Distant Sounds’s top tips for 2017

A somewhat Austro-German selection of highlights from the rest of the current operatic season, many of which I hope to see and review here, or for Bachtrack.com, Opera or The Wagner Journal.

Lulu (Oper Hamburg, February) – a new production by Christoph Marthaler of Berg’s opera with Barbara Hannigan in the title role.

Tristan und Isolde (Musiktheater am Revier, Gelsenkirchen, March) – Catherine Foster, Bayreuth’s current Brünnhilde, sings Isolde opposite Torsten Kerl’s Tristan (alternative cast takes over from April).

Mathis der Maler (Staatstheater Mainz, March) – a new production of Hindemith’s opera launches a bumper year for the composer, with stagings to follow of Die Harmonie der Welt (Linz, April) and Cardillac (Pforzheim, May).

Doktor Faust (Staatsoper Dresden, March, & Theater für Niedersachsen, Hildesheim, April) – Busoni’s masterpiece receives two new productions.

Elegy for Young Lovers (Gütersloh/Detmold, April/May) – Landestheater Detmold’s staging of Henze’s opera launches in the composer’s birthplace, Gütersloh, before moving to Detmold itself.

Das Lied der Nacht (Osnabrück, April) – a belated revival of an opera by Hans Gál from the 1930s.

Die schweigsame Frau (Aachen, May) – a new production of Strauss’s Ben Jonson comedy.This has now morphed into Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos

Das Rheingold (Deutsche Oper am Rhein, June) – Düsseldorf launches its new Ring cycle directed by Dietrich Hilsdorf.

Der Ring des Polykrates (Heidelberg, May) – a rare outing for Korngold’s early one-act opera, coupled with Weinberg’s Wir Gratulieren.

Die Gezeichneten (Bayrische Staatsoper, Munich, & Oper Köln, July) – two productions, one new (dir. Warlikowski, for the Munich Opera Festival), one revived, of Franz Schreker’s magnum opus running concurrently.

Distant Sounds's ten most memorable operatic experiences of 2016

It’s easy to come up with my top 3, less easy to put the rest in any meaningful order, so I’ll leave it at that. Titles hotlink to my original reviews where they appear online, on this blog or at Bachtrack.com (two, the Rheingold and Lohengrin, won’t appear until the March 2017 Wagner Journal).

1 Der Ring des Nibelungen – Bayreuth Festival
(dir. Castorf)

   My first return to Bayreuth after a quarter-century's absence was made by the fourth year of Frank Castorf’s ‘post-dramatic’ Ring – a gripping monument to contemporary theatre, superbly cast – especially the Brünnhilde of Catherine Foster and Wotan/Wanderer of John Lundgren – and conducted with fire by the veteran Marek Janowski, belatedly making his Bayreuth debut.

2 Der Traumgörge (Zemlinsky) – Staatstheater Hannover

A rare revival of Zemlinsky’s long-forgotten second opera was given a memorable staging by Hannover Opera, with Robert Künzli (left) magnificent in the title role and some glorious playing from the pit.

3 Faust – Oper Stuttgart
(dir. Castorf).

Yes, more Frank Castorf, and very much from the same cut as his Ring. Another miracle of stagecraft and rethinking, completely changing one’s view of Gounod’s French Romantic warhorse. 

And in no particular order:

Oedipe (Enescu) – Royal Opera House, London.
A first staged encounter with what must be one of the major operatic achievements of the 20th century

Simplicius Simplicissimus (Hartmann) – Independent Opera @ Sadler’s Wells, London. Triumphant first UK staging of Karl Amadeus Hartmann’s hard-hitting 1930s opera.

The Importance of Being Earnest (Barry) – Royal Opera @ Barbican Theatre, London. Hilarious revival of the ROH production.

Das Rheingold – Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe (dir. Hermann). Karlsruhe’s four-director Ring launched with this opener that manages to tell the whole story of the cycle.

Elektra – Landestheater Detmold
My first introduction to this company – a high-powered performance in a tiny theatre.

Lohengrin – Aalto Theater Essen (dir. Gürbaca)
The first production by Tatjana Gürbaca that has worked for me, with first-rate musical contribution.

Otello – Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Düsseldorf (dir. Thalheimer).
Minimalist staging that gets to the heart of the tragedy.

And finally, two turkeys:

Holofernes (Reznicek) – Theater Bonn – an overblown production of a very poor piece.

Der König Kandaules (Zemlinsky) – Flanders Opera – an even more overblown production that spoilt a very fine piece.

Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg – Landestheater Detmold – 16 October 2016

The Act II riot is imminent: the Kobold (Gaetan Chailly, foreground) watches as David (Stephen Chambers) accosts Beckmesser (Andreas Joren). Photos: Kerstin Schomburg

Hans Sachs – Derrick Ballard

Walther von Stolzing – Heiko Börner

Eva – Eva Bernard

Sixtus Beckmesser – Andreas Jören

David – Stephen Chambers

Magdalene – Gritt Gnauck

Veit Pogner – Christoph Stephinger

Kunz Vogelsang – Ewandro Stenzowski

Konrad Nachtigall – Markus Köhler

Fritz Kothner – Insu Hwang

Balthasar Zorn – Markus Gruber

Ulrich Eißlinger – Norbert Schmittberg

Augustin Moser – Uwe Gottswinter

Hermann Ortel – Haeyeol Han

Hans Schwarz – Michael Zehe

Hans Foltz – Bartolomeo Stasch

A Nightwatchman – Michael Zehe

A Goblin – Gaëtan Chailly

Chorus, Extra Chorus, Statisterie & Symphony Orchestra, of Landestheaters Detmold

Conductor – Lutz Rademacher

Director – Kay Metzger

Designer – Petra Mollérus

Lighting – Henning Streck

Hans Sachs (Derrick Ballard)

As Hans Sachs reflects on the riot of the previous night in his Act III ‘Wahn’ monologue, he suggests ‘Ein Kobold half wohl da!’ – ‘A goblin must have helped!’ It’s a cue for director Kay Metzger to enmesh Wagner’s comedy with the magic of Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, framing the whole action of the opera as the work of a mischievous, silent puck-like character. This Kobold directs more than just the Act II mayhem: he is responsible for misplacing the items that give Eva the excuse to stay back to converse with Walther in Act I; he ensures that when Stolzing tries to wow the Masters with his song they are put under an intoxicated spell; he orchestrates the pratfalls and knocks that accompany Beckmesser’s clandestine exploration of Sachs’s workshop in Act III; and unseen by the humans he constantly cajoles, teases and reacts. Both Meistersinger and Dream centre on a midsummer night of confusion and unexplained happenings, a Polterabend indeed, and to further the link, Shakespeare’s drama is sometimes known in German-speaking countries as ‘A St John’s Night Dream’, while Wagner’s Johannistag itself dawns with Walther’s own Morgentraum, his ‘morning dream’. In short, imagery from Shakespeare’s play infuses Wagner’s libretto. The composer referred to the opera as a kind of ‘cheerful satyr-play’ to his thoroughly serious Tannhäuser, yet the result here is a different kind of comedy from the one we normally expect from Meistersinger, and despite the over-egged antics of the Kobold (energetically played by the diminutive dancer Gaëtan Chailly), which can distract and frustrate as much as amuse, there is a charm about the thing that suits the intimate, small-scale nature of the staging and the theatre in which it sits.

The Act III Quintet

As if to counter the supernatural imposition, Petra Mollérus’s designs put us in the very real world of reconstructed postwar Germany in the 1950s, from the bland rebuilding of bombed-out Nuremberg to period furniture and clothing. Within this setting, Metzger is able to poke fun at the nationalist sentiments that surface in the text: Sachs’s infamous ‘Deutsch und echt’ speech is accompanied by a tableau of a little wooden summerhouse – of the kind seen throughout the country in its ‘Kleingarten’ allotment gardens – with David raising the modern German flag, a neat, ironic deflation of the portentousness of music and text. The new postwar ‘nationalism’ is only for a cosy, patriarchal domesticity, a point made earlier during the Quintet when the two women, Eva and Magdalene, don house coats as they prepare to defer to their new husbands-to-be against a backdrop of mod-con imagery. There are other nice touches that colour the period setting, from the church service at the start refashioned as choir practice, to the Apprentices as believable schoolchildren, to the obviously newly planted tree in the street in Act II. The human drama is played without over exaggeration of character – Beckmesser is a believable older suitor rather than a caricatured figure of fun, and Sachs, visibly mourning over the mementos of his late wife one minute, then has a difficult time rejecting Eva when she throws herself at him with particularly amorous intent. But it is the Kobold who has the final ‘word’ as he joins Sachs, who is seated with his legs hanging over the front of the stage at the very end, and they crack open beers with a conspiratorial ‘job well done’ salute.

Detmold’s Landestheater is a beautifully intimate space in which to experience the full force of Wagner, and this is only the latest of his works to appear there in recent years, following on from Tristan, Parsifal and a complete Ring – not bad for a place that only seats about 640. Some years ago, the pit was enlarged to cope with these demands, and descends beneath the stage, almost in Bayreuth fashion if without the covering cowl. Even sitting right at the front the sound emerged well blended, at least until the ‘onstage’ trumpets and side drum occupied the stage box right next to me for their two blasts in Act III (Beckmesser’s lute/harp was also positioned there but was less distracting). Lutz Rademacher, who impressed in Strauss’s Elektra last season, took the Overture at quite a lick, but his pacing overall was apt for the context, and he even suggested a Mendelssohnian lightness in some of the dreamier episodes – it made one wonder if Wagner subconsciously aped the MND chords at the start of Walther’s ‘Dream Song’.

David (Stephen Chambers) is manipulated
by the Kobold (Gaetan Chailly)

Derrick Ballard’s Hans Sachs was on loan from Staatstheater Mainz, where he debuted in the role in 2015. His was a highly sympathetic portrayal, with his wavy locks looking not inappropriately like a latterday Dürer, and he sang with plenty of noble tone and variety of colour, ably recovering towards the end from an obvious tiredness, or dryness, during the Quintet. He had his match in the wonderfully detailed and vocally distinguished Beckmesser of Andreas Jören, the Detmold ensemble’s leading baritone. Heiko Börner was also a known quantity to me, having been heard as Peter Grimes and Zemlinsky’sDwarf elsewhere in Germany last season. His singing as a mature-looking Walther was a little strained by Act III and his stage presence needed more sense of involvement, but it was a capable assumption. I was not so enamoured of Eva Bernard’s less than elegantly sung Eva, and Christoph Stephinger was a wooden Pogner, with poor diction and a plodding delivery that added an accent to every note. Gritt Gnauck’s Magdalene was also more stilted than her impressive Klytemnestra in the spring, but Insu Hwang, also a member of the Detmold ensemble, and a Cardiff Singer competitor in 2015, made a strong impression as a burnish-voiced Kothner, and Stephen Chambers was a lively and winning David. The choruses – small by Meistersinger standards, but big for this diminutive theatre – sang their all and capped what was undeniably a superb company and ensemble achievement.

In repertoire until May 2017, and touring to Schweinfurt, Paderborn & Wolfsburg

Die Frau ohne Schatten - Hessischer Staatstheater, Wiesbaden - 15 October 2016

Andrea Baker (Nurse)
Photos: Karl & Monika Forster

Emperor – Richard Furman

Empress – Erika Sunnegårdh

Dyer’s Wife – Nicola Beller Carbone

Barak, the Dyer – Oliver Zwarg

Nurse – Andrea Baker

Spirit Messenger – Thomas de Vries

Voice of the Falcom/Guardian of the Threshold to the Temple – Stella An

Hunchbacked brother – Benedikt Nawrath

One-eyed brother – Alexander Knight

One-armed brother – Benjamin Russell

Vision of a Youth Aaron Cawley

Voice from Above – Karolina Ferencz

Choir & Youth Choir of Hessischen Staatstheaters Wiesbaden

Hessisches Staatsorchester Wiesbaden

Conductor – Eckehard Stier

Director – Uwe Eric Laufenberg

Revival director – Gisbert Jäkel
Costumes – Antje Sternberg
Lighting – Andreas Frank
Video – Gérard Naziri

Guardian of the Threshold (Stella An), Erika Sunnegårdh (Empress)

The first revival of Uwe Eric Laufenberg’s production of Strauss’s Die Frau ohne Schatten, originally mounted in the Strauss anniversary year of 2014, has maintained much of its initial casting. It’s a fairly straightforward staging – if anything about this opera can be straightforward – and, rather like Laufenberg’s Bayreuth Parsifal, tells the story well enough without really suggesting any great insight or rethinking of the ideas behind the symbol-heavy fairytale. A vertically shifting set moves effortlessly between the spirit and human worlds, one white and clinical (though some of the structure was looking grubby with use), the other dingy and dishevelled. Characters are well delineated – the first human scene is particularly affecting, with Barak’s sexual advances rebuffed by his wife to his own bewilderment. The quality of the acting is truly first rate. Laufenberg does little to temper the sickly sweet denouement, fielding crowds of children and adults to drum home the opera’s message of pro-creation – a little irony would not have gone amiss here, let alone some of the pessimism expressed in Staatstheater Kassel’s far more thought-provoking First World War retelling from the same anniversary year. My other main caveat was with the gratuitous torture scene in which at the Emperor’s behest the poor Youth is castrated rather than divulge his complicity, while the Empress has her nightmares of other things.

Nicola Beller Carbone (Dyer's Wife), Oliver Zwarg (Barak), Erika Sunnegårdh (Empress), Andrea Baker (Nurse), chorus

The casting was mixed in its effectiveness. Erika Sunnegårdh as the Empress and Nicola Beller Carbone as the Dyer’s Wife were the highlights – both characterisations full of musical and dramatic insight and vocally contrasted enough to complement each other. Andrea Baker’s steely Nurse was generally impressive though could have done with more depth of tonal colour, and Richard Furman’s Emperor was virile and capable. Oliver Zwarg’s Barak was the one big disappointment. His tone was blustery, he often sang a smidgen flat and there was none of the burnished bass-baritone that should make the role the most sympathetic of the whole opera. His gruff stage presence, however, made his early scenes of marital break-up touching to watch.

The large orchestra, spilling out into the stage boxes, played magnificently under the commanding baton of Eckehard Stier. He encouraged the players to let rip in the interludes, though there were times when the singers more distantly positioned on the stage struggled to ride the volume from the pit.

Tannhäuser – Theater Aachen – 6 March 2016

Venus (Sanja Radišić) emerges from the altarpiece. Photos: Wil van Iersel

Adapted from review in The Wagner Journal, July 2016

Tannhäuser – Paul McNamara

Elisabeth – Linda Ballova

Venus – Sanja Radišić

Wolfram von Eschinbach – Hrólfur Saemundsson

Hermann, Landgrave of Thuringia – Woong-jo Choi

Walther von der Vogelweide – Patricio Arroyo

Biterolf – Pawel Lawreszuk

Heinrich der Schreiber – John Zuckerman

Reinmar von Zweter – Benjamin Werth

Young Shepherd – Svenja Lehmann

Chorus of Theater Aachen

Aachen Symphony Orchestra

Conductor – Kazem Abdullah

Director – Mario Corradi

Designer/costumes – Italo Grassi

Lighting – Dirk Sarach-Craig

A kneeling Hermann (Woong-jo Choi, left) pleads with Tannhäuser (Paul McNamara) to rejoin their
company as the other ‘knights’ look on.

Compared with Calixto Bieito’s Tannhäuser in Antwerp (reviewed in the last TWJ), which eschewed any reference to religion, Italian director Mario Corradi’s production of Wagner’s ‘Romantic opera’ for Theater Aachen gives the whole drama an ecclesiastical setting. Tannhäuser is a Catholic priest, and we first see him during the Overture celebrating Mass in Italo Grassi’s impressive, atmospheric church-interior set. But he is a priest with a troubled mind. As the music leaves the pilgrims behind and enters the world of the Venusberg, a visual transformation takes place: an angel sweeps down from the flies, Christ staggers in carrying his cross, Elisabeth takes an imprint of his face on a shroud and offers it to Tannhäuser and the congregation is magicked away – our hero’s mind is scrambling as ‘pure’ images give way to ‘impure’. Three stone pillars turn to reveal they house half-naked temptresses, who divest Tannhäuser of his priest’s robes. The chalice from the Mass becomes a vessel for an aphrodisiac potion and the incense an intoxicating perfume, and the confessional box transforms into Venus’s bower. As the Overture ends with a thud (the ‘Dresden’ version of the score is used throughout except for the ‘Paris’ version of the post-bacchanalian Venus-Tannhäuser scene – there’s really no need for the extra music of the Parisian Bacchanal here), Venus herself steps out of the altar-piece as the Virgin Mary and, removing her blue cloak, reveals herself as a Marilyn Monroe-like seductress, complete with dress-billowing-in-the-updraught effect. At the end of their scene together, Tannhäuser is found on his own in a faint and he is stretchered off as the Young Shepherd, an altar boy, sweeps up the last ‘evidence’ of the debauchery from the church floor.

After these theatrical coups, the rest of the staging is comparatively uneventful, but the consistency of Corradi’s narrative re-telling in this context is impressive. It soon becomes apparent that Tannhäuser is a priest torn between his vows of celibacy and the temptations of a vivid imagination, a mind that has an erotic fascination with the Virgin, in whom he sees Venus, yet also through whom is channelled Elisabeth’s purity. Elisabeth’s death in Act III, for instance, is movingly but unsentimentally portrayed as she dons Mary’s blue garb and is led away by the angel, while Venus makes her last-ditch attempt at wooing Tannhäuser wearing the same cloke. The closing image is of the life-size Marian statue finally revealed above the altar, with the sainted Elisabeth lying below. Further clues as to Tannhäuser’s state of mind appear when Venus provocatively saunters in during the song contest to tempt him and spur him on to his self-revelatory critiques of his colleagues – he is obviously the only person present who sees her. There’s also a telling moment earlier in Act II, after Elisabeth has delivered her second big solo to Tannhäuser as her confessor, ‘Ich preise dieses Wunder’, when he stops himself from kissing her head as she bows before him as her priest – for all his words about her purity, he obviously struggles to keep his relationship with her chaste, yet sees her as his salvation from his libidinous vice. So when, at the climax of the contest, he reveals he has experienced the ‘Berg der Venus’, he seems to be admitting not to a geographical dallying but to having actively broken his vow of chastity, making his need to seek penance in Rome for once plausible. He has broken the rules of the Church more than of society and follows – or at least attempts to follow – that organisation’s preferred route to forgiveness.

The one area where Corradi’s rethinking is less convincing is in the general societal context itself. Tannhäuser’s fellow minnesingers are also clerics, which makes the situation of a song contest rather peculiar, with the competitors’ offerings delivered from a lectern as if they are competing in a rather heated sermon play-off. Landgrave Hermann is the bishop, or other such church bigwig, with Elisabeth plausibly his niece (at least the original doesn’t have her as his daughter), but the ‘nobles’ are the common local folk, dressed 1940s-style in cardigans and twin-sets – the music of their ‘Entry’ sounds too grand to go with their simple queue to bow before Hermann and take their places in the pews. Incidentally, nothing seems to be made of this period setting per se, unless one is to read into it a parallel with a whole nation going through a process of penance in the post-war years, or to see it as a critique of the Roman church’s ambivalent relationship with the Third Reich, but I feel either is probably reading more into things than is intended. Instead, the setting allows the Prelude to Act III to be accompanied by archive film of a jubilee pilgrimage to Rome during the pontificate of Pius XII, which sets up the context for the ensuing denouement effectively as the pilgrims return to their home church after their journey. As well as the Marian tableau of the closing bars we also see the green sprouting of the papal staff winding up the altar’s columns like Jack’s beanstalk – a surreal but effective final image of rebirth, both virginal and Venusian.

The difficulties involved in casting of Tannhäuser are often cited as a reason for its relative scarcity among the Wagnerian canon on stage. German houses never seem to have a problem finding the singers for these demanding roles, though, and even the UK has had two productions scheduled this season, at the Royal Opera and Longborough. Aachen’s Tannhäuser was the Irish tenor Paul McNamara. He is not alone in appearing a little stretched by Act I’s often high-lying tessitura, but the rest of the role fitted his voice with natural ease, and he combined lyricism with dramatic heft and a convincing stage presence. Linda Ballova’s Elisabeth was a bit rough round the edges, but made a convincing case for a more pugnacious, forceful vocal characterisation of the role than we sometimes hear, a depiction that set up an interesting counterpoint with her demure stage presentation. Sanja Radišić’s attractively deep mezzo gave Venus her rightful allure, though rather flaccid diction meant the words – and especially consonants – tended not to come across. The staging played down Wolfram’s role more than usual (and certainly compared to the prominence Bieito gave him in Antwerp in the autumn), but Hrólfur Saemundsson made the part his own, bringing expressive subtlety and a warmly engaging tone. Woong-jo Choi’s sonorous Hermann was impressive, too. The Aachen chorus was excellent and made the climax of Act II and the very end of Act III spine-tingling moments. The orchestral balance was a bit uneven at first, with lower brass rather crowding everyone else out in the Overture, but Aachen’s General Music Director Kazem Abdullah eventually tamed them and his generally swift tempi lent an impressive coherence and dramatic cogency to the whole evening.

Tristan und Isolde – Badisches Staatstheater, Karlsruhe – 17 April 2016

Isolde (Heidi Melton) and Tristan (Erin Caves). Photo: Falk von Traubenberg

Adapted from review in The Wagner Journal, July 2016

Tristan – Erin Caves

Isolde – Heidi Melton

Kurwenal – Armin Kolarczyk

Brangäne – Christina Niessen

King Mark – Konstantin Gorny

Melot – Matthias Wohlbrecht

Young Sailor/Shepherd – Cameron Becker

Steersman – Mehmet Altiparmak

Badisches Staatstheater Chorus

Badische Staatskapelle

Conductor – Justin Brown

Director – Christopher Alden

Designer – Paul Steinberg

Costumes – Sue Willmington

Lighting – Stefan Woinke

Movement director – Elaine Brown

With this Tristan added to its recent Parsifal, and with its multi-director Ring cycle launching this summer and due for completion in October 2017, the southwest German city of Karlsruhe seems set to become something of a Badischer Bayreuth. As the brochure calling for donations towards its new Ring claims, ‘Karlsruhe ist eine Wagner-Stadt’. It certainly has some of the necessary credentials: Wagner himself visited seven times, Hermann Levi and Felix Mottl conducted early performances of his works there, Joseph Keilberth cut his professional teeth at what was his home-town theatre, and in more recent times the company has helped launch the Wagnerian careers of Deborah Polaski, Lance Ryan and Stuart Skelton. Now, too, it is attracting some of the bigger names in operatic production, and this Tristan was put in the capable hands of Christopher Alden, a director known for his ability to draw out unexplored facets of an opera’s essence.

With Tristan und Isolde, Alden isn’t interested in a specific milieu or even a strictly narrative telling of the story. Costumes are mid-20th-century and the single setting for all three acts is perhaps a lounge on a luxury cruise liner in 1920s modernist style – a light, bright environment for characters who constantly seek night and darkness. In a programme interview, Alden says he sees Wagner’s concept of love here as of an insoluble togetherness, and not simply a romantic attraction. He plays off this existential relationship between Tristan and Isolde with a more traditional, down-to-earth love-play between Brangäne and Kurwenal: during the Act II tryst they hover in the background, each in their own tormented world, until Brangäne plucks up the courage and makes a pass at her opposite number but is spurned; then, during the climax of the duet, as her warning flames almost seem to set the whole place ablaze, he finally attempts to return the favour but backs off. 

Meanwhile, Tristan and Isolde’s attachment is at different times physically distant (they greet each other at the start of Act II from opposite sides of the stage) and intimate – they spend Brangäne’s first warning dancing a slow, smoochy waltz in each other’s arms. Their physical engagement is therefore not nearly as cool as in Christoph Marthaler’s Bayreuth production (there are visual parallels, though, with the liner setting, the light manipulated by switches on the wall and the secondary characters often emoting in silence in the background), but their apartness is shown to be a crucial element of their interaction. For instance, they seem to spend a lot of time standing staring at each other without touching – as preceding the strikingly delayed consumption of the potion in Act I. Isolde is present on stage for much of the last act, in Tristan’s environment, in his mind, but each is unaware of the other’s physical nearness. Theirs is a world where being apart is to be alive and in agony, together is oblivion and ecstasy. Tristan’s wound, supposedly healed by Isolde’s magic powers, is an open one that like Amfortas’ refuses to heal, and in keeping it fresh he becomes the agent of his own demise. Brangäne had concocted the love potion from the lounge’s cocktail bar, following one of Isolde’s mother’s recipe cards, and in Act III Tristan hopes in desperation that by mixing his own drink from the same pool of ingredients he will find the poison that they had both expected and longed for. His death-wish is viscerally exposed throughout the evening, while Isolde’s ultimate fate is left open – she sings the Liebestod far from Tristan’s body and poised with a pistol in hand but unraised as the lights cut.

Alden also points up the formal similarities between all three acts. Each opens, after an orchestral prelude in each case, with an offstage contribution that defines the real world: the young sailor in Act I, the hunting horns in Act II and the shepherd’s ‘alte Weise’ in Act III. All three are visually suggested to be coming from a wind-up gramophone, hinting at an artificial intrusion into the imaginary, internal world that takes over for the rest of each act. Each also ends, like a stuck record on that gramophone, with the arrival of King Mark and his men, here a brutal lot who are happy to duff Brangäne and Kurwenal up in Act II and who, with Melot standing aloof above them on a balcony, maintain a menacing presence whenever they are on stage. Thus in each case, the ‘real world’, the world of ‘light’ and ‘day’, prevails. With these arching parallels and his fascinating, often provocative Personenregie, Alden’s conceptual exploration of many of the opera’s themes is thus impressive, and everything works consistently within the world he has chosen to present.

With no fewer than three Tristan productions staged within this quarter of southwest Germany inside of a month (the others were at Baden-Baden and at the regional theatre in Kaiserslautern) the call upon singers for the main roles has naturally been competitive. Karlsruhe hit lucky with two Americans, Erin Caves and Heidi Melton. Caves, who had previously sung Tristan in Stuttgart, doesn’t have a big voice, and at times struggled to equal the vocal power of his Isolde, but he gained in sonic penetration as the evening progressed and, apart from some unfortunate but forgiveable evidence of tiring in the latter stages, sang with both mellifluous and incisive command, and he threw his all into a highly physical presentation of the role. Melton, a former member of the Karlsruhe ensemble and who was due in London shortly after this performance to begin rehearsing the part of Isolde in English for ENO, was magnificent: a full, rich soprano with carrying power to match her lyrical and word-sensitive delivery. With the subsidiary roles double-cast during this six-performance run, this was the debut night for the ‘B’ team, who acquitted themselves generally positively. I had some caveats about the Brangäne of Christine Niessen, whose voice exhibited a rather large tonal divide between a somewhat shrill upper range and sumptuous lower one. Armin Kolarczyk, though, was a determined but sympathetic Kurwenal and his warm, subtle singing gave evidence of why he has been snapped up by Bayreuth for its new Meistersinger next year. Konstantin Gorny’s Mark conveyed the bitterness in the character’s sense of betrayal and Matthias Wojlbrecht’s Melot made his mark without resorting to clichéd villainy. Cameron Becker’s Young Sailor and Shepherd (and manipulator of the wind-up gramophone in Act III) was lyrical and sensitive, and Mehmet Altiparmak made a telling cameo as the Steersman. 

I can’t claim to have registered any differences, having read of the fact after the event, but the musical preparation for this production had had recourse to a copy of the score in the Staatstheater archives that bears annotations by Felix Mottl from the time of the Karlsruhe premiere of Tristan in 1884 – instructions conveying first-hand evidence of the Master’s wishes that seem to go beyond the stage-direction additions already present in the Peters Edition/Dover score and chiefly cover dynamic variations. Justin Brown certainly drew nuanced playing from the Staatstheater orchestra which, despite one or two smudged entries and links, had both suavity and fire, characteristics that also marked Brown’s interpretative decisions.

Bayreuth Festival 2016

Links to my reviews for Bachtrack.com from the 2016 Bayreuth Festival:

Das Rheingold
“Aleksander Denić’s designs are phenomenal in their eye for detail and realism”

Die Walküre
“The final scene has rarely come closer to drawing tears”














  Siegfried
“Catherine Foster’s Brünnhilde was glorious in its tonal allure”











Götterdämmerung
“Marek Janowski’s conducting throughout has been a revelation”

Tristan und Isolde
“Gould was... tireless, crisply enunciated, shapely phrased and even in vocal weight”

Parsifal
“Zeppenfeld’s Gurnemanz was a masterclass in clear enunciation, opulent bass tone and vocal charisma”

Holofernes – Theater Bonn – 2 June 2016

Judith (Johanni van Oostrum) with the head of Holofernes
Photos: Thilo Beu

Holofernes – Mark Morouse

Judith – Johanni van Oostrum

Abra, her maid – Ceri Williams

High Priest of Bethulien – Daniel Pannermayr

Achior – Johannes Mertes

Assad – Martin Tzonev

Beethoven Orchestra Bonn

Theater Bonn Chorus

Conductor – Jacques Lacombe

Director – Jürgen R. Weber

Sets – Hank Irwin Kittel

Costumes – Kristopher Kempf

Lighting – Friedel Grass

The chance to experience an opera from the 1920s that hasn’t been seen or heard for nearly 90 years was in theory too good an opportunity to miss. Holofernes by Emil von Reznicek was premiered at the Charlottenburg Opera in Berlin (now the Deutsche Oper) in 1923 and was revived for a further couple of seasons before, like Reznicek’s other dozen or so operas, falling completely from the repertoire. The Viennese-born, Berlin-settled composer (1860-1945) is now known, if at all, for the overture to his 1894 comic opera Donna Diana – that work was only revived on stage in modern times as recently as 2003. Some of that neglect must be down to the retrogressive nature of his musical language, which would have sounded distinctly passé at the time of its writing, if Holofernes is anything to go by. A subject as dramatic, and lurid, as the beheading of Nebuchudnezar’s general Holofernes by the beautiful Judith, written in the wake of Strauss’s Salome and Elektra, would seem a shoe-in for the lush, late-Romantic bordering on Expressionist musical styles that were prevalent at the time. But Reznicek resorts to a kind of third-hand Wagner for his declamatory vocal writing and orchestral textures, with intermittent local colour hinting at the Russian colourists. In short, the music wouldn’t have sounded out of place 30 or more years earlier. Moreover, Reznicek doesn’t seem able to sustain anything for long: the score sounds fragmentary, a sequence of short, unconnected moments, rather than the through-composed music drama it is presumably aiming to be. A lot of the musical ideas are trite and short-winded, the melodies – apart from the quoted Kol nidrei – are unmemorable, and only some occasional flashes of orchestral imagination – for instance when trying to sound ‘modern’ in the Straussian sense – hint at what could have been. The saving grace of the opera is that it is short – about the length of Salome, including an interval, though it was made a little longer here by the inclusion of an overture added, presumably for its last revival, in 1926.

Judith beneath the 'banana'...

Bonn Opera threw everything at it to try and convince us that it is worthy of being staged. Or at least that is the impression left by a completely over-the-top production by director Jürgen R. Meyer, in which excess seems the order of the day. (Fortunately, the company also threw musical quality its way, of which more later.) Any attempt to exaggerate, to camp it up, is taken. Kristopher Kempf’s costumes are straight out of 1960s Star Trek, as the Israelites and Assyrians are dressed to kill like the exotic humanoid aliens encountered by the Enterprise crew. Quite why the Jewish priests had huge boxes on their shoulders (misplaced tefillin?) or why the Assyrian soldiers were dressed up as spiders or horses was not made clear. And what was with the giant inflatable banana looming over the Jewish village (Abra, Judith’s maid, at one point tries to get her mistress to eat a real one, too)? Perhaps related to the phallic graffiti decorating Holofernes’s siege tower that dominates Act II. There is more fruit later, when Judith tries out her machete skills on a water melon before moving on to the sleeping Holofernes himself. Throughout, there is a surfeit of imagery conveying torture – bodies on poles, severed heads used as counterweights to drawbridges, and in Act I some rather unsavoury video imagery of someone severing the head of a plastic doll with a knife and hatchet. The director attempts to inject some humour into proceedings in his direction of character – especially with the tiresomely over-demonstrative Abra – but it only points up how laughable the whole production is, for instance with the poor onstage orchestral trumpeter forced unconvincingly to ‘act’ out a tiff with the slave holding his music (the second time he appears, he gets stabbed for his labours). And is that Chinese calligraphy projected on to one of the suspended, vegetable-like balloons in the closing scene? It all makes Judith’s suicide at the end seem a saving grace rather than a tragic denouement.

Holofernes (Mark Morouse)

The cast, chorus and orchestra did as much as they could with the material. Mark Morouse’s Holofernes saved the character from becoming too much of a pantomime villain (the vocal writing suggests Alberich at times), while Johanni van Oostrum’s Judith was suitably alluring of voice and stage presence. The subsidiary roles were also creditably performed. And conductor Jacques Lacombe deserves credit for keeping the performance moving, not easy given the often perfunctory nature of Reznieck’s writing. I went with an open mind and wish I had enjoyed it more, but it does go to show that, try as we might to persuade ourselves otherwise, some works are forgotten for a reason.

Die tote Stadt – Staatstheater Kassel – 1 June 2016

Marietta (Celine Byrne), Paul (Charles Workman) and Marie (Eva-Marie Sommersberg)
Photos: N. Klinger

Paul – Charles Workman

Marietta – Celine Byrne

Marie – Eva-Marie Sommersberg

Frank – Marian Pop

Brigitta – Marta Herman

Fritz – Hansung Yoo

Juliette – Lin Lin Fan

Lucienne – Maren Engelhardt

Victorin – Paulo Paulillo

Graf Albert – Johannes An

Staatsorchester Kassel

Opera Chorus & Cantamus Choir of Staatstheater Kassel

Conductor – Patrik Ringborg

Director – Markus Dietz

Sets – Mayke Hegger

Costumes – Henrike Bromber

Video – Lillian Stillwell

Lighting – Albert Geisel

Brigitta (Marta Herman) and Frank (Marian Pop) at the start of Act I

Although Korngold’s Die tote Stadt offers more scope for the director’s imagination than many an opera, with its meshing of real and imaginary worlds and its convoluted psychology, it is perhaps unsurprising that as the work becomes more of a repertoire piece the ideas presented on stage are becoming less original. This, if my memory is correct, is the eighth staging I’ve seen in a little over two decades, and while Markus Dietz’s interpretation is coherent and well presented, it is also unmistakeably reflective of previous efforts. Mayke Hegger’s set thrusts the action into the auditorium by encompassing the full perimeter of the orchestra pit, thanks to the theatre’s generously deep dividing line between instrumentalists and audience. This box-like forestage is Paul’s space, with his ‘shrine of memories’ a shelving unit providing the back wall that eventually opens up on a receding vista of his imagination. The false proscenium idea here, dividing real from dreamt worlds, was also used by Jakob Peters-Messer in Magdeburg in the winter, while the updating of Paul’s memorabilia of his dead wife Maria to include video footage was exploited by Anselm Weber in Frankfurt (the Cologne staging of 15 years ago or so went further and made the pertinent connection with Hitchcockian film, not least as Vertigo shares source material and some of the plot).

A scenic device that recalls Willy Decker’s much-travelled production is the use of the Doppelgänger to delineate the two ‘realities’. Here the ‘dead’ Marie is a constant presence in the form of a silent dancer, a seeming ghost of Paul’s dead wife, who is as bereft with her loss as he is with his. Her actions seem to mirror and at times contradict those of Marietta, the ‘real-world’ lookalike with whom Paul becomes obsessed. Also made out to be a double, seemingly, is Frank, since he is dressed just like Paul in white shirt and black trousers – is he perhaps made out to be Paul’s rational side? Paul’s attempt to kill Frank off in their Act II struggle is coupled with his need to kill Marie/Marietta again, as if by only doing the deed himself can he finally come to terms with his loss. Intriguingly, there’s a hint of erotic tanglement between Paul and Brigitte, as they kiss when she leaves him for the convent in Act II, and at the very end, Frank – and now we really do have to believe he is the rational Paul – addresses his invitation to leave Bruges, the ‘dead city’, to her, and is taken aback when Paul replies: Frank happily slips away with Brigitte to a new life, as Paul walks off into the darkness of the rear stage, his bereavement cast into oblivion. Weber in Frankfurt explored the anti-clerical element in contributing to Bruges’s ‘deadliness’, but Dietz explores more obvious religious connotations, making the religious procession in Act III specifically a Good Friday one and thence a cue to showing a bloodied Marie crucified as part of her continuing death process. Extensive use is made of the stage risers to achieve all the comings and goings of chorus and characters, and the visual flow is as seemless as a series of cinematic cross-fades.

Charles Workman brought a Heldentenor’s bright, ringing tone to the exhausting role of Paul. A couple of the high notes slipped from his grasp, but he almost always managed get a settling vibrato going in even some of the most trying of musical phrases, and he physically lived the role from beginning to end, despite the indignity of having to sing, for a fair chunk of the evening, wearing nothing but his underpants. Celine Byrne’s crisp diction was just one of the delights of her performance as Marietta, and it was coupled with plenty of sinuous tone and a stage presence that confidently suggested this was a character who wasn’t going to be messed with. As her Doppelgänger, Eva-Maria Sommersberg put just as much conviction into her silent role. The rest of the cast, drawn from the company’s ensemble, acquitted itself with equal commitment, but special commendation must go to the Fritz of Hansung Yoo, whose suave, beautifully paced Pierrot’s Lied was a highlight of the performance. Choruses, especially the professional-sounding children of Cantamus, were excellent and the Kassel orchestra played its heart out, Patrik Ringborg revealing extensive musical preparation in the way so much inner detail emerged while making the score as a whole soar, glide and ensnare as ever.

Lulu - Wuppertal Opera - 26 May 2016

Dr Schon (Ralf Lukas) and Lulu (Martina Welschenbach)
Photos: Uwe Stratmann

Lulu – Martina Welschenbach
Dr Schon – Ralf Lukas
Alwa – Arnold Bezuyen
Countess Gewschwitz – Kathrin Goring
Artist/Negro – Johannes Grau
Animal Tamer/Athlete – Christian Tschelebiew
Schigolch – Martin Blasius
Gymnast/Groom – Sandra Borgarts
Prince/Room servant/Marquis – James Wood
Theatre Director/Banker – Michael Adair

Conductor – Toshiyuki Kamioka
Director – Beate Baron
Set design – Elisa Limberg
Costumes – Marie Gerstenberger
Lighting – Fredy Deisenroth
Film - Siegersbuschfilm

With its mixture of realism, fantasy, black humour and tragedy, Berg’s Lulu is not an opera that takes readily to straightforwardly narrative treatment. It is, in the best sense, too contrived for that, with its mirrored forms in music and drama, its larger-than-life characters and knowing self-reflection. The extent to which directors flesh out the story and milieu varies from one production to the next. Beate Baron, for her staging at Wuppertal Opera, takes a cue from the opera’s opening scene, in which the Animal Tamer introduces the characters as wild beasts, by peopling her stage with onlookers from the circus – garish clowns and ‘glamorous assistants’, young girls who in Act I usher each new character on to the scene. Lulu herself is a kind of figurative still centre around whom everyone else circles like hunters – a vision made concrete in the first scene of Act II when the rivals for her attention, the Athlete, the Gymnast, Schigolch, Alwa and her husband Dr Schön, skulk around with hunting rifles. Stuffed leopards furnish the abstract Schön household as if to push home the point. And if I interpreted the Act II film correctly, we see these same characters – running through the Wuppertal woods in evening dress – as pursuers becoming the pursued at the crux of the palindrome.

If Baron can be said to have taken a more feminist line than most of her male colleagues in interpretations of the work, it serves to highlight a kind of battle of the sexes that lies behind the character of Lulu herself, less active ‘femme fatale’ than innocent victim of the attention she attracts in others. Her ‘portrait’, painted by the Artist in the first scene, is a feminist symbol, a downward-pointing triangle on a white background, and her adherents wave a similar flag in her support in the latter stages of the opera. Marie Gerstenberger costumes all the main male admirers in variations on the same pale blue Crimplene-style suit, as if to indicate their common nature. Elisa Limberg’s simple set is a circle of black sand in a containing ring that occasionally revolves. At the start, the props – notably the divan on which Lulu’s lovers habitually die – are held in a huge net above the stage, and one by one ‘released’ during the closed-curtained interludes, as if we are to see the gradual accumulation of the elements that make up the presentation building up over time. Stage pictures are a crucial element, not always static and not always explicable – what, for instance, is the significance of Schön and the supposedly dead Artist wandering around with umbrellas after the latter character’s suicide?

In the early stages of the evening there was a sense of overkill in the visual splintering of ideas and images, more anti-narrative than narrative. But, to give the production its due credit, the feeling tends to fade as the performance progresses, until with Act III we begin to see where everything is leading. The libretto’s Paris salon, where investors in the Jungfrau Railway are at leisure, becomes a sunny resort, with the entire cast spread out on deckchairs in front of the black sand, which has now almost overwhelmed the divan. The dramatic mirror is emphasised in the final scene as each of Lulu’s three lovers returns with angel’s wings – we don’t need to see them as 'new' characters, the Professor or as Negro, until we are perhaps made to believe Jack the Ripper has turned up in the disguise of Dr Schön, as he divests himself of his wings before murdering Lulu. There’s also the suggestion that she is prostituting herself less for the money than for the attempt to regain the companionship she has successively lost over her serial relationships. That becomes her final tragedy.

Musically, Wuppertal Opera has everything to be proud of. The company may currently lack its own ensemble (a state of affairs that I understand is to be rectified under next season’s incoming regime), but its chorus amply supplied the smaller roles, with the others allotted to guests. Martina Welschenbach seems to have modelled her characterisation of the title role on Christine Schäfer’s famously nonchalant way with the role, but to good effect, and her singing throughout was focused and clearly projected. Ralf Lukas’s Dr Schön was powerfully engaging, his text conveyed with the vehemence and perspicacity of an experienced sometime Wotan, and Wagnerian credentials also bore fruit in the fine mixture of Helden- and character tenor that Arnold Bezuyen brought to the part of Alwa. Among the others there was no weak link, from Kathrin Göring’s warmly characterised Geschwitz and Sandra Borgarts’s earthy Gymnast to Johannes Grau’s virile Artist/Negro, Christian Tschelebiew’s visceral Animal Tamer/Athlete, Martin Blasius’s unusually sympathetic Schigolch and James Wood’s flutey Prince/Marquis. Toshiyuki Kamioka, conducting one of his last remaining performances as Wuppertal’s music director and intendant, made much of Berg’s expansion of late Romanticism in his score, which was played with warmth and penetrating character by the Wuppertal Symphony Orchestra.

The 2016-17 opera season

A summary of new productions and selected revivals being staged in the 2016/17 season in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, Netherlands, the UK and the main companies in France. Information is given in good faith, but please confirm details with company websites/publications.

Last updated 25 August 2016.

Abraham

Die Blume von Hawaii (d. Enzinger) – Dortmund from 21 Jan

Adams

The Gospel According to the Other Mary (d. Sellars, from ENO) – Bonn from 26 Mar

Adès

The Exterminating Angel (UKP, from Salzburg Festival, d. Cairns) – London ROH from 24 Apr

Powder Her Face (in German, d. Szalma) – Görlitz from 28 Jan

Powder Her Face (d. Engels) – Aachen from 19 Mar

Atterberg

Aladin (d. Woron) – Braunschweig from 11 Mar

 

Barber

Vanessa (d. Mokrusch) – Bremerhaven from 3 Jun

Bartók

Bluebeard’s Castle (d. Ostermann/Schmeding, c/w music-theatre w’shop) – Darmstadt from 25 Sep

Bluebeard’s Castle (d. Tchernikov, c/w Eötvös) – Hamburg from 6 Nov

Bluebeard’s Castle (d. Vanishing Point; c/w The 8th Door (Paterson)) – Glasgow SO from 28 Mar

Bluebeard’s Castle (d. Bruncken; c/w tba) – Halle from 6 May

Bluebeard’s Castle (d. Vienne; c/w Ligeti Lux aeterna) – Brussels from 21 Jun NB Now postponed to 2017/18 season

Battistelli

Lot (WP; d. Hilbrich) – Hannover from 1 Apr

Prova d’orchestra (d. Weigner) – Münster from 20 May

Beethoven

Fidelio – Coburg from 18 Sep

Fidelio (d. Kupfer) – Berlin SO from 3 Oct

Fidelio (d. Hasko Weber) – Weimar from 25 Mar

Fidelio (d. Hampe) – Cologne from 11 Jun

Bellini

Norma (d. Ollé) – London ROH from 12 Sep

Norma (d. Stöppler) – Mainz from 24 Sep

Norma (d. Hoheisel/Kogge) – Essen from 8 Oct

Norma (d. ) – Graz from 6 May

Norma (d. Braunschweig) – Nuremberg from 13 May

Norma (d. Wieler/Morabito, from Stuttgart) – Geneva from 16 Jun

Benatzky

Im weißen Rössl (d. Jordan/Koppelmann) – Mainz from 26 Nov

Berg

Lulu (d. Kentridge, from New York Met) – London ENO from 9 Nov

Lulu (d. Stöppler) – Weimar from 21 Jan

Lulu (two-act vn, d. Kaiser) – Ulm from 9 Feb

Lulu (d. Marthaler/w Hannigan) – Hamburg from 12 Feb

Lulu (d. Hertel) – Flensburg from 13 May

Wozzeck (d. Schmiedleitner) – Nürnberg from 18 Feb

Wozzeck (d. McVicar, from Chicago) – Geneva from 2 Mar

Wozzeck (d. Lübbe) – Erfurt from 25 Feb

Wozzeck (d. Warlikowski) – Amsterdam DNO from 18 Mar

Wozzeck (revival/d. Marthaler) – Paris ON from 26 Apr

Wozzeck (d. Lutz) – Cottbus from 24 Jun

Berlioz

La damnation de Faust (d. Raimondi) – Liège from 25 Jan

La damnation de Faust (d. Dittrich) – Bremen from 18 Mar

La damnation de Faust (d. Gilliam/c. Rattle) – Berlin SO from 27 May

Les troyens (d. Höckmeyer) – Frankfurt from 19 Feb

Berlioz/Wagner

La reine (music theatre, d. Bischoff/w. Denoke) – Mannheim from 12 Feb

Bernstein

Candide (d. Cooper) – Cologne from 4 Dec

Candide – Pforzheim from 25 Feb

Mass (d. Ryser) – Lübeck from 17 Mar

West Side Story (d. Hertel) – Flensburg from 3 Dec

Bizet

Carmen (d. Hovenbitzer) – Hof from 23 Sep

Carmen (d. Fouquet) – Flensburg from 24 Sep

Carmen (d. Muller) – Regensburg from 24 Sep

Carmen (d. Leimeier) – Oldenburg from 27 May

Carmen (d. Nicklich) – Koblenz (outdoors) from 1 Jul

Les pêcheurs de perles (d. Désiré) – Biel/Solothurn from 26 Feb

Les pêcheurs de perles (d. Pöckel) – Plauen from 1 Apr

Les pêcheurs de perles (d. Wenders/c. Barenboim) – Berlin SO from 24 Jun

Blacher

Romeo and Juliet (revival) – Basel

Boesmans

Julie (d. Gruner) – Magdeburg from 12 Nov

Yvonne, Princesse de Bourgogne (GP, d. Schwalbach) – Oldenburg from 25 Mar

Borodin

Prince Igor (d. Tchernikov) – Amsterdam DNO from 7 Feb

Britten

Billy Budd (d. Phelan) – Leeds ON from 1 Oct & touring

Death in Venice (d. Vick) – Berlin DO from 19 Mar

Death in Venice (d. Volpi) – Stuttgart from 7 May

A Midsummer Night’s Dream (d. Brown) – Trier from 24 Sep

A Midsummer Night’s Dream (d. Heibling) – Mainz from 12 May

Owen Wingrave (d. Creed) – Paris ON from 19 Nov

Paul Bunyan (d. Fassbaender) – Frankfurt from 9 Oct

Peter Grimes (d. Krenn) – Wiesbaden from 4 Feb

Peter Grimes (d. ?) – Schwerin from 7 Apr

Peter Grimes (d. Cura) – Bonn from 7 May

The Turn of the Screw (d. Thiel) – Gelsenkirchen from 10 Sep

The Turn of the Screw (d. Carsen, from Vienna TW) – Strasbourg from 21 Sep

The Turn of the Screw (d. Knuth) – Erfurt from 30 Sep

The Turn of the Screw (d. von Mayenburg) – Bern from 13 May

Bröder, Alois

Unverhofftes Wiedersehen (WP, d. Weckesser) – Wurzburg from 24 Jun

Busoni

Doktor Faust (d. Warner) – Dresden from 19 Mar

Doktor Faust (d. Amaya) – Hildesheim from 15 Apr

Catalani

La Wally – Niederbayern from ?

La Wally (d. Stiehl) – Vienna VO from 25 Mar

Cavalli

La Calisto (in English) – English Touring Opera from 14 Oct

La Calisto (d. Clément) – Strasbourg from 26 Apr

Eliogabalo – Paris ON from 16 Sep

Il giasone (d. Sinigaglia) – Geneva from 25 Jan

Hipermestra (UKP, d. Vick, c. Christie) – Glyndebourne from 20 May

Charpentier, Marc-Antoine

Médée (d. Homoki, c. Christie) – Zurich from 22 Jan

Cilea

Adriana Lecouvreur (d. Thoma) – Karlsruhe from

Cornelius

Der Barbier von Baghdad (d. Pöckel) – Zwickau from 27 Jan

Der Barbier von Baghdad (d. Hovenbitzer) – Gießen from 28 Jan

Der Barbier von Baghdad (conc. perf.) – Wuppertal from 10 Jun

Dalbavie, Marc-André

Charlotte Salomon (GP) – Bielefeld from 14 Jan

Debussy

Pelléas et Mélisande (d. McVicar) – Glasgow SO from 23 Feb & touring

Pelléas et Mélisande (revival/d. Guth) – Frankfurt from 25 Mar

Pelléas et Mélisande (d. Marelli) – Vienna SO from 18 Jun

Dean, Brett

Hamlet (WP, d. Armfield, c. Jurowski) – Glyndebourne from 11 Jun

Defoort, Kris

Daral Shaga (d. de Coen) – Brussels from 11 Jan

Doderer, Johanna

Liliom (WP; d. Köpplinger) – Munich SG from 4 Nov

Donizetti

Don Pasquale (d. Rousseau) – Biel/Solothurn from 23 Sep

Don Pasquale (d. Köhler) – Altenburg from 3 Oct

Don Pasquale (d. Villazón) – Düsseldorf from 29 Apr

L’elisir d’amore (d. Spirei) – Karlsruhe from 15 Oct

L’elisir d’amore (d. Poda) – Strasbourg from 21 Oct

L’elisir d’amore (d. von Studnitz) – Ulm from 10 Nov

L’elisir d’amore – Bielefeld from 3 Dec

L’elisir d’amore (d. Bauer) – Saarbrücken from 25 Feb

L’elisir d’amore (d. Ribitzki) – Hannover from 1 Jun

La favorite (d. Niermeyer) – Munich from 23 Oct

La fille du regiment (semi-staged) – Oldenburg from 2 Dec

Lucia di Lammermoor – Niederbayern from ?

Lucia di Lammermoor (d. D. Alden) – Bonn from 30 Oct

Lucia di Lammermoor (d. Thalbach) – Leipzig from 26 Nov

Lucia di Lammermoor – Hagen from 21 Jan

Maria Stuarda (d. Grisebach) – Flensburg from 14 Jan

Viva la mamma! (d. Pelly) – Lyon from 22 Jun

Dorman, Avner

Wahnfried (WP; d. Warner) – Karlsruhe from 28 Jan

Dvorák

Rusalka (d. Reinhardt) – Innsbruck from 24 Sep

Rusalka (d. Dicu) – Augsburg from 25 Feb

Eggert, Max

Freax (WP, d. Lucassen) – Regensburg from 21 Jan

Egk

Peer Gynt (d. Konwitschny) – Vienna TW from 17 Feb

Eichberg, Søren Nils

Glare (GP; d. Lehner) – Koblenz from 11 Mar

Eötvös

Senza sangue (WP, d. Tchernikov; c/w Bluebeard) – Hamburg from 6 Nov

Fairouz

The New Prince (WP) – Amsterdam from 24 Mar

Fennessy, David

Sweat of the Sun – Osnabrück from 2 Jun

Flotow

Martha (d. Thoma) – Frankfurt from 16 Oct

Martha (d. Pölzgutter) – Regensburg from 29 Oct

Francesconi

Trompe-la-mort (WP) – Paris ON from 16 Mar

Gál

Das Lied der Nacht (d. Pörzgen) – Osnabrück from 29 Apr

Giordano

Andrea Chénier (d. Stölz) – Munich from 12 Mar

Glass

Einstein on the Beach (d. Voges) – Dortmund from 23 Apr

The Fall of the House of Usher (d. Lehner) – Koblenz from 10 Mar

Satyagraha (d. Cherkauoi) – Basel from 28 Apr

The Trial (d. McCarthy) – Glasgow SO from 24 Jan

Gluck

Alceste (d. Ollé/La Fura dels Baus0 – Lyon from 2 May

Armide (d. Alexandre) – Vienna SO from 16 Oct

Armide (d. Steier) – Mainz from 14 Jan

Ezio (revival) – Frankfurt from 9 Dec

Iphigenie auf Tauris (arr. R. Strauss) (d. Mielitz) – Meiningen from 24 Sep

Orphée (concert perf.) – Aachen from 4 Dec

Orphée, as Orfeo², arr. Aucoin (d. Fitch) – Salzburg from 22 Jan

Orphée (d. Volga) – Innsbruck from 20 May

Orphée – Mönchengladbach from 15 Jun

Gnesin, Michail

Der jugend Abrahams (1924) (d. Berger-Görski; c/w Tal) – Gera from 25 Mar

Gounod

Cinq-Mars (d. Pilavachi) – Leipzig from 20 May

Faust (d. Fuchs) – Magdeburg from 10 Sep

Faust (d. Stiehl) – Münster from 10 Sep

Faust (d. Fulljames) – Dortmund from 17 Sep

Faust (d. Castorf) – Stuttgart from 30 Oct

Faust (d. Wiegand) – Darmstadt from 28 Jan

Faust (d. Lowery) – Bern from 29 Jan

Faust – Schwerin from 7 May

Faust – Greifswald from 28 May

Roméo et Juliette (d. ) – Graz from 5 Nov

Roméo et Juliette (d. Lucassen) – Kassel from 8 Apr

Roméo et Juliette (d. Grazzini) – Erfurt from 13 May

Gruber

Geschichten aus dem Wiener Wald – Hagen from 24 Jun

Haas

Morgen und Abend (d. Kerkhof) – Heidelberg from 3 Feb

Hahn, Reynaldo

The Merchant of Venice (GP) – Bielefeld from 28 Apr

Halévy

La juîve (d. Konwitschny, from Flanders/Mannheim) – Strasbourg from 3 Feb

Handel

Agrippina (d. Dale) – Oldenburg from 15 Oct

Alcina (d. Ritschel) – Münster from 14 Jan

Alcina (d. Steier) – Basel from 10 Jun

Ariodante (d. Wieler/Morabito) – Stuttgart from 5 Mar

Ariodante (d. Widder) – Lübeck from 28 Apr

Hercules (d. Lowery) – Mannheim from 9 Dec

Hercules (d. Ambrosino) – Erfurt from 15 Jan

Giulio Cesare (d. Klepper) – Freiburg from 11 Feb

Jeptha (d. Guth, from Paris ON) – Amsterdam DNO from 9 Nov

Jeptha (d. Gürbaca) – Halle from 26 May

Rinaldo (d. Van Rensburg) – Chemnitz from 25 Mar

Semele (d. Visser) – Karslruhe from 22 Feb

Xerxes (d. Conway) – English Touring Opera from 8 Oct

Xerxes (d. Köhler) – Frankfurt from 8 Jan

Xerxes (d. Repschläger) – Neustrelitz from 6 May

Hartmann

Simplicius Simplicissimus (d. Gürbaca) – Bremen from 28 Jan

Simplicius Simplicissimus (d. Fioroni) – Augsburg from 2 Jun

Haydn

Il mondo della luna – Plauen from 14 Jan

Il mondo della luna (d. Horres) – Linz from 4 Mar

Hefti, David Philip

Annas Maske (WP) – St Gallen from 6 May

Henze

Elegy for Young Lovers – Gütersloh/Detmold from 29 Apr

Elegy for Young Lovers (d. Warner) – Vienna TW from 2 May

The English Cat (d. Schlingmann) – Hannover from 26 Nov

Hindemith

Cardillac (d. Münstermann) – Pforzheim from 27 May

Die Harmonie der Welt (d. Hilsdorf) – Linz from 8 Apr

Mathis der Maler (d. Stöppler) – Mainz from 18 Mar

Sancta Susanna (revival/d. Martone, c/w Cavalleria) – Paris ON from 30 Nov

Honegger

Jeanne d’Arc au bûcher (d. Castelucci) – Lyon from 21 Jan

Jeanne d’Arc au bûcher (d. Ollé; c/w Debussy: Damoiselle elué) – Frankfurt from 11 Jun

Hosokawa

Matsukaze (revival, d. Waltz) – Brussels from 6 Apr

The Raven (GP; c/w Voix humaine) – Coburg from 14 May

Humperdinck

Hänsel und Gretel – Kaiserslautern from 29 Oct

Hänsel und Gretel (d. Reitmeier) – Salzburg from 30 Oct

Hänsel und Gretel (d. Weigand) – Dessau from 5 Nov

Hänsel und Gretel (d. Riemenschneider) – Bremen from 25 Nov

Hänsel und Gretel (d. Horstkotte) – Mönchengladbach from 3 Dec

Hänsel und Gretel (d. Siegl) – Trier from 16 Dec

Hänsel und Gretel (d. Dick) – Leeds ON from 2 Feb & touring

Hänsel und Gretel (d. Firmbach) – Lüneburg from 17 Jun

Janáček

The Cunning Little Vixen – Niederbayern from ?

The Cunning Little Vixen (d. Carsen) – Strasbourg from 11 Dec

The Cunning Little Vixen – Coburg from 4 Feb

Jenůfa (revival from 2015/16; d. Kuntze) – Gera from 22 Oct

Jenůfa (d. Schmeding, from Detmold ?) – Darmstadt from 4 Mar

Katya Kabanova (revival from 2015/16) – Krefeld from 15 Oct

Katya Kabanova – Avignon from 27 Nov

Katya Kabanova (d. Baur) – Saarbrücken from 14 Jan

The Makropulos Case (d. Mundruczó) – Antwerp/Gent from 14 Sep

The Makropulos Case (d. Nemirova) – Freiburg from 26 Nov

Knussen

Where the Wild Things Are (d. Westerbarkei) – Duisburg from 2 Mar

Korngold

Der Ring der Polykrates (d. Kim; c/w Wir gratulieren) – Heidelberg from 28 May

Die stumme Serenade – Coburg from 25 Feb

Die tote Stadt (d. Stone) – Basel from 17 Sep

Der Wunder der Heliane (concert perfs.) – Vienna VO from 28 Jan [NB Berlin DO staging in 2018]

Der Wunder der Heliane (concert perfs.) – Freiburg, 22/27 Jul

Krenek

Diktator/Schwergewicht/Geheime Königreich (dir. Hermann) – Frankfurt from 30 Apr

Lehár

Der Graf von Luxembourg (d. J-D. Herzog) – Düsseldorf from 3 Dec

Das Land des Lächelns (d. Stiehl) – Klagenfurt from 17 Dec

Das Land des Lächelns (d. Homoki) – Zurich from 18 Jun

Die lustige Witwe – Osnabrück from 26 Nov

Die lustige Witwe (d. Wissmann) – Gelsenkirchen from 16 Dec

Die lustige Witwe (d. Hertel) – Flensburg from 4 Apr

Leoncavallo

Pagliacci (d. Frédric; c/w Cavalleria) – Strasbourg from 3 Jun

Pagliacci (d. Horstkotte; c/w Cavalleria) – Plauen from 10 Jun

Lortzing

Regina (revival from 2015-16, d. Wernecke) – Meiningen from 4 Nov 
Der Wildschutz  - Freiberg from 8 Oct 

Marschner

Der Vampyr (d. Nunes, from Berlin KO) – Geneva from 19 Nov

Der Vampyr (d. Goerden) – Koblenz from 6 May

Martin

Le vin herbé (d. Graham, in English) – Cardiff WNO from 16 Feb & touring

Mascagni

Cavalleria rusticana (d. De Carpentries; c/w Gianni Schicchi) – Krefeld from 17 Sep

Cavalleria rusticana (d. Potocki; c/w A Santa Lucia) – Dessau from 1 Apr

Cavalleria rusticana (d. Frédric; c/w Pagliacci) – Strasbourg from 3 Jun

Cavalleria rusticana (d. Horstkotte; c/w Pagliacci) – Plauen from 10 Jun

Massenet

Cendrillon (d. Mundel) – Freiburg from 8 Apr

Manon (d. Py) – Geneva from 12 Sep

Werther (d. Prins) – Braunschweig from 21 Jan

Werther (d. Gürbaca) – Zurich from 2 Apr

Menotti

The Consul – Mönchengladbach from 4 Feb

The Consul – Munich from 28 Mar

Meyerbeer

Les Huguenots (d. Helmleb) – Kiel from 24 Sep

Les Huguenots (d. Sugao) – Wurzburg from 2 Oct

Les Huguenots (d. D. Alden) – Berlin DO from 13 Nov

La prophète (d. Boussard) – Essen from 9 Apr

Monteverdi

Il coronazione di Poppea – Bielefeld from 10 Jun

Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria (d. Conway, in English) – English Touring Opera from 15 Oct

Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria (d. Bothe) – Mannheim from 4 Mar

Morse, Thomas

Frau Schindler (WP, d. Cazan) – Munich SG from 9 Mar

Mozart

Betulia liberata (d. Gloger) – Frankfurt from 21 Jun

La clemenza di Tito (d. Münzing) – Ulm from 30 Mar

La clemenza di Tito (d. Buhr) – Essen from 3 Jun

La clemenza di Tito (d. Kinmonth) – Karlsruhe from 8 Jul

La clemenza di Tito (d. Guth) – Glyndebourne from 26 Jul

Così fan tutte (d. Gloger) – London ROH from 22 Sep

Così fan tutte (d. Borgmann) – Berlin DO from 25 Sep

Così fan tutte (d. Hilsdorf) – Darmstadt from 29 Oct

Così fan tutte (d. Prins) – Erfurt from 19 Nov

Così fan tutte (d. Repschläger) – Neustrelitz from 21 Jan

Così fan tutte (d. Richter) – Gießen from 25 Mar

Così fan tutte (d. Bösch) – Geneva from 30 Apr

Die Entfuhrung der Serail (d. Schachermeier) – Klagenfurt from 30 Oct

Die Entfuhrung der Serail (d. Hermann) – Zurich from 6 Nov

Die Entfuhrung der Serail (d. Simons) – Amsterdam DNO from 13 Jan

Die Entfuhrung der Serail (d. S. Herzog) – Wurzburg from 27 Nov

Die Entfuhrung der Serail (d. Dijkema) – Dresden from 15 Apr

La finta giardino (d. Heyder) – Magdeburg from 6 May

Don Giovanni (d. Amaya) – Hildesheim from 17 Sep

Don Giovanni (d. Jones) – London ENO from 30 Sep

Don Giovanni (d. van Dormael) – Liège from 20 Nov

Don Giovanni (d. Peters-Messer) – Bonn from 11 Dec

Don Giovanni (d. de Carpentries) – Linz from 21 Jan

Don Giovanni (d. Jones, from ENO) – Basel from 27 Jan

Don Giovanni (d. Baur) – Gelsenkirchen from 29 Apr

Don Giovanni (d. Föttinger) – Munich SG from 24 Jun

Idomeneo (d. Konwitschny) – Augsburg from 4 Dec

Idomeneo (d. Siegert) – Salzburg from 4 Dec

Idomeneo (d. Liepold-Mosser) – Trier from 3 Jun

Lucio Silla (d. Kratzer) – Brussels from 17 Mar NB Now postponed to 2017/18 season

Lucio Silla (d. Pfluger) – Biel/Solothurn from 23 Apr

Le nozze di Figaro (d. N.C. Weber) – St Gallen from 17 Sep

Le nozze di Figaro (d. Theorell) – Kassel from 24 Sep

Le nozze di Figaro (d. Mora) – Koblenz from 24 Sep

Le nozze di Figaro (d. Stolz) – Pforzheim from 29 Oct

Le nozze di Figaro (d. Menthe) – Innsbruck from 12 Nov

Le nozze di Figaro (d. Bothe) – Bern from 26 Nov

Le nozze di Figaro (d. Malkowsky) – Chemnitz from 20 May

Le nozze di Figaro (d. Bastet) – Cologne from 21 May

Le nozze di Figaro – Coburg from 3 Jun

Die Zauberflöte – Osnabrück from 3 Sep

Die Zauberflöte (von Mayenburg) – Heidelberg from 23 Sep

Die Zauberflöte (d. Steckel) – Hamburg from 23 Sep

Die Zauberflöte (d. Kochan) – Wiesbaden from 14 Oct

Die Zauberflöte (d. Huber) – Dortmund from 26 Nov

Die Zauberflöte – Luzern from 17 Dec

Mussorgsky

Boris Godunov (d. Konwitschny) – Nürnberg from 1 Oct

Boris Godunov (d. Jones) – Berlin DO from 17 Jun

Sorochinsky Fair (d. Kosky) – Berlin KO from 2 Apr

Nemtsov, Sarah

Gräben der Freude (WP; d. Lutz) – Halle from 5 Mar

Nono

Prometeo – Luzern Festival from 9 Sep

Nyman

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat (d. Eimer) – Dessau from 13 May

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat – Krefeld from 19 May

Obst, Michael

Die andere Seite (AP, d. Dew) – Linz from 20 May

Solaris (AP, d. Schneider) – Linz from 17 Sep

Offenbach

Les contes d’Hoffmann (d. Lowery, c. Parry) – Wuppertal from 18 Sep

Les contes d’Hoffmann (d. Doucet, from Bonn) – Vienna VO from 15 Oct

Les contes d’Hoffmann (d. ?) – Schwerin from 28 Oct

Les contes d’Hoffmann (d. Erath) – Dresden from 4 Dec

Les contes d’Hoffmann (d. Poewe) – Meiningen from 20 Jan

Les contes d’Hoffmann (d. Straube) – Neustrelitz from 18 Mar

Les contes d’Hoffmann (d. Dijkema) – Gelsenkirchen from 10 Jun

La grande-duchesse de Gerolstein (d. Altaras) – Kassel from 29 Oct

Orphée aux enfers (d. Petras) – Stuttgart from 4 Dec

Orphée aux enfers (d. Servais) – Liège from 20 Dec

Orphée aux enfers (d. Weber) – Regensburg from 11 Mar

Oehring, Helmut

Aschemond oder The Fairy Queen (WP of orig. vn, d. Karaman) – Wuppertal from 29 Jan

Poulenc

Carmelites (revival from 2015/16, d. Stöppler) – Mainz from 29 Oct

Carmelites (d. Krause) – Hof from 11 Mar

Carmelites (revival/d. Lehnhoff) – Hamburg from 21 Apr

Prokofiev

The Love of Three Oranges (d. Welker) – Wuppertal from 29 Oct

The Fiery Angel (d. Andrews, from Berlin KO) – Lyon from 11 Oct

The Fiery Angel (d. Bieito) – Zurich from 7 May

The Gambler (revival/d. Kupfer) – Frankfurt from 27 Jan

Puccini

La bohème (d. Leitenschneider) – Nordhausen from 16 Sep

La bohème (d. Nicklisch) – Pforzheim from 16 Sep

La bohème (d. J-D Herzog) – Bonn from 25 Sep

La bohème (d. Wagemakers) – Mainz from 15 Oct

La bohème (d. Hartmann) – Geneva from 21 Dec

La bohème (d. Gergen) – Salzburg from 26 Feb

La bohème (d. Doucet) – Glasgow SO from 9 May & touring

Gianni Schicchi (d. De Carpentries) – Krefeld from 17 Sep

Gianni Schicchi (d. Zimmermann, c/w Rota) – Biel/Solothurn from 16 Dec

Madama Butterfly (d. Miskimmon) – Glyndebourne from 14 Oct & touring

Madama Butterfly (d. Rechi) – Duisburg from 4 Feb

Madama Butterfly (d. Dehlholm) – Brussels from 2 May

Manon Lescaut (d. Tambosi) – Hannover from 10 Sep

Manon Lescaut (d. Kaiser) – Ulm from 29 Sep

Manon Lescaut (d. Breth) – Amsterdam DNO from 10 Oct

Manon Lescaut (d. Flimm) – Berlin SO from 4 Dec

Manon Lescaut (d. Sutcliffe) – Osnabrück from 14 Jan

Manon Lescaut (d. de Carpentries) – Görlitz from 8 Apr

La rondine – Graz from 12 Jan

Il tabarro/Suor Angelica (d. Pountney/Barker-Caven) – Leeds ON from 1 Oct & touring

Il tabarro/Gianni Schicchi (d. Berger) – Bremen from 16 Apr

Tosca (d. Schwab) – Braunschweig from 10 Sep

Tosca (d. K. Stone) – Magdeburg from 20 Oct

Tosca (d. Lowery) – Augsburg from 29 Oct

Tosca (d. Knabe) – Lübeck from 18 Nov

Tosca (d. Biganzoli) – Halle from 26 Nov

Tosca (d. Höckmayr) – Darmstadt from 3 Dec

Il trittico (d. Corradi) – Aachen from 15 Jan

Turandot (d. Cura) – Liège from 23 Sep

Turandot (d. Horstkotte) – Chemnitz from 24 Sep

Turandot (d. Kovalik) – Leipzig from 22 Oct

Turandot (d. Steier) – Cologne from 2 Apr

Turandot (concert perf.) – Leeds ON from 28 Apr & touring

Turandot (d. Schüler) – Cottbus from 30 Apr

Purcell

Dido and Aeneas (d. Roussat, Lubak) – Liège from 9 May

The Fairy Queen (d. Clément) – Vienna TW from 19 Jan

The Fairy Queen (d. Fulljames) – Bremen from 21 May

King Arthur (d. Fischer) – Munich SG from 8 Dec

King Arthur (d. Bechtolf/c. Jacobs) – Berlin SO from 15 Jan

Rameau

Les fêtes de’Hebe – Paris ON from 22 Mar

Platée – Niederbayern from ?

Zoroastre (d. Kratzer) – Berlin KO from 18 Jun

Raskatov

A Dog’s Heart (revival, d. McBurney) – Amsterdam DNO from 22 Apr

Ravel

L’heure espagnole/L’enfant et les sortiléges (d. Lachaussée) – Cologne from 25 Sep

L’enfant et les sortiléges (d. ‘1927’) – Berlin KO from 28 Jan

Reich

The Cave – Frankfurt from 16 Dec

Three Tales – Wuppertal from 17 Sep

Reimann

Die Gespensonate (d. Katzemeier) – Berlin SO from 25 Jun

Medea (d. Andrews) – Berlin KO from 21 May

Rihm

Jakob Lenz (d. Breth) – Berlin SO from 5 Jul

Rimsky-Korsakov

Golden Cockerel (d. Pelly) – Brussels from 13 Dec

Sadko (d. Kramer) – Gent from 20 Jun

The Snow Maiden (d. Fulljames) – Leeds ON from 21 Jan & touring

Rossini

Il barbiere di Siviglia (d. Serebrennikov) – Berlin KO from 9 Oct

Il barbiere di Siviglia (d. Wernecke) – Meiningen from 10 Oct

Il barbiere di Siviglia (d. Talke) – Bremen from 22 Oct

Il barbiere di Siviglia (d. Wernecke) – Eisenach from 20 May

La cenerentola (d. Collins, in English) – Leeds ON from 16 Feb & touring

Elisabetta, regina d’Inghilterra (d. Niermeyer) – Vienna TW from 17 Mar

L’italiana in Algieri (d. Kratzer) – Weimar from 15 Oct

L’italiana in Algieri (d. Scozzi) – Nürnberg from 21 Jan

L’italiana in Algieri – Luzern from 29 Jan

Semiramide (d. D. Alden) – Munich from 12 Feb

Il viaggio al Reims (d. Maestrini) – Kiel from 28 Jan & Lübeck from 5 Feb

Rota

The Italian Straw Hat – Gelsenkirchen from 19 Nov

La notte di un nevrastenico (in German, d. Papke, c/w Il segreto di Susanna) – Görlitz from 19 Nov

La notte di un nevrastenico (d. Zimmermann, c/w Gianni Schicchi) – Biel/Solothurn from 16 Dec

Saint-Saëns

Samson et Dalila (d. Michieletto) – Paris ON from 4 Oct

Samson et Dalila (conc. perf.) – Dessau from 3 Jun

Salieri

Falstaff (d. Fischer) – Vienna TW from 12 Oct

La scuola de’ gelosi – Vienna TW from 18 May

Scarlatti, A

La guiditta ‘di Cambridge’ (d. Pichler) – Wiesbaden from 28 Jan

Scartazzini, Andrea Lorenzo

Der Sandmann (d. Loy) – Frankfurt from 18 Sep

Edward II (WP/d. Loy) – Berlin DO from 19 Feb

Schnittke

Life with an Idiot (d. Rootering) – Giessen from 13 May

Schreier, Anno

Hamlet (WP, d. Loy) – Vienna TW from 11 Sep

Schreker

Die Gezeichneten (d. Warlikowski) – Munich from 1 July

Die Gezeichneten (revival, d. Kinmonth) – Cologne from 2 July

Schumann

Genoveva (d. Kim) – Mannheim from 29 Apr

Sciarrino

Lohengrin – Dresden from 28 May

Shostakovich

Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk (d. Kupfer) – Munich from 28 Nov

Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk (revival, d. Homoki) – Zurich from 27 Dec

The Nose (d. Kosky, in English) – London ROH from 20 Oct

Smetana

The Bartered Bride (d. Berger) – Hannover from 29 Oct

The Bartered Bride (d. Weckesser) – Erfurt from 17 Dec

Sommer, Hans

Rübezahl und der Sackpfeifer von Neiße (1904) (revival from 2015/16, d. Kuntze) – Altenburg from 29 Jan

Spoliansky

Wir werde ich reich und glücklich? (d. Dvořák et al) – Mannheim from 21 Jan

Srnka

South Pole – Darmstadt from 27 May

Staud, Johannes Maria

Die Antilope (WP/GP?, d. Mentha) – Cologne from 5 Mar

Stockhausen

Donnerstag aus ‘Licht’ (revival from 2015/16, d. Steier) – Basel from 29 Sep

Straus, Oscar

Die Perlen der Cleopatra (d. Kosky) – Berlin KO from 3 Dec

Strauss, Johann

Die Fledermaus (d. Rech) – Wiesbaden from 16 Sep

Die Fledermaus – Bremerhaven from 25 Dec

Ein Nacht in Venedig (d. Materna) – Pforzheim from 10 Dec

Ein Nacht in Venedig (d. Langdal) – Lyon from 14 Dec

Wiener Blut (d. Piontek) – Görlitz from 24 Sep

Der Zigeunerbaron – Niederbayern from ?

Der Zigeunerbaron (d. Gottschalk) – Hildesheim from 3 Dec

Strauss, Richard

Arabella (revival/d. Schmidt-Garre) – Leipzig from 18 Sep 
Arabella - Freiberg from 18 Mar 

Arabella (revival/d. Loy) – Frankfurt from 6 May

Ariadne auf Naxos (d. Dale) – Nederlandse Reisopera from 10 Sep

Ariadne auf Naxos (d. Eggers) – Lübeck from 10 Sep 
Ariadne auf Naxos – Aachen from 14 May

Capriccio (d. Marton, from Lyon) – Brussels from 3 Nov

Capriccio (Pilavachi, from Meiningen) – Innsbruck from 17 Jun

Daphne (revival/d. Loy) – Hamburg from 1 Mar

Elektra (d. Chéreau) – Berlin SO from 23 Oct

Elektra (d. Dietz) – Kassel from 18 Feb

Elektra (revival from Dresden 1986, d. Berghaus) – Lyon from 17 Mar

Die Frau ohne Schatten (revival/d. Laufenberg) – Wiesbaden from 25 Sep

Die Frau ohne Schatten (d. Guth) – Berlin SO from 9 Apr

Die Frau ohne Schatten (d. Kriegenburg) – Hamburg from 16 Apr

Die Frau ohne Schatten (revival; d. Kovalik) – Leipzig from 23 Apr

Der Rosenkavalier (revival, d. McVicar) – Leeds ON from 17 Sep & touring

Der Rosenkavalier (d. Carsen) – London ROH from 17 Dec

Der Rosenkavalier (d. Dietze) – Koblenz from 21 Jan

Der Rosenkavalier (d. Fuchs, from Magdeburg, c. Hanus) – Cardiff WNO from 3 Jun

Salome (d. Sturminger) – Klagenfurt from 15 Sep

Salome (d. Schulz) – Dresden from 24 Sep

Salome (d. Adam) – Linz from 12 Nov

Salome (d. Leitenschneider) – Nordhausen from 20 Jan

Salome (d. Py) – Strasbourg from 10 Mar

Salome (d. Fassbaender) – Regensburg from 7 May

Salome (d. Van Hove, c. Gatti) – Amsterdam DNO from 9 Jun

Salome (d. Stiehl) – Leipzig from 17 Jun

Stravinsky

The Rake’s Progress (revival) – Frankfurt from 31 Mar

Tal, Josef

Saul in ein Dor (1955) (d. Berger-Görski; c/w Gnessin) – Gera from 25 Mar

Tasca, Pierantonio

A Santa Lucia (1892) (d. Potocki; c/w Cavalleria) – Dessau from 1 Apr

Tchaikovsky

Eugene Onegin (revival/d. Kosky) – Berlin KO from 12 Nov

Eugene Onegin (d. Lukassen) – Frankfurt from 20 Nov

Eugene Onegin (d. Barkhatov) – Wiesbaden from 11 Mar, Darmstadt from 1 Jun

The Queen of Spades (d. Malkowsky) – Chemnitz from 26 Nov

The Queen of Spades (d. Folwill) – Ulm from 22 Dec

The Queen of Spades (d. Wieler/Morabito) – Stuttgart from 11 Jun

Mazeppa (d. Kuntze) – Gera from 28 Apr

Tchaikowsky, André

The Merchant of Venice (d. Warner, from Bregenz) – Cardiff WNO from 16 Sep & touring

Thomalla, Hans

Kaspar Hauser (d. Hilbrich) – Augsburg from 23 Apr

Traetta

Antigona (d. Müller) – Kassel from 3 Jun

Trojan, Manfred

Limonen aus Sizilien (d. Pörzgen) – Vienna VO from 12 Feb

Orest (SP, d. Neuenfels) – Zurich from 26 Feb

Ullmann

Kaiser von Atlantis – Vienna TW from 11 Jan

Verdi

Aida (d. Vontobel) – Mannheim from 29 Oct

Attila – Kaiserslautern from 17 Sep

Attila (d. Hilsdorf) – Bonn from 29 Jan

Attila (d. Konwitschny) – Nuremberg from 24 Jun

Un ballo in maschera (d. Strassberger) – Innsbruck from 11 Feb

Un ballo in maschera – Greifswald from 18 Mar

Un ballo in maschera (d. Hovenbitzer) – Bremerhaven from 29 Apr

Un ballo in maschera (d. Reichwald) – Regensburg from 25 Jun

Don Carlo – Bielefeld from 30 Sep

Falstaff (d. Montavon) – Linz from 16 Sep

Falstaff (d. Hillsdorf) – Cologne from 30 Oct

Falstaff (d. McVicar, c. Mehta) – Vienna SO from 4 Dec

Falstaff (d. Peters) – Münster from 5 Nov

La forza del destino (d. Baumgarten) – Basel from 22 Oct

Un giorno di regno (d. Kochheim) – Braunschweig from 26 May

Jerusalem (d. Bieito) – Freiburg from 1 Oct

Jerusalem (d. di Pralafera) – Liège from 17 Mar

Luisa Miller (d. Mentha) – Kassel from 17 Dec

Macbeth (d. Mears) – Cardiff WNO from 10 Sep & touring

Macbeth (d. Fredj) – Brussels from 13 Sep

Macbeth (d. Loschky) – Oldenburg from 17 Sep

Macbeth (d. Heyder) – Aachen from 8 Nov

Macbeth (d. Geyer) – Vienna TW from 11 Nov

Nabucco (d. di Pralafera) – Liège from 18 Oct

Nabucco (d. Recinella) – Wurzburg from 28 Jan

Nabucco (d. Sapi) – St Gallen from 11 Mar

Otello (d. Fouquet) – Lüneburg from 17 Sep

Otello (d. Thalheimer) – Düsseldorf from 8 Oct

Otello (d. Bieito) – Hamburg from 25 Jan

Otello (d. Schlösser) – Klagenfurt from 9 Feb

Otello (d. Boussard) – Dresden from 23 Feb

Otello (d. J-D. Herzog) – Dortmund from 26 Mar

Otello (d. Gühlstorff) – Weimar from 20 May

Otello (d. di Pralafera) – Liège from 16 Jun

Otello (d. Warner, w Kaufmann) – London ROH from 21 Jun

Rigoletto – Luzern from 16 Oct

Rigoletto (d. Hilbrich) – Essen from 21 Jan

Rigoletto (d. Müller) – Frankfurt from 19 Mar

Rigoletto (d. Kuljabin) – Wuppertal from 9 Apr

Rigoletto (d. Michieletti) – Amsterdam DNO from 9 May

Simon Boccanegra (d. Hermann) – Antwerp/Gent from 5 Feb

Simon Boccanegra (d. Loschky) – Saarbrücken from 22 Apr

La traviata (d. Starczewski) – Gießen from 10 Sep

La traviata – Luzern from 2 Apr

Il trovatore (d. Abbado) – Vienna SO from 5 Feb

Vollmer, Ludwig

Crusades (WP; d. Celik) – Freiburg from 14 Jan

Tschick – Hagen from 28 May

Vosiček, Šimon

Biedermann und die Brandstifter (GP) – Bremerhaven from 4 Feb

Wagner

Der fliegende Holländer (d. Lutz) – Halle from 23 Sep

Der fliegende Holländer (revival, d. Dalferth) – Mainz from 28 Sep

Der fliegende Holländer (d. Peters-Messer) – Dessau from 1 Oct

Der fliegende Holländer (d. Gürbaca) – Antwerp/Gent from 20 Oct

Der fliegende Holländer (d. Oldag) – Bremerhaven from 29 Oct

Der fliegende Hollander (d. Nemirova) – Magdeburg from 21 Jan

Der fliegende Holländer (d. Mottl) – Hannover from 9 Feb

Der fliegende Holländer (revival; d. Steier) – Heidelberg from 7 Mar

Der fliegende Holländer (d. Carr) – Nederlandse Reisopera from 20 Apr

Der fliegende Holländer – Hagen from 6 May

Der fliegende Holländer (d. Spuck) – Berlin DO from 7 May

Der fliegende Holländer (revival; d. Bösch) – Frankfurt from 20 May

Der fliegende Holländer (d. Amos) – Lübeck from 9 Jun

Lohengrin (revival; d. Herzog) – Frankfurt from 21 Oct

Lohengrin (d. Bouzzard) – St Gallen from 22 Oct

Lohengrin (revival/d. Konwitschny) – Hamburg from 13 Nov

Lohengrin (d. Gürbaca) – Essen from 4 Dec

Lohengrin (d. Guth) – Paris ON from 18 Jan

Lohengrin (d. Py) – Brussels from 28 Jan NB Now postponed to 2017/18 season

Lohengrin – Krefeld from 15 Apr

Lohengrin (d. K. Wagner) – Prague NT from 8 Jun

Lohengrin (revival, d. Homoki) – Zurich from 4 Jul

Lohengrin (revival, d. Knabe) – Mannheim from tba

Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (d. Metzger) – Detmold from 18 Sep

Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (revival; d. Homoki) – Berlin KO from 25 Sep

Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (d. Nemirova, from Erfurt) – Weimar from 5 Nov

Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (d. Holten) – London ROH from 11 Mar

Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (d. Haag) – Meiningen from 7 Apr

Parsifal (revival; d. Audi) – Amsterdam from 6 Dec

Parsifal (d. Štorman) – Bremen from 11 Sep

Parsifal (d. Hermanis, c. Bychkov) – Vienna SO from 30 Mar

Parsifal – Coburg from 9 Apr

Parsifal (revival; d. Dew) – Chemnitz from 14 Apr

Der Ring des Nibelungen (revival; d. Gilmore) – Leipzig, 2 cycles from 7 Jan

Der Ring des Nibelungen (revival; d. Schmiedleitner) – Nuremberg, 4 cycles from 12 Mar to Jun

Der Ring des Nibelungen (revival; d. Friedrich) – Berlin DO 1-9 & 13-17 Apr

Der Ring: Das Rheingold (d. Laufenberg, from Linz) – Wiesbaden from 13 Nov

Walküre – Wiesbaden from 15 Jan

Siegfried – Wiesbaden from 2 Apr

Gotterdammerung – Wiesbaden from 23 Apr

Der Ring: Das Rheingold (d. Hilsdorf) – Düsseldorf from 23 Jun

Der Ring: Das Rheingold (d. Esterhazy) – Oldenburg from 4 Feb

Der Ring: Das Rheingold (revival from 2015/16) – Kiel from 24 Mar

Die Walküre (revival from 2015/16) – Kiel from 14 May

Siegfried (d. Karasek) – Kiel from 11 Mar

Der Ring: Die Walküre (d. Sharon) – Karlsruhe from 11 Dec

Siegfried (d. Anarsson) – Karlsruhe from 10 Jun

Tannhäuser – Greifswald from 27 Jan

Tannhäuser (revival; d. Heinicke) – Chemnitz from 28 Jan

Tannhäuser (d. Bieito, from Flanders Opera) – Bern from 25 Mar

Tannhäuser (d. Koohestani) – Darmstadt from 22 Apr

Tannhäuser (d. Castellucci) – Munich from 21 May

Tannhäuser (d. Erath) – Saarbrucken from 4 Jun

Tristan und Isolde – Graz from 24 Sep

Tristan und Isolde (revival; d. Kosky) – Essen from 25 Feb

Tristan und Isolde (d. Schulz) – Gelsenkirchen from 4 Mar

Tristan und Isolde (revival from Bayreuth 1993, d. Müller) – Lyon from 18 Mar

Weber

Der Freischütz (d. Fritschi) – Zurich from 18 Sep

Der Freischütz (d. Berger-Görski) – Gera from 28 Oct

Der Freischütz (d. Wilgenbus) – Hildesheim from 18 Feb

Der Freischütz (d. Schlösser) – Saarbrücken from 19 Nov

Der Freischütz – Bielefeld from 4 Mar

Der Freischütz (d. C. Wagner) – Münster from 25 Mar

Der Freischütz (d. Von Götz) – Leipzig from 4 Mar

Der Freischütz (d. Leupold) – Heidelberg from 31 Mar

Oberon (concert perf.) – Gießen from 17 Dec

Oberon (d. Habjan) – Munich from 21 Jul

Weill

Mahagonny (d. Mühlen) – Halle from 21 Jan

Mahagonny (d. Schwab) – Gera from 3 Mar

Mahagonny (d. Oldag) – Cottbus from 11 Mar

Mahagonny (d. Spirei) – Salzburg from 30 Apr

Mahagonny (d. Dietz) – Mannheim from 1 Jul

Weinberg

The Passenger (d. Rech) – Gelsenkirchen from 28 Jan

The Passenger (d. Weber) – Dresden from 24 Jun

Wir gratulieren (d. Kim; c/w Polykrates) – Heidelberg from 28 May

Wigglesworth, Ryan

The Winter’s Tale (WP, d. Kinnear) – London ENO from 27 Feb

Winkler, Kenneth

Totentanz (WP) – Innsbruck from 18 Feb

Wolf-Ferrari

Il segreto di Susanna (in German, d. Papke, c/w Rota) – Görlitz from 19 Nov

Xenakis

Oresteia (d. Bieito) – Basel from 24 Mar

Zandonai

Giulietta e Romeo (d. Montavon) – Erfurt from 8 Apr

Giulietta e Romeo (d. Kochheim) – Braunschweig from 21 Apr

Zeisl

Leonce und Lena (d. Horres) – Linz from 22 Apr

Zeller

Der Vogelhändler (d. Ecker) – Cologne from 17 Dec

Zemlinsky

Der Zwerg (c/w Dallapiccola’s Prigioniero) – Graz from 25 Mar

Zimmermann, Udo

Weisse Rose (d. S. Konwitschny) – Augsburg from 8 Oct

Weisse Rose (d. Ellinidou) – Cologne from 22 Oct

Weisse Rose (d. Drescher) – Biel/Solothurn from 4 Nov

Zingarelli

Giulietta e Romeo (1796) (d. Loschky) – Heidelberg/Schwetzingen from 25 Nov

WP = world premiere

GP = German premiere

AP = Austrian premiere

SP = Swiss premiere

UKP = UK premiere

d. = director

c. = conductor