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At Staatsoper Hamburg, Unsuk Chin’s new opera The Dark Side of the Moon immerses audiences in an hypnotic, introspective journey, where dreams, science and psyche collide in a rigorously crafted, thought-provoking spectacle.

No half measures in a triple-decker Hamburg staging of Saint François d'Assise at the Elbphilharmonie. 

Opening the new opera season, Kent Nagano powerfully directs Mussorgsky's great psychodrama about a famous tsar, marred only by Frank Castorf's visually confusing and symbolically overweighted production. 

What does opera in the 21st century look and sound like? Streets removed from anything Mozart, Verdi or Wagner would have recognised. But Salvatore Sciarrino is his own man.

“Jealous lover kills local slut” might be the tabloid headline, but Bizet's Carmen is much more than that, especially in this visually stunning new production in Hamburg, directed by Herbert Fritsch.

Kent Nagano and the forces of Staatsoper Hamburg launch their new season with a production of Shostakovich's very first opera in which the ears are beguiled but the eyes are not.

From stylised 16th-century dress to a 1970s sitcom ballet, Konwitschny's Staatsoper staging is full of brilliantly inventive touches, splendidly realised in this excellently sung revival. 

Hamburg's revival of a 2015 production is a musical success, but the director's concepts are sometimes too dense to tell a straightforward story.

The 2002 production of Handel’s masterpiece is revived with a solid cast under the baton of Riccardo Minasi.

Hamburg State Opera launches its new season with a visually overpowering but musically satisfying Così fan tutte.

Johannes Laiacker’s inspired set designs were a perfect example of how a modern setting can avoid being gratuitously iconoclastic.

Willy Decker's production, presented in Zürich in 2014, is revived at the Hamburgische Staatsoper with most of the same cast

Neither Sir Walter Scott nor Donizetti were well served by the farcical staging, but finally bellissimo bel canto prevailed over the production.

At least the colour-coded characters in Andreas Homoki’s farcical production made it easy to know which team to barrack for.

An uncompromising approach to the unfinished score of Berg's opera results in a compelling musical and dramatic interpretation.

Mozart's very notes become servant to the cause in an ingenious staging of Le nozze di Figaro by one of today's most esteemed directors.

A musically strong revival of an austere production still leaves one feeling short-changed.

Péter Eötvös conceived his opera Senza Sangue (Without Blood) as a complement to Bartók's Bluebeard's Castle. Dmitri Tcherniakov has now staged and designed Senza Sangue together with Bluebeard's Castle for Staatsoper Hamburg.

British director Richard Jones is well known for his bold, modern and often controversial takes on operatic repertoire. So I was very curious to see what surprising ideas he would come up with in directing Britten’s rarely performed opera Gloriana, originally composed in honour of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953.

In Tcherniakovs neuer Inszenierung an der Staatsoper Hamburg ist Asmik Grigorian nach fünf Jahren endlich wieder als Salome zu erleben.

David Bösch gelingt es, die Typenkomödie bruchlos zu einem Drama von heute zu gestalten.

In Peter Konwitschny Klassenzimmer-Inszenierung wir Nationalismus und Krieg der Spiegel vorgehalten.

Leider scheitern die guten Ideen des Regisseurs, Philipp Himmelmann, an der Umsetzung.

Mit Mozarts Zauberflöte gibt Jette Steckel ihr Debüt als Opernregisseurin und polarisiert mit einer von Lichteffekten überladenen Bühnenausstattung das Hamburger Premierenpublikum.

Catherine Naglestad und Elena Zhidkova brillieren in den weiblichen Hauptrollen von Hector Berlioz' *Les Troyens* neben dem bestens aufgelegten Philharmonischen Staatsorchester Hamburg und seinem Generalmusikdirektor Kent Nagano.

Roger Vontobels Operndebüt im neuen Hamburger Tell beweist Mut und Fingerspitzengefühl und erweist sich Schmähkritiken zum Trotz als durchaus sehenswert.

Pierre fondatrice de la tradition de l’opéra romantique allemand, Der Freischütz rappelle que quiconque pénètre dans la forêt entreprend une quête qui aboutit au Bien ou au Mal selon ses choix.