. So is the Breth/Barenboim Lulu, to which I referred in my earlier Wozzeck review. Nono's Al gran sole carico d'amore looks as though it will be the excellent Salzburg production (reviewed here). Achim Freyer will doubtless bring his inimitable - at least I hope so - one-clown-size-fits-all approach to Cavalieri's Rappresentatione di Anima et di Corpo. The visiting Scala Don Giovanni looks very attractive; when I heard Barenboim conduct the short-lived Peter Mussbach production (click here), it was far and away the best live account of the score I had experienced, and still is. Cage fans and doubtless even interested sceptics - I probably fall into the latter camp - will be intrigued by the promised Cage cycle. The list of solo performers looks mouth-watering too, from Pollini to Mutter.PRESS RELEASE
Berlin, 28 April 2011
Jürgen Flimm and Daniel Barenboim present the Staatsoper programme for the second season at the Schiller Theater. This week artistic director Jürgen Flimm and general music director Daniel Barenboim presented the programme for the 2011/2012 season, the Staatsoper’s second at the Schiller Theater.
The 2011/2012 season will feature eight opera premieres on the main stage, as well as six additional premieres on the Werkstatt studio stage. Furthermore there will be one guest production, two operatic concerts, 19 operas from the repertoire, over 80 concerts, the annual FESTTAGE series at Easter, the second year of the INFEKTION! festival of contemporary music theater, one premiere and four repertoire productions by the Staatsballett Berlin, a continuation of the Schlaflos in Charlottenburg series in the foyer as well as numerous projects by the Junge Staatsoper. The Staatsoper’s programme comprises a total of 370 events.
The season will open on 3 October 2011 with Leoš Janáček’s From the House of the Dead staged by Patrice Chéreau and conducted by Simon Rattle as conductor. Following her Wozzeck production in 2011, Andrea Breth will direct Alban Berg´s Lulu for the 2012 FESTTAGE, once again with Daniel Barenboim conducting. Further premieres will be The Bartered Bride by Bedřich Smetana (Karl-Heinz Steffens / Balász Kovalik), Orpheus in the Underworld by Jacques Offenbach in a new production by Christoph Israel and Thomas Pigor (text) (Christoph Israel / Philipp Stölzl), Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno by Georg Friedrich Händel (Marc Minkowski / Jürgen Flimm), Rappresentatione di Anima et di Corpo by Emilio de’ Cavalieri (René Jacobs / Achim Freyer) and Dionysos by Wolfgang Rihm (Ingo Metzmacher / Pierre Audi). With the premiere of Luigi Nono’s Al gran sole carico d´amore (Ingo Metzmacher / Katie Mitchell), the Staatsoper will open a new venue, namely the “Kraftwerk Mitte”, a former power station. A guest production of the Teatro alla Scala di Milano will see Daniel Barenboim conducting Mozart’s Don Giovanni – with Anna Netrebko and Christopher Maltman. In addition two operas in concert form will be presented: Montezuma by Carl Heinrich Graun with Vesselina Kasarova and Pavol Breslik, and Bellini’s Norma with Edita Gruberova, Sonia Ganassi and Johan Botha.
Additional outstanding guest artists in the Staatsoper’s coming season at the Schiller Theater include Plácido Domingo, Rolando Villazón, Mojca Erdmann, Waltraud Meier, Anja Harteros, Erwin Schrott, Giuseppe Filianoti, Deborah Polaski, Michael Volle, Magdalena Kožená, Georg Nigl, Kristine Opolais and Pavel Černoch.
Daniel Barenboim will conduct the Staatskapelle in four concert programmes as well as the traditional New Year’s concert, two charity events for the reconstruction of the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, a gala concert celebrating the tenth anniversary of the Jewish MuseumBerlin, and three symphony concerts with both the Staatskapelle and the Filarmonica dellaScala as part of the FESTTAGE 2012. The concert soloists include Anna Netrebko, Elīna Garanča, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Alisa Weilerstein, Jonas Kaufmann, Maurizio Pollini and Radu Lupu. The Barenboim Cycle will offer collaborations with Christine Schäfer, Dorothea Röschmann and Thomas Quasthoff. A song recital by René Pape with Daniel Barenboim as accompanying pianist is a set part of the 2012 FESTTAGE. The Staatsoper will also present a six-part piano cycle featuring Daniel Barenboim, the young Chinese pianist Yuja Wang as well as András Schiff and Pierre-Laurent Aimard.
Two conductors who recently debuted with the Staatskapelle, Pietari Inkinen and Andris Nelsons, will return. Kirill Petrenko, another new-generation conductor, will lead the orchestra as a guest for the first time. Principal guest conductor Michael Gielen will conduct a symphony concert. Three song recitals with Anna Prohaska, Bejun Mehta and Ian Bostridge, in addition to a Baroque concert under the direction of Marc Minkowski, will further enrich the programme at the Schiller Theater. The chamber music series, successfully launched last season at the Rotes Rathaus (Berlin City Hall) and the Bode Museum, will be continued. The Werkstatt studio stage at the Schiller Theater, whose first season last year was enthusiastically received as a venue for innovative musical theater in Berlin, will present a John Cage cycle entitled Die Musik ist los – 100 Jahre Cage as part of the INFEKTION! festival, in addition to five premieres and one revival: Lucia Ronchetti’s Last Desire based on Oscar Wilde’s Salome, Manfred Stahnke’s Wahnsinn, das ist die Seele der Handlung based on texts by Edgar Allan Poe, Lehrstück by Paul Hindemith and Bertolt Brecht, and the Junge Staatsoper’s productions of Aschenputtel (Cinderella) by Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari and Moskau Tscherjomuschki, a musical comedy by Dmitri Shostakovich. Following more than 40 soldout performances, the opera Der gestiefelte Kater by César Cui is once again on the programme. The highly successful “Satie” evening Wissen Sie, wie man Töne reinigt? Satiesfactionen – with actors Jan Josef Liefers, Stefan Kurt and Klaus Schreiber – will also be revived.
And finally, the Staatsoper will return both this year and next year to the Bebelplatz. Against the backdrop of the opera building Unter den Linden, as impressive as ever despite reconstruction work, we are looking forward to celebrating STAATSOPER FÜR ALLE with many thousands of visitors - made possible by our partner BMW Berlin. On Sunday 26 June 2011 at 1:00 pm, Daniel Barenboim and the Staatskapelle Berlin will perform an open-air concert. On 30 June 2012 the performance of Mozart’s Don Giovanni with Anna Netrebko at the Schiller Theater will be shown live on wide screens on the Bebelplatz, followed on 1 July 2012 by a concert with Daniel Barenboim and the Staatskapelle Berlin.
The complete 2011/2012 programme and all information is now online at: http://www.staatsoperberlin.de/.
Advance sales for all performances of the 2011/2012 season will begin on 14 May 2011.
Subscription sales start on 30 April 2011. FESTTAGE 2012 cycle tickets are on sale now.
Members of the Staatsoper Association (Förderverein), subscribers and StaatsopernCard holders enjoy advance purchase rights for all performances starting on 7 May 2011.
Tickets are available online at http://www.staatsoper-berlin.de/, by phone at 0049 30 20 35 45 55 and at the Staatsoper box office at the Schiller Theater.
