Season overview 2025/26 - Deutsche Oper Berlin
Our season 25/26
We look forward to seeing you ... Welcome!
On 19 May 2025, a two-week exclusive advance sale for members of the Friends of the Deutsche Oper and holders of the Deutsche Oper Card 25/26 will begin. General advance sales will begin on 2 June 2025.
Welcome
We hope you enjoy reading it!
Season preview 25/26
Read all about the premieres – DIE DREI RÄTSEL, TRISTAN UND ISOLDE, FEDORA, VIOLANTA, L'ITALIANA IN ALGERI, GIULIO CESARE IN EGITTO and ZAR UND ZIMMERMANN in the main theatre, as well as OCTOPUS LADY, SATISFACTIONACTION and FINITE in the Tischlerei. We also present essays and discussions by, with and about Sir Donald Runnicles, Michael Thalheimer, Jörg Königsdorf, Sidney and Chiara Corbett, Jonathan Tetelman and Vida Miknevičiūtė, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Rolando Villazón, Christoph Seuferle, Martin G. Berger, Alessandro De Marchi and Antonello Manacorda. You will find dates, highlights and casts for all 40 productions in our repertoire, from Georges Bizet to Riccardo Zandonai, as well as information about our concerts.
Affordable and well informed at the opera
‘Opera days’ & ‘Coming up!’
We are offering our new opera day 21 times during the 2025/26 season. On these dates, tickets for children and young people up to the age of 18 cost €10.00, and €34.00 for everyone else, regardless of seat selection. All our opera days can be found behind the link and, of course, in the respective monthly calendars. >>> For five of these performances, we have adapted our popular ‘Opera Workshop’ format, which allows you to attend a rehearsal before the performance, after our dramaturgs have provided you with interesting information about the work in an introduction. After the rehearsal, you will have the opportunity to discuss what you have seen with selected guests. The title of this series is ‘Coming up: ...!’
30% discount for 2 tickets
Opera Card 2025/26
The Deutsche Oper Card 25/26 costs a one-time fee of €75.00 and entitles you to purchase up to two tickets for yourself and your companion with a 30% discount per performance in price categories A to E (excluding external and state ballet performances and performances with flat-rate prices in the auditorium, Tischlerei and foyer). On 19 May 2025, the two-week exclusive advance sale for members of the Förderkreis and holders of the Deutsche Oper Card 25/26 will begin. To be there right from the start and secure your favourite seats, all you need is the new card, which you can now purchase easily at the box office, by telephone or here in the web shop.
Our next premieres, major concerts and highlights 25/26
Premiere on 11 October 2025
The Three Riddles
In a wild mixture of fairy tale and social drama, road movie and grand opera, Detlev Glanert tells a witty, whimsical and somewhat creepy story about two very different children who ultimately come together to stand up to the adult world and go their own way... Conductor: Dominic Limburg; Director: Brigitte Dethier; with children's chorus and ensemble soloists, our orchestra, the Youth Orchestra of Berlin and students from the City West Music School.
Premiere on 1 November 2025
Tristan und Isolde
No ostentatious crowd scenes, but a language for the characters' inner turmoil: director Michael Thalheimer reveals the inextricable complex of consciousness and subconscious between Eros and Thanatos in a remarkably minimalist way. His celebrated production, originally staged at the Grand Théàtre de Gènève, is now coming to our opera house... Conductor: Sir Donald Runnicles; Director: Michael Thalheimer; Cast includes Clay Hilley, Georg Zeppenfeld, Elisabeth Teige, Thomas Lehman, Irene Roberts.
Premiere on 27 November 2025
Fedora
Giordano's opera moves between political thriller and crime drama, tragic love story and gripping psychological portrait, using lush tones to depict a cosmopolitan elite whose private entanglements get caught in the crossfire of politics. Christof Loy's production has already caused a stir in Stockholm and Frankfurt – now FEDORA is coming to Berlin... Conductor: John Fiore; Director: Christof Loy; With, among others, Vida Miknevičiūtė, Julia Muzychenko, Jonathan Tetelman / Rodrigo Porras Garulo.
Premiere on 8 March 2026
L’Italiana in Algeri
After LA RONDINE and DIE FLEDERMAUS, Rolando Villazón returns as director to demonstrate his comic talent with one of bel canto's great operatic comedies. The fact that L'ITALIANA continues to inspire enthusiasm today is undoubtedly due to the musical sophistication that makes Rossini the undisputed king of opera buffa... Conductor: Alessandro De Marchi; Director: Rolando Villazón; With, among others, Tommaso Barea, Jonah Hoskins, Aigul Akhmetshina, Misha Kiria
Premiere on 25 January 2026
Violanta
With VIOLANTA, Korngold captured the spirit of fin de siècle Vienna, oscillating between the Jugendstil and psychoanalysis, between Freud, Klimt and Schnitzler, and proved that he – at just 18 years old – had a diverse orchestral palette of timbres at his disposal and could write expressive and catchy melodies... Conductor: Sir Donald Runnicles; Director: David Hermann; with Ólafur Sigurdarson, Laura Wilde, Mihails Culpajevs and others
Premiere on 25 April 2026
Giulio Cesare in Egitto
With its immense richness of musical colour, this is arguably Handel's most famous opera. The fact that the plot draws on a well-known love story – the liaison between Julius Caesar and Cleopatra, overshadowed by intrigue and civil war – was and is conducive to its success. We present this work in the masterful staging by David McVicar... Conductor: Stefano Montanari; Director: David McVicar; With, among others, Vasilisa Berzhanskaya, Elena Tsallagova, Clémentine Margaine / Stephanie Wake-Edwards
Premiere on 20 June 2026
Csar and Carpenter
Thirty years ago, Lortzing's works were still part of the repertoire, but now they have almost completely disappeared from the programme. This also applies to ZAR UND ZIMMERMANN. Yet the story of Tsar Peter the Great is undoubtedly one of the most successful musical comedies of its time. Martin G. Berger, one of the most popular cross-over artists working in opera, operetta and musical, is staging it with refreshed dialogue texts... Conductor: Antonello Manacorda; Director: Martin G. Berger; With, among others, Artur Garbas, Philipp Kapeller, Patrick Zielke / Tobias Kehrer, Nadja Mchantaf
Camilla Nylund
in TANNHÄUSER
Vittorio Grigolo
in CARMEN
Asmik Grigorian
in MADAMA BUTTERFLY
Clay Hilley
in TRISTAN UND ISOLDE, SIEGFRIED and GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG
Vasilisa Berzhanskaya
in GIULIO CESARE IN EGITTO
Etienne Dupuis
in SIMON BOCCANEGRA
Catherine Foster
in ELEKTRA, GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG and TURANDOT
Misha Kiria
in IL BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA, L’ITALIANA IN ALGERI and GIANNI SCHICCHI
Elisabeth Teige
in TRISTAN UND ISOLDE, DIE WALKÜRE and SIEGFRIED
Laura Wilde
in VIOLANTA
Elena Tsallagova
in GIULIO CESARE IN EGITTO
Nadja Mchantaf
in ZAR UND ZIMMERMANN
Love at first beat
It has been eighteen years since Donald Runnicles first walked out in front of the orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin. Two years later he took over as General Music Director and has been making an impression – original, subtle, nuanced – ever since ... We visited him in his office for a review meeting. It is a sunny spring morning. On his desk: a list of performances that Sir Donald is scheduled to conduct in the coming season. Next to it: sheet music, a pencil, a rubber eraser. »Sit, sit,« says Runnicles, tidying the scores into a pile. »Let me clear some space.«
TRISTAN AND ISOLDE – from 1 November 2025
The poignant is always unpretentious
Scarcely any other artist reduces works to their core so radically as Michael Thalheimer. He seeks pain in theatre, not pleasure. The director is now turning Wagner’s TRISTAN UND ISOLDE into a captivating performance about day and night, love and death
FEDORA – from 27 November 2025
Two stars for a thriller on the opera stage
Jonathan Tetelman and Vida Miknevičiūtė make their stage debut as a duo in Umberto Giordano’s FEDORA. Get ready for top-notch musical movie-making
VIOLANTA – from 25 January 2026
An eroticism of hearing
With the global success of his VIOLANTA in 1916, 18-year-old Erich Wolfgang Korngold became a beacon of hope in the world of opera. However, the work was forgotten after World War II. This psychoanalytical thriller is now being rediscovered
What are we actually laughing at when we watch a comic opera?
Laughing for your life
Italy in the spring of 1813 was not exactly a barrel of laughs. Following the failure of Napoleon’s Russia campaign, it was not just Europe’s future that was up in the air; few were the Italian families that had not lost a son to the Bonapartist press gang, and fear was rife that the conscripts might never return from that harebrained adventure. And yet Italians were chortling. The staged work on everyone’s lips was Gioacchino Rossini’s L’ITALIANA IN ALGERI, a fast-moving comedy about a young Italian woman who’s brought in as a slave to satisfy the erotic urges of the Bey of Algiers but instead ends up creating waves in the ruler’s harem and even enabling all the captured Italians in Algiers to escape. Now, comic operas were being churned out by the dozen in Rossini’s time – and not only in Italy – and he himself had already penned multiple works of that ilk. However, Rossini’s ITALIANA resonated with the public for a quite different reason – and its success offers insights into what makes a good comic opera.
THE THREE RIDDLES – from 11 October 2025
The princess and the prat
The story behind Detlev Glanert’s THE THREE RIDDLES is so magical as to be worth re-telling. An original tale, conceived after a libretto by Carlo Pasquini
L'ITALIANA IN ALGERI – from 8 March 2026
In the ring with Rossini
After two productions as director and 21 appearances as a singer, Rolando Villazón returns to the Deutsche Oper Berlin to stage Rossini’s L’ITALIANA IN ALGERI – as a Mexican wrestling bout
L'ITALIANA IN ALGERI – from 8 March 2026
Timing is everything I
Alessandro De Marchi conducts Rossini's L'İTALIANA IN ALGERI. We asked him how Rossini creates humour and how this humour is revealed in the score. And, of course, who has the better sense of humour: Germans or Italians?
GIULIO CESARE IN EGITTO – from 25 April 2026
More than you can Händel!
Every summer, opera lovers from around the world converge on the tiny hamlet of Glyndebourne in the south of England. Twenty years ago Director of Opera Christoph Seuferle was bowled over there by a production of Händel’s GIULIO CESARE, which has also played to rave reviews at the New York Met and in Chicago. Seuferle explains why he brought Glyndebourne’s festival highlight to Berlin.
ZAR UND ZIMMERMANN – from 20 June 2026
Love in the operetta state
The light opera Zar und Zimmermann was a blockbuster for 150 years before it vanished. Director Martin G. Berger loves lightness that is hard to make, and brings Albert Lortzing’s work to the modern day.
ZAR AND ZIMMERMANN – from 20 June 2026
Timing is everything II
Antonello Manacorda conducts Albert Lortzing's ZAR UND ZIMMERMANN. We asked him what is still funny about Lortzing today and how humour arises in opera. And, of course, who has the better sense of humour: Germans or Italians?
The Tischlerei – Space for New Music Theatre and Concerts
The Tischlerei was once a workshop, but today it is a space for experiments and installations, for premieres and developing new pieces. It is home to our Junge Deutsche Oper and is the space for our musicians to invite the audience to extraordinary programmes of chamber and jazz concerts.
Premieres and concerts at the Tischlerei
OCTOPUS LADY – from 31 October 2025
Chiara home alone
Composer Sidney Corbett and daughter Chiara have written a children’s opera together. And Chiara’s childhood experiences fed into OCTOPUS LADY in a big way
Premiere on 2 October 2025
Satisfactionaction
In SATISFACTIONACTION, a space is created in which satisfaction through the useless, the absurd repetition, can be experienced immersively and celebrated collectively, and in which the audience gets their full multi-sensory money's worth. Is collective satisfaction merely an escape from the burning world, or does it also open up spaces in which reality can be renegotiated?
Premiere on 22 May 2026
FINITE
In their music theatre piece FINITE, composer Asia Ahmetjanova and director Franziska Angerer meditate on our relationship to death and how we deal with our own decay. In poetic images, a communal ritual emerges between mythology and performance, which searches for a lustful surrender to this ultimate consequence of life.
