“Rusalka,” Staatsoper Unter den LindenFebruary 4-22
Antonin Dvorak’s 1901 opera “Rusalka” flies at the edge of the standard repertoire. The lyrical and soaring aria “Song of the Moon” is better known than any other for its dark and symbolically rich adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid.” Hungarian filmmaker Kornel Mundruczo directs the first new production of “Rusalka” at the Berlin Staatsoper in more than half a century. British maestro Robin Ticciati, music director of Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlinperforms a lush and often melancholy score.
Vienna
“Animal Farm,” Wiener StaatsoperFeb. 28-March 10
Russian composer Alexander Raskatov’s “Animal Farm” came to the Vienna State Opera in late February, in a production by Italian director Damiano Michieletto. Reviewing the work’s world premiere in Amsterdam earlier this year, Shirley Apthorp, the Financial TimesRaskatov’s opera critic praised Raskatov’s “violent, compelling sound-world, percussive and angular, full of unpleasant truth” in this operatic setting of Orwell’s famous allegory of the Russian Revolution. British conductor Alexander Soddy conducted the work’s Viennese premiere.
Franz Welser-Möst and the Wiener PhilharmonikerFeb. 22-26
In the first of five February concerts with the Vienna Philharmonic, Franz Welser-Möst, the former general music director of the Wiener Staatsoper and longtime leader of the Cleveland Orchestra, tackles Mahler’s lofty and elegiac Ninth Symphony at the Wiener Konzerthaus . In subsequent programs, held at the Musikverein, the Austrian maestro led the Viennese in works by Ravel, Hindemith, Schoenberg, Berg, Bruckner and Richard Strauss.
West Side Story, Volksoper WienJan. 27-March 24
In late January, Leonard Bernstein’s music resounds in Vienna’s opera houses. Shortly after the American director Lydia Steier unveiled her “Candide” at the MusikTheater an der Wien, a new “West Side Story” arrived at the Volksoper, the city’s traditional operetta and musical stage across town . (Other house productions this season include “Fledermaus will die“and”Aristocats.”) For director Lotte de Beer’s rendition of the quintessential American boy-meets-girl musical, performed in a combination of German and English, the choreographer was born in Puerto Rico and raised in New York. Bryan Arias Jerome Robbins’ classic dance moves are updated.
