BERLIN â Siegfried, the dragon-slaying hero of Richard Wagnerâs monumental âRingâ cycle, is one of the most punishing operatic parts ever written.
ST. PĂLTEN, Austria â The day after the 2016 election in the United States, Nobel Prize-winning Austrian writer Elfriede Jelinek began a play inspired by President Donald Trumpâs surprising victory. The result was âAm Königswegâ (âOn the Royal Roadâ), a lengthy monologue about a tacky autocrat whose sordid path to leadership is narrated by a blind female seer.
BERLIN â No place on Earth rivals Berlin for the volume and variety of opera on offer, from Georg Frideric Handel to Hans Werner Henze. The city has three world-class companies, which this season have combined for a total of 85 fully staged productions.
Now in his last year as artistic director of the Residenztheater in Munich, Martin Kusej has invited back Ulrich Rasche, the visionary director whose 2017 production of Friedrich Schillerâs âThe Robbersâ was one of the triumphs of Kusejâs eight-year tenure.