Umberto Giordano’s FEDORA swings between whodunnit and the world of political intrigue, at once a tragic love story and a riveting psychogram. The opera was based on the play of the same name by Victorien Sardou, a French playwright who had already provided the source material for Puccini’s TOSCA. The triumphant world premiere of FEDORA in 1898 at the Tetro Lirico in Milan went down in history for featuring the break-out performance of the legendary tenor Enrico Caruso, who established its best-known aria, “Amor ti vieta”, in the collective memory of the world’s operagoers. That first production went on to huge international acclaim, touring Vienna, Paris, Hamburg and the New York MET. Giordano’s best received work after ANDREA CHÉNIER, FEDORA continues to thrill audiences with its musical richness and iconic melodies as it goes about depicting a fin-de-siécle elite whose private issues become entangled with political wheeling and dealing.
Princess Fedora Romazov is all a-flutter on the eve of her marriage to Count Vladimir Andrejevich, who is suddenly killed in an exchange of pistol fire. Fedora follows the presumed assassin and Russian exile, Count Ipanov, to Paris with a view to having him arrested, but Ipanov confesses the deed and declares his love for her. He had caught his own wife in the act of adultery with Fedora’s fiancé, who had then fired on Ipanov, which led to him killing the two-timer in self-defence. This revelation comes too late for him and Fedora, as the Russian police have already acted on her information and taken measures against Ipanov’s family. The lovers learn of this at their refuge in the Swiss Alps. A remorseful Fedora sees suicide as her only way out.

Conducctor: John Fiore
Director: Christof Loy
Stage design, Costume: Herbert Murauer
Light design: Olaf Winter
Video: Velourfilm AB
Chorus Master: Thomas Richter

With Vida Miknevičiūtė, Julia Muzychenko, Jonathan Tetelman, Navasard Hakobyan, Arianna Manganello, Matthew Peña, Michael Dimovski, Artur Garbas, Volodymyr Morozov, Tobias Kehrer, Michael Bachtadze, Chris Reynolds, Benjamin Dickerson et al.; Chorus and Orchestre

We are delighted to announce that FEDORA is being recorded. The performances on 30 November and 2 December were recorded in sound and vision. A Blu-ray of this production is being produced as a collaboration between EuroArts, rbb and the Deutsche Oper Berlin.

The Deutsche Oper Berlin Big Band is celebrating its 20th anniversary and dedicating itself to French jazz. During the German occupation, it stood for freedom and resistance; in the post-war period, it became the soundtrack of existentialism and an expression of the attitude to life of an entire generation: In the nightclubs of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, musicians such as Miles Davis and Sidney Bechet met Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and Boris Vian. Juliette Gréco was the undisputed muse of the bohemian scene – and for many jazz musicians from the USA, Paris became a place of longing beyond racial segregation and the McCarthy era. The Big Band of the Deutsche Oper Berlin celebrates the spirit of those years with music by Michel Legrand, Jacques Brel, Boris Vian and Django Reinhardt.

Musical director: Manfred Honetschläger
Solo guitar: Biréli Lagrène
Chansons: Thomas Pigor
Vocals, violoncello: Mathilde Vendramin
With the Big Band of the Deutsche Oper Berlin

We are delighted to continue our cooperation with Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg and EuroArts at this year's Big Band concert as part of the Musikfest Berlin. ‘Jazz de Paris’ at the Philharmonie Berlin was recorded by rbb on 20 September 2025 and will be released on CD and digitally on all major streaming platforms.

Jazz de Paris will be released on 16 January 2026 on the EuroArts label.
The single Je bois will be released on 19 December 2025.

Audiences exiting the theatre after the world premiere of Richard Strauss’s eighth opera INTERMEZZO felt wrong-footed and out-of-sorts. Instead of drawing on classical material or mythology, the composer had served up a straight story with him and his wife as characters, showing contempt for the boundary between private life and literary work. What they hadn’t realised was that Strauss had once again demonstrated that he was not only hip to musical-theatre trends but could also make them his own: for INTERMEZZO is Strauss’s response to 1920s audiences’ desire for “modern” opera subjects and can be seen as part of a line of avant-garde works by the likes of Arnold Schönberg (VON HEUTE AUF MORGEN) and Paul Hindemith (NEUES VOM TAGE). Unlike them, however, Strauss remains true to his classical sound and creates another of his famous soprano roles, shimmering with cantilenas, in the form of the main character, Christine, the fictional composer’s wife.

And in the same way that Christine represents Strauss’s real-life wife Pauline, so the successful kapellmeister Robert Storch stands in as Richard Strauss himself. Even the misunderstanding that almost destroys the fictional marriage is based on fact. The old comic device, a seductive letter from a woman of dubious virtue that falls into the wrong hands, leads Christine to believe that her husband is two-timing her. The misapprehension is cleared up and everything ends happily, yet the INTERMEZZO incident is more a way of painting the complex, sensitive picture of a woman who is unfulfilled but also aware that she is defined by her role as the caring spouse of a successful musician.

INTERMEZZO is the middle element in a Richard Strauss trilogy running at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, in which director Tobias Kratzer shines a spotlight on phases in the trajectory of a relationship. Following on from ARABELLA, which explored the difficulties of courtship, INTERMEZZO studies the “wearisome lowlands”. And as with ARABELLA Kratzer makes out a modernity in the material that transfers well to the 21st century: on the one hand we have a woman looking for meaning beyond that of a wife but unable to make the break from her husband; on the other hand the real-life husband reinforcing his patriarchal role by creating a character based on his wife, thereby immortalising his own view of the relationship. Because Strauss is also creating a monument to his own artistry in the form of complex symphonic interludes – another subject explored by the production.

Conductor: Sir Donald Runnicles
Production: Tobias Kratzer
Stage, costumes: Rainer Sellmaier
Lighting; Stefan Woinke
Video: Jonas Dahl, Janic Bebi

With Philipp Jekal, Maria Bengtsson, Elliott Woodruff, Anna Schoeck, Thomas Blondelle, Clemens Bieber, Markus Brück, Nadine Secunde, Joel Allison, Simon Pauly, Tobias Kehrer, Lilit Davtyan; Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin

The performances of INTERMEZZO on 25 April, 1 and 5 May 2024 will be recorded by radio3 (formerly rbb Kultur) and Naxos. 

The DVD/Blu-ray was released on 14 November 2025.
The CD will be released in June 2026.