It couldn't be more Christmassy! The anticipation of the upcoming holidays is audible in this concert full of Christmas tunes, sleigh rides, and Christmas wishes. The focus is on the music for Erich Wolfgang Korngold's fairytale ballet "The Snowman": Colombine and her admirer Pierrot attempt to escape from the clutches of Uncle Pantaloon – and succeed with the help of a snowman. The story is narrated. Finally, things get particularly festive with Otto Nicolai's Christmas Overture, featuring ever-changing variations of the chorale "Vom Himmel hoch."

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Christmas & Fairy Tales

Berliner Philharmonie

Before the champagne corks pop on New Year's Eve, the Berlin Symphony Orchestra will be banging the drums one last time! And not only that. With highlights from films, musicals, and operettas, they ignite a musical fireworks display that is in no way inferior to the sparkling spectacle at midnight. Of course, there will also be some Strauss classics in three-quarter time! Together with singer Nadja Mchantaf, conductor and presenter Ulrich Kern will provide the necessary momentum to start the new year in a good mood.

New Year's Eve concerts 2025

With Franz Lehár, Viennese operetta experienced a noticeable upswing in the first decades of the 20th century. The new flowering of the genre, known as the “Silver Age,” is due not only to the extremely popular The Merry Widow , but also to Lehár’s late operettas from the 1920s and early 1930s, in which he consciously approached grand opera. These works are ambitious and sophisticated, and often feature prominent figures from cultural history, such as the “Devil’s Violinist” Niccolò Paganini or the “Poet Prince” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (in the operetta Friederike ). And with Giuditta , described as a “musical comedy,” he even celebrated a premiere at the Vienna State Opera. Melodic bliss and melancholy are combined in Lehár’s music in a fascinating way.

New Year's concert

Bebelplatz

After the director Herbert Fritsch captivated audiences with an extravagant symphony concert in 2024, this guest concept is now becoming a favourite tradition at the Komische Oper Berlin. This time, the spotlight falls on the charismatic actor Ulrich Matthes, who steps in as concert curator. Under the theme of ‘boldly stepping forth’, he launches the new year with a dazzling programme while offering personal insights into his favourite musical works. Here, the bright optimism of Mozart’s ‘Linz Symphony’ (1st movement) meets the reverent Adagio from Schumann’s Second Symphony. The jazz-infused energy of Gershwin’s Piano Concerto in F major meets with Bernstein’s playful Symphonic Dances from West Side Story. And after his 2014 performance as a narrator at a symphony concert with the Komische Oper—who knows? This time, Ulrich Matthes just might take the leap into song...

Matthes in charge

Schiller Theater

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The Artelize Podcast and Kasper Holten - Pedefining Opera for the modern world

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The Artelize Podcast - A legacy of innovation in Opera: Celebrating Marc A. Scorca

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With his German Requiem, Johannes Brahms found his own musical tone and expression. Deeply connected to the words and messages of the Bible and the spirit of Romanticism, and grounded in the achievements of tradition, he composed an astonishing work in his early thirties, intertwining vocal and instrumental parts to create a harmonious whole. He masterfully handled both the choir and solo voices, as well as the orchestra, with a multitude of haunting expressive moments that have secured the work a central place in churches and concert halls around the world since its composition in the 1860s.

Symphony Concert IV

Major symphonies and instrumental concertos typically characterize the Staatskapelle Berlin's programs when it performs on concert stages in Berlin and around the world. In a special concert program, the orchestra and its General Music Director embark on a journey of discovery into the music of those decades when people sat rapt in front of the radio, listening to the sounds emanating from it—sounds that were both symphonic and jazzy, permeated by rhythmic energy and a captivating vibrancy that evokes images of the concert hall, the salon, or the dance floor. Music of high artistic sophistication that simultaneously creates a good mood.

Special concert “Music from distant radio days”

The fourth symphony concert warms the cold season with two fiery, virtuosic concert fantasies for violin: soloist Maria Solozobova plays Camille Saint-Saëns' Introduction et Rondo capriccioso and Pablo de Sarasate's spirited Carmen Fantasy. Then it's a classical turn with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's cheerful Piano Concerto No. 23, which surprised audiences at the time of its composition in 1786 with its use of clarinets instead of oboes. Ludwig van Beethoven's fourth symphony, which is heard relatively rarely compared to his other symphonies, sounds equally cheerful, bright, and friendly.

Virtuoso & Classical

Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 2 is a monumental work in the repertoire, featuring vocal solos and chorus in the tradition of Beethoven's Ninth. With its five-movement structure and the numerous programmatic indications Mahler incorporated into his music, this Second Symphony is an opus of exceptional sophistication, supported by an exceptionally large performing apparatus. The world and atmosphere of the "Wunderhorn" songs are just as present as the sonic surges characteristic of his symphonic style, culminating in a vision of the "Resurrection," initially mysterious and then brilliant, conveyed through both the words and the music.

Symphony Concert V

"Since Bach's Mass in B minor and Beethoven's Missa solemnis , nothing has been written that can compare with Brahms' German Requiem in this field ," according to the influential music writer Eduard Hanslick. Transcending all denominational boundaries, Brahms created a work that most impressively expresses feelings of suffering and grief, consolation and hope, through a carefully considered selection of texts and with particular sensitivity in the way they are set. Music for Good Friday that reflects this day and simultaneously points beyond it.

Good Friday Concert

Childhood memories of the music of the Sinti and Roma in his homeland inspired Zoltán Kodály's "Dances from Galánta," while Melanie Bonis's Suite en forme de valses exudes French lightness and elegance. This dance-like quality contrasts with the suspenseful music of Paul Dukas, who set Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's ballad of the same name to music in his "The Sorcerer's Apprentice."

Magic & Dancing

Richard Strauss composed more than 40 orchestral songs over a period of decades – all of them are to be performed over several seasons, with a whole range of outstanding singers. No two songs are alike, each one possesses its own tonal characteristics; the range of Strauss’s song art is truly enormous. With his 6th Symphony, Ludwig van Beethoven wrote himself into history as one of the founders of a special kind of “programmatic music”. The Sinfonia pastorale , as he called it, became a powerful work and yet is full of accessibility, grace and charm – in the form of five musical scenes of sharp profile and concise expression that tell of nature and rural life.

Symphony Concert VI

Welcome, spring, connect us once again with music! With the wonderful, the serene, the natural Beethoven, who opens his romantic realm to the audience. Highly lyrical yet classical, completely in the here and now and simultaneously in infinity. A special concert at the Elbphilharmonie: between departure and inner contemplation in the search for the eternal.

Hamburg Symphony Orchestra / Clara-Jumi Kang / Sylvain Cambreling

First performed from memory by Aurora in 2023, The Rite of Spring is one of the most influential pieces of the 20th century. Taking away the music stands allows us to communicate more intensely with each other and the audience, an orchestra breathing as one with no barriers.

The Rite of Spring – International Tour

As spring gathers apace in May, the Komische Oper presents one of the twentieth century’s pivotal masterpieces: Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. A ballet depicting a springtime sacrificial ritual, it’s still one of the modern repertoire’s most imposing works, featuring intricate rhythms and bold melodies. The American conductor Tito Muñoz is also bringing us a fascinating work from across the Atlantic. While Stravinsky was scandalizing early twentieth-century Europe with his expressionist ballets, the Mexican composer Silvestre Revueltas—much less well known in Germany—was crafting his own orchestral masterpiece, Sensemayá, likewise inspired by ancient dance rituals. In addition, the soprano Josefine Mindus returns to the Komische Oper with Brett Dean’s contemporary Shakespearean meditation And Once I Played Ophelia. And what better way to conclude the evening than with Charles Ives’ existential inquiry, The Unanswered Question?

Spring!

Hans Pfitzner composed large-scale, sophisticated operas, as well as opulent orchestral works. In addition to concertos for violin and cello, he also wrote a four-movement piano concerto in 1922, continuing the late Romantic tradition of Brahms and Max Reger. A noticeably innovative spirit, even a musical visionary, was Franz Liszt, who opened a new chapter in European music history with his symphonic poems around the middle of the 19th century. Three of these compositions for a large, richly timbred orchestra, very different in their content and their manifestations, demonstrate the diversity of creative approaches that Liszt applied to this newly developed, soon to be very prominent, musical genre.

Symphony Concert VII

Beethoven on Bebelplatz – this is what the Staatskapelle Berlin and its General Music Director Christian Thielemann offer the audience at "State Opera for All," open-air and free of charge for all interested parties. The diverse, vividly sculpted natural images of Symphony No. 6, the Pastorale , can be experienced, as can the drama and powerful surges of the Egmont Overture, inspired by Goethe's heroic tragedy. These are two of Beethoven's most distinguished orchestral works, performed by the Staatskapelle Berlin, which can look back on a long-standing Beethoven tradition.

State Opera for all - Open-Air Concert

Unter den Linden & Bebelplatz

The first premiere of the season on the State Opera stage will be Jacques Offenbach's opera Les Contes d'Hoffmann – and the Opera Children's Orchestra will also be performing this imaginative music. Excerpts from Offenbach's last work will be heard. The program will be complemented by music by other great French musical theater composers of the 19th century.

Concert Opera Children's Orchestra

Among Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy's instrumental concertos, his Violin Concerto has held a particularly high status since its composition and premiere in the mid-1840s. As a work of great melodic qualities, harmonic finesse, and rhythmic intensity, it has not been without reason that it has garnered much admiration. Maurice Ravel's ballet music for Daphnis et Chloé , composed and premiered for the Ballets Russes in 1912 , is undoubtedly one of the masterpieces of French Impressionism, featuring floating sounds and rich color nuances, as well as a wordless chorus. A story from Greek mythology is impressively relived with and through music.

Symphony Concert VIII

When the Parisian composer Lili Boulanger took Psalm 130 ‘Du fond de l’abîme’ and set it to music in a darkly opulent, lyrical style, she was already acutely aware that her life—marked by serious illness but wholly dedicated to music—would not be long. In his own Requiem Op. 48, Gabriel Fauré (an early admirer and supporter of Boulanger’s exceptional talent) sought to depict death as peaceful and consoling. With subtle nuance and great depth, the choral soloists of the Komische Oper Berlin, led by choir director David Cavelius, are presenting late Romantic masterpieces of French sacred music. Meanwhile, the renowned Latvian organist Iveta Apkalna will unlock the radiant power of the Konzerthaus organ with Francis Poulenc’s expressive Concerto for Organ in G minor.

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Christmas & Fairy Tales

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Good Friday Concert

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Staatskapelle Berlin

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Spring!

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Staatskapelle Berlin

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Symphony Concert VIII

Staatskapelle Berlin

Sacre Choir

Komische Oper Berlin

Waldbühne Berlin

West-Eastern Divan Orchestra