Orest - Elektra - San Francisco Opera
2026-06-27 19:30 - 21:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | Munich
Grief. Obsession. Vengeance.
In a brutal world where revenge is enacted with the axe, Klytämnestra has murdered her husband Agamemnon. Their daughter Elektra is consumed by her grief and is fixated on vengeance against her mother. Justice must be served.
San Francisco Opera’s production, praised by the San Francisco Chronicle as “extraordinary” and “stunning,” brings us to a modern-day museum and an exhibit on Elektra. A young woman grappling with her own life is pulled into the ancient narrative in this ingenious production by Keith Warner—a taut psychological thriller in which the past and the present become one.
Music Director Eun Sun Kim conducts Richard Strauss’ expressionist masterpiece, replete with one of the largest orchestras in the repertoire. The intense emotions of this Greek tragedy are rendered on a vast scale by Strauss’ massive soundscape and a score that winds up the dramatic tension with an intensity that can only lead to one horrific outcome.

jessicaphillipsclarinet · Strauss “Elektra”

Faust - Méphistophélès - Bayerische Staatsoper
2026-07-24 19:00 - 22:00, 2026-07-30 19:00 - 22:00 (Europe/Berlin) | Bavarian State Opera, Max-Joseph-Platz 2, Munich, Munich, 80539, Germany
On his futile search for the meaning of life, the ageing scholar Faust makes a pact with the Devil. Méphistophélès buys his soul and promises him eternal youth and love. Faust falls in love with Marguerite, however she soon leaves him. After she has killed their child, Marguerite succumbs to madness, but emerges morally superior from the encounter with Faust.
Of the numerous scorings of the most famous material in the history of German literary, the opera by the Frenchman Charles Gounod is perhaps the best known. In the 19th century the French opera developed an immense fondness for the German material, but it was often very free with the restructuring for the libretto. From the original the successful French librettist duo, Michel Carré and Jules Barbier (also the authors of the text of Les Contes d’Hoffmann) actually made a most effective opera text with a pronounced dramaturgy of contrasts – drinking scenes are contrasted with intimate ballads, soldier choirs with the church service hymns of supplication. Not least of all because of its immortal arias, after Bizet’s Carmen, Gounod’s Faust has become the most successful French opera.

www.gbopera.it · Charles Gounod (1818-1893): “Faust” (1859)

Der Freischütz - Kaspar/Samiel - Bayerische Staatsoper
2026-07-26 18:00 - 20:15, 2026-07-29 19:00 - 21:15 (Europe/Berlin) | Bavarian State Opera, Max-Joseph-Platz 2, Munich, Munich, 80539, Germany
In a village community that holds firm to archaic customs, the young hunter Max must pass a marksmanship test so he may marry his sweetheart, Agathe. Of all times now when his shooting has been very much below par! Carl Maria von Weber and his librettist Friedrich Kind fluctuate between ghost story, fairy tale, fortune play and interplay between heaven and hell. The plot centres around a diabolical ritual in the “Wolf’s Glen”, where a pact is made with Samiel to cast magic bullets that never miss their target. Its composer declared that the opera was celebrated by its world premiere audience in Berlin in 1821 with the, “most incredible enthusiasm”. In the decades that followed, the piece, at the time considered nature-oriented and traditional-romantic, swiftly became one of the most performed operas on German stages. And little wonder it was: In an age with a popular yearning for cultural, national identification opportunities, Der Freischütz offered a projection surface for an ideal community. So what about this opera appeals to director Dmitri Tcherniakov today?

ChicagoSymphony · Weber: Overture to Der Freischütz

Don Giovanni - Title Role - Lyric Opera of Chicago
2026-10-30 19:00 - 22:30, 2026-11-01 14:00 - 17:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | Civic Opera House, 20 N Upper Wacker Dr STE 400, Chicago, IL, IL 60606, United States
The Lyric Opera of Chicago 2026/27 Season kicks off with a thrilling fable of deceit and retribution. Under the baton of Music Director Enrique Mazzola, sharp humor, high drama, and an exquisite score intertwine in the story of a charismatic seducer whose unrepentant lustfulness brings about a most spectacular demise.
Director Robert Falls’s instant-classic take on this morality tale for the ages offers an expansive and hard-hitting Don Giovanni sure to satisfy anyone with a wicked taste for drama.

Language: Sung in Italian with projected English titles
Running Time: 3 hours 25 minutes, including 1 intermission
Location: Lyric Opera House
Composer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Vienna State Opera Orchestra · Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Don Giovanni, K. 527, Overture
