YDO for school classes - Deutsche Oper Berlin
We offer workshops, tours and customised talks to accompany your group’s attendance at a particular event. We are also involved in partnerships and long-term projects as an art intermediary. We present our activities and events in these pages. Please contact us if you have proposals or require additional information. All performances will be announced in due course in the newsletter and on our website.
All dates and additional offers will be announced via our newsletter "School" and here on our website.
With musicians of the orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin
How should we deal with the stories that have been told to us for centuries? On the one hand, we want to keep them alive and pass them on, but on the other hand, they sometimes seem dusty and outdated. Perhaps both approaches are possible: we tell each other stories and exchange ideas about them! We delve into old stories, both in fairy tales and in opera, and question role models together.
Rosa is awake [7+]
What do Sleeping Beauty and Pamina from The Magic Flute have in common? What stories can be told with music? And how many instruments can a single percussionist actually play? We will search for answers together with the help of music by Maurice Ravel, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Georges Bizet, as well as retold fairy tale classics.
Dates will be announced on the homepage and in the JDO newsletter.
Role Models [12+]
Who is actually a hero or a heroine? The old stories told in fairy tale books or on the opera stage are teeming with them. There, heroic men pass difficult tests and virtuous women sacrifice themselves for love. But are these traditional gender roles still relevant to us today? We critically examine operas and fairy tales with music by Maurice Ravel, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Georges Bizet and Astor Piazzolla.
Dates will be announced on the homepage and in the JDO newsletter.
Both programmes
Duration approx. 70 minutes / Price €5.00 per person
The Deutsche Oper Berlin is an exciting microcosm: 600 people work here! They are all needed to ensure that the performances run smoothly. The school or day-care groups get a glimpse behind the scenes and learn, for example, what it looks like in the orchestra pit and what processes take place in preparation for a performance.
Duration for day-care groups approx. 30 minutes
Duration for 1st to 6th grade approx. 60 minutes
Duration for classes from grade 7 approx. 90 minutes
For all classes and daycare groups
Free of charge in connection with a performance visit
otherwise € 3,- per person
Contact us, we will find a suitable date together.
We want to support teachers in making a visit to the opera with their school class an exciting and enriching excursion for everyone involved. For almost all performances on the main stage and in the Tischlerei, we therefore offer preparatory workshops for school classes that you can book in conjunction with an opera visit. In preparation for the performance, school groups not only learn about the plot of the opera, but at the same time playfully engage with the respective theatre language, the production and the music.
The workshops usually take place at the opera, but it is also possible to visit the school.
Duration 90 minutes
Free of charge
with the exception of the performance
[€ 10,– per ticket]
Sponsorship classes accompany a new production on the main stage or in the Tischlerei. During rehearsal visits, workshops and discussions and, of course, during the performance visit, pupils gain insights into the respective work and the creation of a production during rehearsal visits, workshops and discussions with artists of the Deutsche Oper Berlin.
Feel free to contact us if you would like to become a sponsor class for a production.
Classes 10–13 / School lessons at the opera
In addition to Der Ring des Nibelungen, five other operas by Richard Wagner will be performed at the Deutsche Oper Berlin this season. We want to give young people the opportunity to get to know Wagner productions and offer selected rehearsal visits in the orchestra rehearsal hall or on stage, where they can experience first-hand how Wagner's music sounds and how these works are brought to life on stage.
Appointments on request, free of charge
The Flying Dutchman [13+]
Wagner tells the story of a mysterious sailor searching for the woman who will redeem him. In doing so, he created the prototype of German Romantic opera and at the same time explored his great life theme: redemption through love in death. This atmospheric sea-faring opera is an excellent introduction to the world of Wagner's music. >>> 18, 28 January 2026
Lohengrin [15+]
Shortly before the failure of the 1848 revolution, Richard Wagner wrote LOHENGRIN: an opera about a hero who tries in vain to pacify a divided people. The production raises the question of whether this hero, with his false swan wings, is not in fact a great manipulator. >>> 20 September; 4 October 2025
Tannhäuser und der Sängerkrieg auf Wartburg [16+]
The singer Tannhäuser could actually be a star. But society does not forgive him for his sexual escapades with Venus and clings to its ideals of modesty and morality. Kirsten Harms' production conjures up a late medieval fantasy world between purgatory and a knight's festival. >>> 28 September; 5 October; 2 November 2025
Tristan und Isolde [16+]
With TRISTAN UND ISOLDE, Wagner created the most musically daring work of his time. The passion between Tristan and Isolde is so strong that all outward appearances lose their meaning and only the power of emotion counts. Michael Thalheimer's production tells the story with a precise minimalism that directs the focus to the inner movements of the characters. >>> 1, 9, 16, 23 November 2025
Parsifal [16+]
The Society of the Knights of the Grail is at an end. Salvation seems possible only through someone who combines compassion and responsibility: Parsifal. The opulent production takes the stage festival through a journey through time from the crucifixion of Christ to the 21st century. Impressive images show that fanaticism and the destructive zeal of closed communities are timeless phenomena. >>> 29 March; 3, 11 April 2026
Orchestra rehearsal visits
For all classes
Classes with a particular interest in music can watch the orchestra rehearse in the rehearsal hall and learn more about the special features and challenges of a career as a musician.
Dates available on request throughout the year. Can also be booked independently of performances. Free of charge
Four wins
From school grade 1
Four musicians introduce the main instruments of the orchestra, play excerpts from well-known operas and invite children to try out the instruments. There is a lot to discover and learn about the profession of an orchestra musician in the opera.
Dates available on request throughout the year. Also available independently of performance visits.
Cost: €5 per person
Kaboom!
From school grade 1
Percussionists play many different instruments, a selection of which they will demonstrate. Of course, the children will also have the opportunity to try their hand at the timpani and learn more about the profession of percussionist in the opera!
Dates available on request throughout the year. Also available independently of performance visits.
Cost: € 5 per person
In collaboration with Rhapsody in School, singers from our ensemble or instrumentalists from our orchestra visit school classes and introduce themselves through their singing or playing. They talk about their everyday work and answer questions from the young audience.
After this personal introduction, a visit to an opera rehearsal or performance offers the opportunity to hear and see the artists in action on stage or in the orchestra pit.
Dates on request and by individual arrangement.
Rehearsal visits are free of charge
Performance visits €10 per student
