Composed between 1923 and 1925, The Makropulos Case, with music and libretto by Leoš Janáček, is based on Karel Čapek’s eponymous play. Originally set in Prague in 1922, it concerns a hundred year old probate case entitled Gregor v. Prus. When Baron Joseph Ferdinand Prus died in 1827 his cousin claimed the estate, but so too did one Ferdinand Gregor, who asserted that the Baron had promised it to him. While the people originally involved are long dead, their...

Das Rheingold is the first opera in Richard Wagner’s tetralogy Der Ring des Nibelungen or Ring Cycle. It sets in motion the story that plays out across the four operas, and establishes the central theme of power versus love. It sees the dwarf, or Nibelung, Alberich steal the gold that is guarded by the Rhinemaidens and forge it into a ring that makes the bearer all powerful. He is only able to do so, however, by renouncing love, which in the world we see before us no one has...

Intolleranza 1960 at the Komische Oper Berlin The icy wind of history The first production of the 2022/23 season at the Komische Oper Berlin, and at the same time the start of the new general management by Philip Bröking and Susanne Moser, could not have been more visually spectacular: The entire auditorium was covered with endless metres of white, semi-transparent tulle.  You still remember the packaging artists Christo and Jeanne Claude? The wrapped Reichstag in Berlin...

Philip Glass is recognised as one of the leading figures in minimalism today, and yet it is not a word he especially likes. This is understandable since it can severely underplay the variety of music that is all too often categorised under this one umbrella term. Glass himself has written over twenty-five operas, yet even if we look at just his trilogy that focuses on pivotal figures in the fields of science, politics and religion respectively, the styles of composition are markedly...

Based on Prosper Mérimée’s eponymous novella, Georges Bizet’s Carmen of 1875 is the story of the ultimate temptress. A gypsy and cigarette factory worker in Seville, Carmen has the power to entice any man she chooses. Once, however, they are besotted with her she quickly moves on, leaving them heart broken and unable to accept what has happened. In the opera Don José, an army corporal, has almost everything he could ever desire. He has the sweet, loving...