[16.02.2012] Leoš Janáček’s artistic opera Osud, which the composer never heard staged during his lifetime, returns to the place where it received its German premiere. The work was first performed in a staged version in October 1958 on consecutive days in Brno and in Stuttgart. The revised edition, published as part of the Janáček Complete Edition, will be used in the staging by the new production team at the Stuttgart Opera: Sylvain Cambreling conducts Fate: Destiny – Osud in the production by Jossi Wieler and Sergio Morabito. Janáček’s “theatrical work, emerging entirely out of the spirit of his music, whose lyrical and dramatic high points are amongst the great, unique moments of his output in their originality,” is presented with another Expressionist artistic drama, Schoenberg’s “Die glückliche Hand”. The first performance takes place on 11 March 2012.

Which is the opera where everything ends with a triad, with a ménage à trois in mutual agreement? This is the surprising ending in Adolphe Adam’s Le Toréador. And the music too offers a breath of fresh air – brilliant and elegant orchestral writing with great powers of seduction.

Robert Didion’s critical new edition of Jacques Offenbach’s La Belle Hélène, in which the original version of this Opéra bouffe has been reconstructed for the first time based on the autograph manuscript, continues to attract considerable interest through productions in Germany and further afield. The first of these is a new production at the Stadttheater Bielefeld on 27 November directed by Bruno Klimek and conducted by Witolf Werner; this is followed on 16 December by the Stadttheater Biel-Solothurn (production: Vincent Tavernier, conductor: Harald Siegel). 

New productions of Manfred Trojahn’s operas can be seen in two musical capitals:  the first night of a new production of Limonen aus Sizilien takes place on 12 February 2017 at the Vienna Volksoper. “Drei italienischen Geschichten” to a libretto by Wolfgang Willaschek after Luigi Pirandello and Eduardo de Filippo is directed by Mascha Pörzgen. The conductor of the nine performances at the Kasino am Schwarzenbergplatz is Gerrit Prießnitz. Two weeks later at Zurich Opera, Hans Neuenfels directs the Swiss premiere of the music theatre work Orest. The first night on 26 February 2017 and six further performances (2.3., 7.3., 10.3., 12.3., 19.3., 24.3.2017) are conducted by Erik Nielsen; Georg Nigl performs the title role.

More than 150 years after its successful performance at the Paris Opéra, Halévy’s La Magicienne returns. This striking opera now deserves a new staged production.

Sieg der Schönheit (The Triumph of Beauty), Telemann’s first work for the Hamburg stage, captivates through an exciting and richly varied plot, and through music which spills over with a wealth of emotions. It can be rediscovered as a theatrical work in Osnabrück in June 2012.

[16.02.2012] This year also sees two little-known operas by Telemann put through their paces in the repertoire: the Theater Magdeburg presents the Singspiel Miriways on 10 March at the 21st Telemann Festtage in a staged premiere (production: Jakob Peters-Messer, conductor: Michi Gaigg), and the Theater Osnabrück ends its season on 6 June with a new production of Sieg der Schönheit (production: Markus Bothe, conductor: Michael Schneider). For both productions, new performance material has been specially produced, based on the Telemann Edition.