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Thanks to Barrie Kosky's flamboyant imagination and a solid cast, the Komische Oper's new production of La Cage aux Folles glitters, but could be more gay.

Sailor suits and powder-puff bows as Herbert Fritsch directs a colourful new production in Berlin. 

Marking the beginning of a new artistic direction, the Komische Oper's new production of Nono's Intolleranza 1960 proves a success, with director Marco Štorman's deep rethinking of the theatre stage.

A dearth of nuance affects this new production of Verdi's late masterpiece in Berlin, set in Sir John's gourmet kitchen. 

Komische Oper Berlin presents Leoš Janáček's masterpiece as a tight-knit psychodrama in a new production conducted by Giedrė Šlekytė.

Celebrating his tenth and last season at the head of Komische Oper, Kosky treats himself to a revival of his 2017 production, which shows no signs of aging.

Leigh Melrose appears in a strong new Œdipe directed by Evgeny Titov to open the 2021-22 season at the Komische Oper. 

The Komische Oper's new, socially-distanced Offenbach staging shows plenty of glitzy defiance in its brief appearance before Germany's latest lockdown. 

Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, Semele willingly pays the price of death through transformation. 

Nicola Raab's production doesn't quite provide the bold rethinking it promises, but stylish execution and a fine cast make for an effective modern Traviata. 

The Staatsballett Berlin in Jefta van Dinther's Plateau Effect questioning social interaction.

Sophisticated interpretation of The Bassarids by Hans Werner Henze at the Komische Oper Berlin

In Robert Carsen's staging, the “dead city” is absent: the scenery showing a bourgeois room that one imagines overlooking a bright avenue in Vienna or Berlin rather than a dark alley in Bruges.

M – a city searches for a murderer, by Moritz Eggert and Barrie Kosky, receives its world premiere at the Komische Oper Berlin.

Loyalty and misdeeds in the jungle of emotions in Handel's Poro, re dell'Indie.

The new version of La bohème at the Komische Oper Berlin follows a hard Verismo-beat.

Serious farce, warm-hearted sarcasm, operatic Broadway: Barrie Kosky and Komische Oper turn Bernstein's problem child into a show that thrills from start to finish.

Pierangelo Valtinoni’s take on the classic story is a charming introduction to opera for children. 

The Komische Oper's new staging of Korngold's opera doesn't quite offer the necessary scale or atmosphere. 

To reassure the sceptics, the break from tradition of Stijn Celis’ Your Passion is Pure Joy to Me, and Sharon Eyal’s and Gai Behar’s Half Life made for a great start to the Staatsballett Berlin’s new season.

There’s no doubt that Mélisande endeavours to escape past troubles when she first appears in Barrie Kosky’s production of Debussy’s opera, yet Nadja Mchantaf is no reticent, wispy maiden. Every vocal and physical gesture – always precise and penetrating – displays an atypically forthright quest for vitality, something that Arkel’s chauvinistic world does not readily offer.

Franz Schreker’s Die Gezeichneten (The Branded One) is an unsettling work given the storyline’s background of abduction and clandestine sexual abuse. Calixto Bieito, as expected, eschews ambiguity regarding what goes on behind the scenes, and casts even the titular cripple Alviano Salvago in a damning light.

Shostakovich's early masterpiece is fêted at the Komische Oper Berlin

Handel’s Semele is presented as a flashback at the Komische Oper in Berlin. 

Tchaikovsky's opera packs a powerful emotional punch in the Komische Oper's concentrated and dreamlike production.

Stefan Herheim packs puns and gags into a three-hour long show, but less could have been more. 

With many costume changes, notably into a Sun-King with very prominent phalic sunburst, Houtzeel held centre-stage in the title role.

The Spanish director offers a controversial angle but tones it down to focus on dark psychology rather than spectacle in his staging of Schrecker's hothouse opera.

“Fiddler on the Roof” as a universal parable of tradition 

Duato | Shechter by the Staatsballett Berlin at the Komische Oper is a classic yet sleekly contemporary programme. 

Introspected and atmospheric, this late romantic opera appeals to the psychotherapists within us.

Artistry and politics intertwine in a remarkable concert at the Komische Oper Berlin.

A woman, mother and outcast needs to make life choices in a hostile environment.

Sorochyntsi Fair was last performed at Berlin's Komische Oper in 1948 by the legendary stage director Walter Felsenstein. Now Barrie Kosky, stage director and intendant, has tried his hand.

Could this be the most perfect fusion of music and visuals known to mankind!?

A hilarious pearl of an operetta. Barry Kosky reigns supreme in Berlin!

Barrie Kosky's 2011 production confines the action of the opera to a stark white room. A fine ensemble of singers made for a successful evening.

Darkly illuminated music at Berlin's Komische Oper. 

Before the beginning of each opera, an announcement is made reminding the audience not to film, photograph, tweet, post, google, snapchat... Komische Oper Berlin premieres a hilarious Barber of Seville where the singers do nothing but just that.

If you can imagine an undiscovered PG Wodehouse story set to music by Cole Porter, you wouldn’t be far off. 

Revel with a naughty Don Giovanni at the Komische Opera in Berlin.

Komische Oper's re-imagining of Nico Dostal's 1933 operetta makes for delightfully escapist, romantic evening out, while Christoph Marti's superb drag performance of the title role makes it a memorable one.

There may be spiders, or zombies above your head. A spook show? Berlin's Komische Oper premiers a gothic musical theatre work by Heinrich Marschner... and it is a gory, good romp.

Barrie Kosky's new production of Eugene Onegin at the Komische Oper Berlin is delicious for the eyes, ears and emotions. 

Barrie Kosky, with nods to the surreal and the macabre, plunges us headlong into Hoffmann’s nightmarish world in a terrific new production at the Komische Oper.

Barrie Kosky's production of Schoenberg's unfinished masterpiece is brought to musical life by Vladimir Jurowski's intense and compelling interpretation.

At the Komische Oper Berlin, West Side Story has some incredible highlights, but leaves a few too many whys to be wholly enjoyable, with some curious production details.

Usually, I don’t find much to be excited about in opera stagings meant to overhaul the genre, to give it the resuscitation it apparently needs. They are always more promising on paper, always less effective in execution: I’ve seen all kinds of sexual permissiveness, giant machines, film projections, even singing robots (an especially low point).