1, 1907September 21, 1977) was an Austrian classical chorus master, music conductor, author and pianist. He was best known as the chorus master and lead conductor of the Metropolitan Opera in New York City from 1943 to 1973. H ...
,
Ferenc Fricsay
Ferenc Fricsay (; 9 August 1914 – 20 February 1963) was a Hungarian conductor. From 1960 until his death, he was an Austrian citizen.
Biography
Fricsay was born in Budapest in 1914 and studied music under Béla Bartók, Zoltán Kodály, E ...
,
Lorin Maazel
Lorin Varencove Maazel (, March 6, 1930 – July 13, 2014) was an American conductor, violinist and composer. He began conducting at the age of eight and by 1953 had decided to pursue a career in music. He had established a reputation in th ...
,
Gerd Albrecht
Gerd Albrecht (19 July 1935 – 2 February 2014) was a German conductor.
Biography
Albrecht was born in Essen, the son of the musicologist Hans Albrecht (1902–1961). He studied music in Kiel and in Hamburg, where his teachers included Wilhel ...
,
Jesús López-Cobos
Jesus ( AD 30 or 33) was a Jewish preacher and religious leader who most Christians believe to be the incarnation of God and Muslims believe was a prophet.
Jesus may also refer to:
People
Religious figures
* Elymas Bar-Jesus, a Jew in the ''Ac ...
,
Giuseppe Sinopoli
Giuseppe Sinopoli (; 2 November 1946 – 21 April 2001) was an Italian conductor and composer.
Biography
Sinopoli was born in Venice, Italy, and later studied at the Benedetto Marcello Conservatory in Venice under Ernesto Rubin de Cervi ...
, and
Christian Thielemann
Christian Thielemann (born 1 April 1959) is a German conductor. He is currently chief conductor of the Staatskapelle Dresden. He was artistic director of the Salzburg Easter Festival from 2013 to 2022, and a regular conductor at the Bayreuth F ...
. In April 2001, Sinopoli died at the podium while conducting ''
Aida
''Aida'' (or ''Aïda'', ) is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni. Set in the Old Kingdom of Egypt, it was commissioned by Cairo's Khedivial Opera House and had its première there on 24 December ...
'', at age 54. In October 2005,
Renato Palumbo was appointed GMD as of the 2006–2007 season. In October 2007, the Deutsche Oper announced the appointment of
Donald Runnicles
Sir Donald Cameron Runnicles OBE HonFRSE (born 16 November 1954, Edinburgh, Scotland) is a Scottish conductor.
Life and career
The son of William Runnicles, a director of a furniture supply company and a choirmaster and organist, and Christin ...
as their next ''Generalmusikdirektor'', effective August 2009, for an initial contract of five years. Simultaneously, Palumbo and the Deutsche Oper mutually agreed to terminate his contract, effective November 2007. In November 2020, the company announced the most recent extension of Runnicles' contract as its GMD, through 2027.
The current ''Intendant'' (artistic director) of the company is Dietmar Schwarz, and his current contract with the company is through 31 July 2025.
The current executive director of the company is Thomas Fehrle, who is currently contracted with the company through 2027.
Idomeneo controversy
In September 2006, the Deutsche Oper's then-''
Intendantin'' (general manager)
Kirsten Harms drew criticism after she cancelled the production of Mozart's opera ''
Idomeneo
' (Italian for ''Idomeneus, King of Crete, or, Ilia and Idamante''; usually referred to simply as ''Idomeneo'', K. 366) is an Italian language opera seria by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The libretto was adapted by Giambattista Varesco from a French ...
'' by
Hans Neuenfels
Hans Neuenfels (; 31 May 1941 – 6 February 2022) was a German writer, poet, film producer, librettist, theatre director, opera director and theatre manager. As a director, he first focused on drama, staged at prominent houses such as the Vien ...
, because of fears that a scene in that production featuring the severed heads of
Jesus
Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious ...
,
Buddha
Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha, was a śramaṇa, wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism.
According to Buddhist tradition, he was ...
and
Muhammad
Muhammad ( ar, مُحَمَّد; 570 – 8 June 632 Common Era, CE) was an Arab religious, social, and political leader and the founder of Islam. According to Muhammad in Islam, Islamic doctrine, he was a prophet Divine inspiration, di ...
would offend
Muslim
Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...
s, and that the opera house's security might come under threat if violent protests took place. (This is a departure from the original
libretto
A libretto (Italian for "booklet") is the text used in, or intended for, an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata or Musical theatre, musical. The term ''libretto'' is also sometimes used to refer to the t ...
, in which there is no such scene.) Critics of the decision include German
Ministers
Minister may refer to:
* Minister (Christianity), a Christian cleric
** Minister (Catholic Church)
* Minister (government), a member of government who heads a ministry (government department)
** Minister without portfolio, a member of governme ...
and the
German Chancellor
The chancellor of Germany, officially the federal chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany,; often shortened to ''Bundeskanzler''/''Bundeskanzlerin'', / is the head of the federal government of Germany and the commander in chief of the Ge ...
Angela Merkel
Angela Dorothea Merkel (; ; born 17 July 1954) is a German former politician and scientist who served as Chancellor of Germany from 2005 to 2021. A member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), she previously served as Leader of the Oppo ...
. The reaction from Muslims was mixed. The leader of Germany's Islamic Council welcomed the decision, whilst a leader of Germany's Turkish community, criticising the decision, said:
: "This is about art, not about politics ... We should not make art dependent on religion – then we are back in the Middle Ages."
At the end of October 2006, the opera house announced that performances of Mozart's opera ''Idomeneo'' would then proceed.
Premieres
Städtische Oper Berlin
* 1923:
Emil von Reznicek
Emil Nikolaus Joseph, Freiherr von Reznicek (4 May 1860, in Vienna – 2 August 1945, in Berlin) was an Austrian composer of Romanian-Czech ancestry.
Life
Reznicek's grandfather, Josef Resnitschek (1787–1848), was a trumpet virtuoso and b ...
, Carl Meinhard,
Rudolf Bernauer
Rudolf Bernauer (20 January 1880, in Vienna – 27 November 1953, in London) was an Austrian lyricist, librettist, screenwriter, film director, producer,
"Rudolph Bernauer" (aka Rudolf Bernauer), IMDb, 2009,
webpageIMDb-76587
and actor.
His ...
: ''
Holofernes
In the deuterocanonical Book of Judith, Holofernes ( grc, Ὀλοφέρνης; he, הולופרנס) was an invading Assyrian general known for having been beheaded by Judith, a Hebrew widow who entered his camp and beheaded him while he was ...
''
* 1932:
Franz Schreker
Franz Schreker (originally ''Schrecker''; 23 March 1878 – 21 March 1934) was an Austrian composer, conductor, teacher and administrator. Primarily a composer of operas, Schreker developed a style characterized by aesthetic plurality (a mixture ...
: ''
Der Schmied von Gent
''Der Schmied von Gent'' is a "Grand magical opera" in three acts by Franz Schreker with a German-language libretto by the composer after the story ''Smetse Smee'' by the Flemish author Charles de Coster.
Composition history
The work was composed ...
''
* 1932:
Kurt Weill
Kurt Julian Weill (March 2, 1900April 3, 1950) was a German-born American composer active from the 1920s in his native country, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fru ...
,
Caspar Neher Caspar Neher (born Rudolf Ludwig Caspar Neher; 11 April 1897 – 30 June 1962) was an Austrian-German scenographer and librettist, known principally for his career-long working relationship with Bertolt Brecht.
Neher was born in Augsburg. He ...
: ''
Die Bürgschaft
"The Pledge" (German: "Die Bürgschaft", ) is a ballad published by the German poet Friedrich Schiller in his 1799 ''Musen-Almanach''. He took the idea out of the ancient legend of Damon and Pythias issuing from the Latin ''Fabulae'' by Gaius J ...
''
Städtisches Opernhaus Berlin
* 1952:
Boris Blacher
Boris Blacher (30 January 1975) was a German composer and librettist.
Life
Blacher was born when his parents (of German-Estonian and Russian backgrounds) were living within a Russian-speaking community in the Manchurian town of Niuzhuang () (he ...
: ''
Preußisches Märchen''
Deutsche Oper Berlin
* 1961:
Giselher Klebe
Giselher Wolfgang Klebe (28 June 19255 October 2009) was a German composer, and an academic teacher. He composed more than 140 works, among them 14 operas, all based on literary works, eight symphonies, 15 solo concerts, chamber music, piano w ...
: ''
Alkmene
In Greek mythology, Alcmene () or Alcmena (; Ancient Greek: Ἀλκμήνη or Doric Greek: Ἀλκμάνα, Latin: Alcumena means "strong in wrath") was the wife of Amphitryon by whom she bore two children, Iphicles and Laonome. She is best known ...
''
* 1964:
Roger Sessions
Roger Huntington Sessions (December 28, 1896March 16, 1985) was an American composer, teacher and musicologist. He had initially started his career writing in a neoclassical style, but gradually moved further towards more complex harmonies and ...
,
Giuseppe Antonio Borgese
Giuseppe Antonio Borgese (12 November 1882 – 4 December 1952) was an Italian writer, journalist, literary critic, Germanist, poet, playwright and academic naturalized American.
Biography
During the academic year 1899-1900, under pressure from ...
: ''
Montezuma''
* 1965:
Hans Werner Henze
Hans Werner Henze (1 July 1926 – 27 October 2012) was a German composer. His large oeuvre of works is extremely varied in style, having been influenced by serialism, atonality, Stravinsky, Italian music, Arabic music and jazz, as well as t ...
: ''
Der junge Lord
''Der junge Lord'' (''The Young Lord'') is an opera in two acts by Hans Werner Henze to a German libretto by Ingeborg Bachmann, after Wilhelm Hauff's 1827 fairy tale "Der Affe als Mensch" (The Ape as Man) from ''Der Scheik von Alessandria und sein ...
'', (Libretto:
Ingeborg Bachmann
Ingeborg Bachmann (25 June 1926 – 17 October 1973) was an Austrian poet and author.
Biography
Bachmann was born in Klagenfurt, in the Austrian state of Carinthia, the daughter of Olga (née Haas) and Matthias Bachmann, a schoolteacher. Her fa ...
)
* 1966:
Roman Haubenstock-Ramati
Roman Haubenstock-Ramati ( he, רוֹמן האובּנשׁטוֹק-רָמָתִי; 27 February 1919 – 3 March 1994) was a composer and music editor who worked in Kraków, Tel Aviv and Vienna.
Life
Haubenstock-Ramati was born in Kraków. He stud ...
: ''
Amerika''
* 1968:
Luigi Dallapiccola
Luigi Dallapiccola (February 3, 1904 – February 19, 1975) was an Italian composer known for his lyrical twelve-tone compositions.
Biography
Dallapiccola was born in Pisino d'Istria (at the time part of Austria-Hungary, current Pazin, Croa ...
: ''
Ulisse
''Ulisse'' is an opera in a prologue and two acts composed by Luigi Dallapiccola to his own libretto based on the legend of Ulysses. It premiered at the Deutsche Oper Berlin (in German translation by Karl-Heinrich Kreith as ''Odysseus'') on 29 ...
''
* 1969:
Boris Blacher
Boris Blacher (30 January 1975) was a German composer and librettist.
Life
Blacher was born when his parents (of German-Estonian and Russian backgrounds) were living within a Russian-speaking community in the Manchurian town of Niuzhuang () (he ...
: ''
200 000 Taler''
* 1970:
Günter Grass
Günter Wilhelm Grass (born Graß; ; 16 October 1927 – 13 April 2015) was a German novelist, poet, playwright, illustrator, graphic artist, sculptor, and recipient of the 1999 Nobel Prize in Literature.
He was born in the Free City of Da ...
,
Marcel Luipart: ''Die Vogelscheuchen'' (Ballett)
* 1972:
Wolfgang Fortner
Wolfgang Fortner (12 October 1907 – 5 September 1987) was a German composer, composition teacher and conductor.
Life
Fortner was born in Leipzig. From his parents, who were both singers, Fortner very early on had intense contact with music.
...
, Matthias Braun: ''Elisabeth Tudor''
* 1979:
Wilhelm Dieter Siebert, ''Untergang der Titanic''
"Siebert, Wilhelm Dieter – ''Untergang der Titanic'' (1979)"
work details, Boosey & Hawkes
Boosey & Hawkes is a British music publisher purported to be the largest specialist classical music publisher in the world. Until 2003, it was also a major manufacturer of brass, string and woodwind musical instruments.
Formed in 1930 throu ...
* 1981: Mauricio Kagel
Mauricio Raúl Kagel (; 24 December 1931 – 18 September 2008) was an Argentine-German composer.
Biography
Kagel was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, into an Ashkenazi Jewish family that had fled from Russia in the 1920s . He studied music, his ...
: ''Aus Deutschland''
* 1987: Wolfgang Rihm
Wolfgang Rihm (born 13 March 1952) is a German composer and academic teacher. He is musical director of the Institute of New Music and Media at the University of Music Karlsruhe and has been composer in residence at the Lucerne Festival and the Sa ...
: ''Oedipus
Oedipus (, ; grc-gre, Οἰδίπους "swollen foot") was a mythical Greek king of Thebes. A tragic hero in Greek mythology, Oedipus accidentally fulfilled a prophecy that he would end up killing his father and marrying his mother, thereby ...
''
* 1987: Erhard Grosskopf: ''Lichtknall''
* 1988: Marc Neikrug: ''Los Alamos''
* 1990: Hans Werner Henze
Hans Werner Henze (1 July 1926 – 27 October 2012) was a German composer. His large oeuvre of works is extremely varied in style, having been influenced by serialism, atonality, Stravinsky, Italian music, Arabic music and jazz, as well as t ...
: '' Das verratene Meer'', (Libretto: Hans-Ulrich Treichel
Prof. Dr. Hans-Ulrich Treichel (born 12 August 1952) is a Germanist, novelist and poet. His earliest published books were collections of poetry, but prose writing has become a larger part of his output since the critical and commercial success ...
)
* 1992: Aribert Reimann
Aribert Reimann (born 4 March 1936) is a German composer, pianist and accompanist, known especially for his literary operas. His version of Shakespeare's ''King Lear'', the opera '' Lear'', was written at the suggestion of Dietrich Fischer-Diesk ...
: '' Das Schloß'', (based on Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a German-speaking Bohemian novelist and short-story writer, widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of realism and the fantastic. It ...
's novel of the same name)
* 2005: Isabel Mundry
Isabel Mundry (born 20 April 1963) is a German composer.
Life and work
Isabel Mundry was born in Schlüchtern (Germany) in 1963 and studied composition at the Hochschule der Künste and electronic music, musicology and history at the Berlin Tech ...
: ''Ein Atemzug – Odyssee''
* 2008: Walter Braunfels
Walter Braunfels (; 19 December 1882 – 19 March 1954) was a German composer, pianist, and music educator.
Life
Walter Braunfels was born in Frankfurt. His first music teacher was his mother, the great-niece of the composer Louis Spohr. He c ...
: ''Szenen aus dem Leben der Heiligen Johanna
''Szenen aus dem Leben der Heiligen Johanna'' (''Jeanne D'Arc'') is an opera in three acts by Walter Braunfels to a libretto by the composer.
Composition history
Braunfels began the composition after attending the premiere of Hindemith's ''Mathis ...
'' (szenische UA)
* 2017: Andrea Lorenzo Scartazzini
Andrea Lorenzo Scartazzini (born 1971) is a Swiss composer whose operas have been performed at leading European opera houses.
Career
Born in Basel, he studied there German studies and Italian studies. He changed to studying composition with Rud ...
: ''Edward II''
* 2017: Aribert Reimann
Aribert Reimann (born 4 March 1936) is a German composer, pianist and accompanist, known especially for his literary operas. His version of Shakespeare's ''King Lear'', the opera '' Lear'', was written at the suggestion of Dietrich Fischer-Diesk ...
: ''L'invisible'', (Trilogie lyrique after Maurice Maeterlinck
Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard Maeterlinck (29 August 1862 – 6 May 1949), also known as Count (or Comte) Maeterlinck from 1932, was a Belgian playwright, poet, and essayist who was Flemish but wrote in French. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in ...
)
''Intendanten'' (General Managers)
* Georg Hartmann (1912–1923)
* Wilhelm Holthoff von Faßmann (1923–1925)
* Heinz Tietjen
Heinz Tietjen (24 June 1881 – 30 November 1967) was a German conductor and music producer born in Tangier, Morocco.
Biography
Tietjen was born in Tangier, Morocco. At age twenty-three, he held the position of producer at the Opera House in ...
(1925–1931)
* Carl Ebert
Carl Anton Charles Ebert (20 February 1887 – 14 May 1980), was an actor, stage director and arts administrator.
Ebert's early career was as an actor, training under Max Reinhardt and becoming one of the leading actors in his native Germany duri ...
(1931–1933)
* Max von Schillings
Max von Schillings (April 19, 1868 – July 24, 1933 in Berlin) was a German conductor, composer and theatre director. He was chief conductor at the Berlin State Opera from 1919 to 1925.
Schillings' opera ''Mona Lisa'' (1915) was internationally ...
(1933)
* Wilhelm Rode (1934–1943)
* Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt
Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt (5 May 190028 May 1973) was a German conductor and composer. After studying at several music academies, he worked in German opera houses between 1923 and 1945, first as a répétiteur and then in increasingly senior conduc ...
(1943–1944)
* Michael Bohnen (1945–1947)
* Heinz Tietjen (1948–1954)
* Carl Ebert
Carl Anton Charles Ebert (20 February 1887 – 14 May 1980), was an actor, stage director and arts administrator.
Ebert's early career was as an actor, training under Max Reinhardt and becoming one of the leading actors in his native Germany duri ...
(1954–1961)
* Rudolf Sellner
Rudolf Sellner, born Gustav Rudolf Sellner (25 May 1905 – 8 May 1990) was a German actor, dramaturge, stage director, and intendant.Hugo Thielen: ''Sellner, Gustav Rudolf'', in: ''Hannoversches Biographisches Lexikon'', p. 332 He represented i ...
(1961–1972)
* Egon Seefehlner
Egon Seefehlner (3 June 1912, in Vienna – 25 September 1997) was an Austrian lawyer, editor and opera director.
Seefehlner was born in Vienna, Austria. He was a student at Konsularakademie Wien (re-established in 1964 as Diplomatic Academy ...
(1972–1976)
* Siegfried Palm
Siegfried Palm (25 April 1927 – 6 June 2005) was a German cellist who is known worldwide for his interpretations of contemporary music. Many 20th-century composers like Kagel, Ligeti, Xenakis, Penderecki and Zimmermann wrote music for ...
(1976–1981)
* Götz Friedrich
Götz Friedrich (4 August 1930 in Naumburg, Germany – 12 December 2000 in Berlin, Germany) was a German opera and theatre director.
He was a student and assistant of Walter Felsenstein at the Komische Oper Berlin in (East) Berlin, where he we ...
(1981–2000)
* André Schmitz (interim, 2000–2001)
* Udo Zimmermann
Udo Zimmermann (6 October 1943 – 22 October 2021) was a German composer, musicologist, opera director, and conductor. He worked as a professor of composition, founded a centre for contemporary music in Dresden, and was director of the Leipzig ...
(2001–2003)
* Heinz Dieter Sense / Peter Sauerbaum (interim, 2003–2004)
* Kirsten Harms (2004–2011)
* Christoph Seuferle (interim, 2011–2012)
* Dietmar Schwarz (2012–present)
''Generalmusikdirektoren'' (Music Directors)
* Ignatz Waghalter
Ignatz Waghalter (15 March 1881 – 7 April 1949) was a Polish-German composer and conductor.
Early life
Waghalter was born into a poor but musically accomplished Jewish family in Warsaw. His eldest brother, Henryk Waghalter (1869-1961), became ...
(1912–1923)
* Bruno Walter
Bruno Walter (born Bruno Schlesinger, September 15, 1876February 17, 1962) was a German-born conductor, pianist and composer. Born in Berlin, he escaped Nazi Germany in 1933, was naturalised as a French citizen in 1938, and settled in the Un ...
(1925–1929)
* Kurt Adler
Kurt Adler (March 1, 1907September 21, 1977) was an Austrian classical chorus master, music conductor, author and pianist. He was best known as the chorus master and lead conductor of the Metropolitan Opera in New York City from 1943 to 1973. H ...
, resident conductor (1932–1933)
* Artur Rother
Artur Martin Rother (12 October 188522 September 1972) was a German conductor who worked mainly in the opera house.
He was born in Stettin, Pomerania (now Szczecin, Poland). His father was an organist and music teacher. He studied under Hugo Kau ...
(1935–1943, 1953–1958)
* Karl Dammer (1937–1943)
* Ferenc Fricsay
Ferenc Fricsay (; 9 August 1914 – 20 February 1963) was a Hungarian conductor. From 1960 until his death, he was an Austrian citizen.
Biography
Fricsay was born in Budapest in 1914 and studied music under Béla Bartók, Zoltán Kodály, E ...
(1949–1952)
* Richard Kraus (1954–1961)
* Heinrich Hollreiser
Heinrich Hollreiser (24 June 191324 July 2006) was a German conductor.
Born in Munich, he attended the State Academy of Music there and went on to serve as the conductor at the opera houses in Wiesbaden, Darmstadt, Mannheim, and Duisburg. From ...
, chief conductor (1961–1964)
* Lorin Maazel
Lorin Varencove Maazel (, March 6, 1930 – July 13, 2014) was an American conductor, violinist and composer. He began conducting at the age of eight and by 1953 had decided to pursue a career in music. He had established a reputation in th ...
(1965–1971)
* Gerd Albrecht
Gerd Albrecht (19 July 1935 – 2 February 2014) was a German conductor.
Biography
Albrecht was born in Essen, the son of the musicologist Hans Albrecht (1902–1961). He studied music in Kiel and in Hamburg, where his teachers included Wilhel ...
, resident conductor (1972–1974)
* Jesús López Cobos
Jesús López Cobos (25 February 1940 – 2 March 2018) was a Spanish conductor.
Early life and career
López Cobos was born in Toro, Zamora, Spain. He studied at Complutense University of Madrid and graduated with a degree in philosophy. La ...
(1981–1990)
* Giuseppe Sinopoli
Giuseppe Sinopoli (; 2 November 1946 – 21 April 2001) was an Italian conductor and composer.
Biography
Sinopoli was born in Venice, Italy, and later studied at the Benedetto Marcello Conservatory in Venice under Ernesto Rubin de Cervi ...
(1990)
* Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos
Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos (born Rafael Frühbeck; 15 September 1933 – 11 June 2014) was a Spanish conductor and composer. Frühbeck was born in Burgos, Spain to a family of German ancestry. He first took up conducting while on military serv ...
(1992–1997)
* Christian Thielemann
Christian Thielemann (born 1 April 1959) is a German conductor. He is currently chief conductor of the Staatskapelle Dresden. He was artistic director of the Salzburg Easter Festival from 2013 to 2022, and a regular conductor at the Bayreuth F ...
(1997–2004)
* Renato Palumbo (2006–2008)
* Sir Donald Runnicles
Sir Donald Cameron Runnicles OBE HonFRSE (born 16 November 1954, Edinburgh, Scotland) is a Scottish conductor.
Life and career
The son of William Runnicles, a director of a furniture supply company and a choirmaster and organist, and Christin ...
(2009–present)
References
External links
*
Interview with Deutsche Oper musical director Donald Runnicles in Exberliner Magazine
{{Authority control
Music in Berlin
German opera companies
Theatres in Berlin
Opera houses in Germany
Buildings and structures in Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf