The Listeners - Howard - Lyric Opera of Chicago
2025-04-05 19:30 - 22:00, 2025-04-08 19:00 - 21:30, 2025-04-11 19:00 - 21:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | Civic Opera House, 20 N Upper Wacker Dr STE 400, Chicago, IL, IL 60606, United States
Lyric Opera of Chicago presents The Listeners, expected to be one of the most significant operatic events of the 2024/25 Season. Missy Mazzoli and Royce Vavrek, the renowned composer/librettist team, tell the story of Claire, who is driven nearly mad by an unending, low-frequency hum that she hears. In desperation, she joins a community organization, “The Listeners,” formed to discover the origin of the noise and destroy it. The group becomes frighteningly cult-like, ultimately leading to catastrophic consequences. Lyric’s vocally and dramatically brilliant cast will be conducted by Music Director Enrique Mazzola and directed by one of the most gifted theater artists of her generation, Lileana Blain-Cruz.

Freischütz in Concert - Kaspar/Samiel - Kammerakademie Potsdam
2025-04-28 18:30 - 21:00, 2025-04-30 19:30 - 22:00, 2025-05-03 19:00 - 21:30, 2025-05-05 20:00 - 22:30 (Europe/Berlin) | Nikolaisaal Potsdam, Wilhelm-Staab-Str. 10/11, Potsdam, D-14467, Germany
Selling one’s soul to the devil, summoning up spirits, and magic bullets are all part of the fantastical world of the first German opera composed by Carl Maria von Weber in 1821. This lyrical drama owes a large debt to Beethoven’s Fidelio and prefigures Tannhäuser by Wagner. It introduces the symbolic world of German romantic opera which would peak fifty years later with Richard Wagner’s tetralogy.

Otto Klemperer · Der Freischütz, Op. 77, J. 277: Overture

Don Giovanni - Leporello - Bayerische Staatsoper
2025-06-27 19:00 - 22:30, 2025-06-30 19:00 - 22:00, 2025-07-04 19:00 - 22:00, 2025-07-06 19:00 - 22:00, 2025-07-08 19:00 - 22:00 (Europe/Berlin) | Bavarian State Opera, Max-Joseph-Platz 2, Munich, Munich, 80539, Germany
“Chi è morto, voi o il vecchio?,” jokes the servant Leporello cryptically, after Don Giovanni has murdered “Il Commendatore”. The story of the “punished debauchee” has long since been the stuff of myth. Don Giovanni plays out in a field of tension between heaven and hell, as opposites collide in this dramma giocoso, set among amorous desires and the fall of angels. In this kaleidoscope of situations and characters, there is an absolute absence of clarity, evident alone in the fact that each of these characters lies – either to each other or to themselves. The timeless comedy motifs of role and dress change assume an oppressive ambiguity here. The master of transformation Don Giovanni, this polyerotic hedonist, is hard to fathom. In endless metamorphoses, he appears just as suddenly as he then immediately disappears again. The other characters know – they need him, as a mirror of themselves. And so for Leporello it becomes clear after his master’s death that Don Giovanni leads an eternal life and will affect ours again and again. This Don Giovanni now completes the Da Ponte cycle. “Faust” winner David Hermann stages at the Bayerische Staatsoper for the first time. General Music Director Vladimir Jurowski conducts the piece, in which Mozart threw open the doors to a new world, from which there can be no return.

Philharmonia Orchestra · Don Giovanni: Overture

Salome - Jochanaan - Staatsoper Hamburg
2025-10-05 18:00 - 20:00, 2025-10-07 19:00 - 21:00, 2025-10-09 19:30 - 21:30, 2025-10-12 19:30 - 21:30 (Europe/Berlin) | Staatsoper Hamburg, Dammtorstraße 28, Hamburg, 20354, Germany
Under the face of the wandering moon, spirit and body quarrel in all their greatness and wretchedness until the blood of two bodies flows. Strauss remains close to Wilde’s re-creation of the biblical material, which leads Salome from her mother’s tool to autonomy. It is she who, in her unfulfilled desire for the liberatingly different, the body of the prophet Jochanaan, seeks revenge and demands his head – a price the male-dominated society around Herod is willing to pay for their dance. Now that Salome holds his severed head in her hands, she can kiss Jochanaan, possess him if not alive, then dead. As if under a burning glass, Strauss pours Oscar Wilde’s demonic dramaturgy into sound like an eruption of the psyche, accompanying his protagonist from her failed escape from the decadence of her existence to her death.
Production: Dmitri Tcherniakov
Costumes: Elena Zaytseva
Lighting: Gleb Filshtinsky
Dramaturgy: Tatiana Verestchagina, Janina Zell
In German language with German and English surtitles
Supported by the Foundation for the promotion of the Hamburg State Opera

Gunter · Richard Strauss: Salome ROH

Don Giovanni - Title Role - Metropolitan Opera
2025-11-06 19:30 - 23:00, 2025-11-11 19:30 - 23:00, 2025-11-15 13:00 - 16:30, 2025-11-19 19:30 - 23:00, 2025-11-22 20:00 - 23:30 (America/New_York) | Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts: Metropolitan Opera House, Lincoln Center Plaza, New York, NY, NY 10023, United States
World premiere: National Theater (now Estates Theater), Prague, 1787. Aided by his ingenious librettist, Lorenzo Da Ponte, Mozart approached his operatic retelling of the Don Juan myth from a point of view that is neither tragic nor entirely comic, but rather lighthearted, urbane, and ironic. We follow the title character and his earthy comic sidekick, Leporello, through a series of encounters that begins with a fatal duel, moves back and forth between the humorous and the sentimental, and ends with the protagonist being dragged down to hell.

Philharmonia Orchestra · Don Giovanni: Overture

A Madison Symphony Christmas
2025-12-05 19:30 - 21:00, 2025-12-06 19:30 - 21:00, 2025-12-07 14:30 - 16:00 (America/Chicago) | Overture Center for the Arts, 201 State Street, Madison, WI, 53703, United States
This spectacular annual celebration has become a joyful way to begin the holiday season in our community for concertgoers of all ages. It’s no wonder that Maestro DeMain is bringing two of his favorite soloists, soprano Alexandra LoBianco and bass-baritone Kyle Ketelsen, to share their gifts, for his 32nd season. The Madison Symphony Chorus, Madison Youth Choirs, and the Mt. Zion Gospel Choir join us to bring this special concert to life. You’ll experience the same blend of familiar and new once again this year. The experience starts with caroling in the lobby with the Chorus before each performance to set the mood. Bring your family and friends to share this beloved Madison tradition with us!

Faust - Méphistophélès - Bayerische Staatsoper
2026-02-08 18:00 - 21:00 (Europe/Berlin), 2026-02-13 19:00 - 22:00 (Europe/Berlin), 2026-02-16 19:00 - 22:00 (Europe/Berlin), 2026-02-19 19:00 - 22:00 (Europe/Berlin), 2026-02-22 19:00 - 22:00 (Europe/Berlin), 2026-02-27 19:00 - 22:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | 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)
