Frankfurt Opera’s 2021-2022 season will see eleven new productions, of which eight will be performed in the opera house and three in the Bockenheimer Depot, a former tram depot and the main workshop of the Straßenbahn Frankfurt am Main. In addition, there will be fifteen revivals of past productions and eight vocal recitals. Complete details as to conductors and casts will be announced in the near future.
The new productions are:
- George Frideric Handel’s Amadigi, a youthful, exuberantly inventive work full of love, magic and brilliant arias, directed by Roland Böer (September 2021)
- Domenico Cimarosa’s comedy L’italiana in Londra, conducted by Leo Hussain and directed by artist and opera director R. B. Schlather (September 2021)
- Carl Nielson’s three-act comedy, Masquerade, conducted by Titus Engel and directed by Tobias Kratzer (October 2021)
- Nikolai A. Rimsky-Korsakov’s Christmas Eve, based on a short story by Nikolai Gogol, conducted by Frankfurt Opera’s General Music Director Sebastian Weigle and directed by Christof Loy (December 2021)
- The world premiere of The People Out There by composer Hauke Berheide, directed by Amy Stebbins, with Roland Böer conducting Ensemble Modern (December 2021)
- Warten auf Heute, a triple-bill of Arnold Schoenberg’s Von Heute auf Morgen and Accompaniment to a Film Scene34, with Frank Martin’s Six Monologues from ‘Everyman’, conducted by Alexander Soddy and directed by David Hermann (January 2022)
- The Frankfurt premiere of Gioachino Rossini’s Bianca e Falliero, originally scheduled for March 2020, directed by Tillman Köhler and conducted by Giuliano Carella (February 2022)
- Umberto Giordani’s Fedora, originally planned for 2021, directed by Christof Loy and conducted by Herbert Murauer (April 2022)
- Benjamin Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, directed by Brigitte Fassbaender (who has achieved success as a stage director after her international career as one of the world’s most sought-after mezzo-sopranos) and conducted by Geoffrey Paterson (May 2022).
- Giacomo Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, not seen in Frankfurt for 20 years, marking stage director Mateja Koležnik’s first foray into opera and conducted by Antonello Manacorda (May 2022)
- Luigi Dallapiccola’s Ulisse, the final new production of the season, conducted by Francesco Lanzillotta and directed by Tatjana Gürbaca (June 2022)
Revivals include Christof Loy’s production of Vincenzo Bellini’s Norma, conducted by Erik Nielsen; a double-bill of Igor Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex and Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta, directed by Lydia Steier and conducted by Valentin Uryupin; Engelbert Humperdinck’s Königskinder in a production by David Bösch and conducted by Sebastian Weigle; and Richard Strauss’s Die Frau ohne Schatten, conducted by Sebastian Weigle and directed by Christof Nel.
Other operas that will be presented include Franz Lehár’s The Merry Widow, Karol Szymanowski’s Król Roger, Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas and Béla Bartók’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle, Richard Wagner’s Lohengrin and Puccini’s Il trittico.
The recital series will feature established singers along with promising young artists: soprano Sabine Devieilhe (14 September), baritone Peter Mattei (26 October), mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton (30 November), bass-baritone Gordon Bintner (21 December), soprano Tamara Wilson (4 January 2022), mezzo-soprano Claudia Mahnke (29 March 2022) and countertenor Jakub Józef Orliński (17 May 2022).
Artistic Director Bernd Loebe, who will celebrate his twentieth anniversary with the company next season, says: ‘I look to the new season with very mixed feelings. But above all with the great hope that we will find a way to do opera again by the start of the 2021-2022 season – just as we planned . . . It is again a season with rarities and so-called repertoire works alike’.
Rick Perdian
For more information on Opera Frankfurt’s 2021-2022 season, click here.