Bachtrack logo
What's on
Reviews
Articles
News
Video
Site
Young artists
Travel

OrlandoNew production

Schillertheater: Großer SaalBismarckstraße 110, Berlin, 10625, Germany
Dates/times in Berlin time zone
Saturday 16 May 202619:00
Thursday 21 May 202619:00
Sunday 24 May 202618:00
Wednesday 27 May 202619:00
Sunday 31 May 202618:00
Saturday 06 June 202619:00
Programme
Neuwirth, Olga (b. 1968)Orlando (German premiere)
Performers
Komische Oper Berlin
Johannes KalitzkeConductor
Ewa MarciniecDirector
Mirek KaczmarekSet Designer
Julia KornackaCostume Designer
Olaf FreeseLighting Designer
Orchester der Komischen Oper Berlin
Chorsolisten der Komischen Oper Berlin
Sophia JiraDramaturgy
David CaveliusChoirmaster / chorus director
Kinderchor der Komischen Oper Berlin
Dagmar FiebachChoirmaster / chorus director
Agnieszka KrystChoreography
Ema NikolovskaMezzo-sopranoOrlando
Eric JurenasCountertenorGuardian Angel
Karolina GumosMezzo-sopranoQueen, Purity, Friend of Orlando's child
Ulrike HelzelMezzo-sopranoModesty
Anna NekhamesSopranoSasha, Chastity
Günter PapendellBaritoneShelmerdine, Green
Ivan TuršićTenorDoctor 1
Tom Erik LieBaritoneDoctor 2, Pope
Jens LarsenBassDoctor 3, Duke
Grace HeldridgeMezzo-sopranoOrlando's girlfriend
Andrew HarrisBassDryden
Andrew DickinsonTenorAddison

Imagine being immortal and witnessing four centuries of history firsthand—first as a man, then as a woman...

A favorite of Queen Elizabeth I, the young English nobleman Orlando is showered with honours and estates—and henceforth, ceases to age. After an unresolved love affair with the beautiful Russian Sasha, Orlando withdraws from society, determined to become a poet. Disappointed once again, he then takes up a diplomatic post in a distant conflict zone. There, after a trance-like sleep lasting a week, Orlando awakens as a woman. With this change, she discovers that she’s lost all her property ownership rights in England. In search of freedom, Orlando journeys through centuries of patriarchal rule, witnessing Baroque decadence, Victorian morality, countless wars, and the rise of the digital age. Orlando’s own non-binary child embodies the fluidity of identity, challenging every notion of duality. As a poet, Orlando writes against simplification and populism, and as a time traveller, Orlando continuously reimagines the present.

At once visionary, critical, and ironic, Virginia Woolf’s Orlando (1928) was dedicated to her lover, Vita Sackville-West. With the 2019 opera Orlando, Austrian composer Olga Neuwirth extends this fictional biography into the present, becoming a time traveller herself as she embarks on a musical journey that stretches from madrigal to electronic music. Director Ewelina Marciniak brings this kaleidoscopic work—exploring the fluidity of time, style, and gender roles—to the German stage for the first time, as a hybrid grand opéra that blends fashion, media, space, and music.

Mobile version