People at the Opera

"We met at the opera more than twenty years ago. Since then we have been living a triangular relationship very intensively with all devotion. Love stories are relationships in which something happens between two people. But something third should be added, to make it interesting and lasting. With us it is: the opera. About opera as an art form: Yes, it is realistic: We experience it with all our senses. At the same time, it is completely anti-realistic. Anyone who tries to put something realistic on an opera stage doesn't understand what it's all about. What we experience very real with our senses has absolutely nothing to do with reality. Opera is THE mannerist art form per se. There is no other way. It is not for nothing that opera came into being when mannerist art reached its peak in Italy. And now to Wagner's music, tonight at a SIEGFRIED performance at Staatsoper Berlin: Nietzsche used to say: Wagner's music is fatal to woman, overthrows the strongest bulls and is not for anemic youngsters. The prerequisite for this intense effect is a good performance. In search for it, we are both always on the move in our triangularity, without interruption and without signs of fatigue.” #operalove #operafan #audience #triangularity #operalover #instaopera (hier: Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Berlin, Deutschland) https://www.instagram.com/p/Cki481BDRH3/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

“Experiencing Opera is going into far beyond what daily life could possibly reach. Music starts when breathing seams to be insufficient. Singing starts when words are no longer enough.” - (Carla Cottini) #opera #operafan #operalover #audience (hier: Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Berlin, Deutschland) https://www.instagram.com/p/CkUAl8JMuY1/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

“Visiting the opera felt like entering a completely different world which was unexpectedly easy to dive into. The perfectly orchestrated performance was a unique, impressive and complex artwork which captivated me completely. I highly recommend visiting the opera!” #operalove #operalover #operafan #audience #deutscheoperberlin (hier: Deutsche Oper Berlin) https://www.instagram.com/p/CV0EHoyMLLp/?utm_medium=tumblr

"I first experienced my first opera, FIDELIO, as a little girl, decades ago in the old opera house in Essen. At that performance, a particularly fat and also somewhat ugly lady sang Fidelio. I could not understand how that could be an handsome young man with whom one falls in love. But I felt and sensed something at that time. I understood immediately: This is musical theater. It goes beyond the framework. It is both music AND theater, it is closely connected and opens up completely new dimensions. It takes us into the vastness and heights and depths of humanity and the humanly possible. Since that time, opera has never let me go.” #operalove #operalover #operafan #deutscheoperberlin #audience (hier: Deutsche Oper Berlin) https://www.instagram.com/p/CVvFFz_Mg52/?utm_medium=tumblr

"Opera is life-defining for me. I cannot and will not do without opera. Once a week I'm sure to go to a performance. We are flying to Italy tomorrow and on Wednesday I will go to the opera again. A good twenty years ago I discovered opera for myself at the deepest bottom of my soul. It is the direction in my life.” #operafan #operalove #operalover #audience #deutscheoperberlin (hier: Deutsche Oper Berlin) https://www.instagram.com/p/CVm9cUoMiBm/?utm_medium=tumblr

„A vibrating and moving evening. If opera had previously opened up the tender in me, this evening opened up a universe. What depth, what humour, what a spot landing. BRAVO! This Götterdämmerung captivates me, opens my heart and soul, tells me everything about the necessary newness that must come into the world and then ends with a lightness that inspires me. The moment became infinite and only repetition will create even more depth. That this Götterdämmerung, of all things, now leads to the starting point of my journey into the Wagner universe, delights me beyond measure.“ #operafan #operalove #audience #deutscheoperberlin #operalover (hier: Deutsche Oper Berlin) https://www.instagram.com/p/CViJsBGMqij/?utm_medium=tumblr

"It is the complexity of teamwork that fascinates me: In order for this performance to happen today, colleagues, experts and talents from all over the world come together and are working together in a way that I experience as completely unique. The orchestra of about 90 musicians. The large choir. The extras. The singers. The lighting people. The stagehands. The people in the organization (at the entrance, in the foyer, behind the stage). The hair and makeup experts. The people who take care of costumes, so that everything is ready and fits. And some more that I don't know about. And then they manage to coordinate exactly with each other for more than six hours. The beat, and with it the structure and tempo, is set by the music, which was written on music paper more than a hundred years ago by the composer using a quill and ink. How an universe emerges from this score, that is so complex and so immensely enchanting.” #operfan #audience #deutscheoperberlin #operalover #opera (hier: Deutsche Oper Berlin) https://www.instagram.com/p/CVX7_C8Mk_j/?utm_medium=tumblr

"Opera enlightens my soul. It brings me into a completely different, very individual and yet very true life. I leave reality outside for a few hours and deal with the generally human and all its depth. Music gives me access to sensations, which I in turn experience as intense feelings. Feelings of any kind. In addition, at every performance I am captivated by the action on stage, the direction, the stage design, the lighting, the costumes, the make-up, the creative ideas of the team. No other art form can do that like opera. Opera has the greatest impact on me imaginable.” #operafan #operalover #deutscheoperberlin #audience (hier: Deutsche Oper Berlin) https://www.instagram.com/p/CVVIeI9MpLf/?utm_medium=tumblr

Or is there a better way to pamper a sensitive soul? 😌 #opera #operalover #operafan #audience #quote #peopleattheopera #deutscheoperberlin #derringdesnibelungen (hier: Deutsche Oper Berlin) https://www.instagram.com/p/CVS-3AvMr-I/?utm_medium=tumblr

„I’d never expected to how quick time passes even though you’re spending more than 6 hours straight in the opera. If you’re watching so many things happening at the same time, like the action happening on stage or the orchestra making music the coordinated work from the actors and the orchestra seemed unreal and felt like a perfectly produced film. This interaction ensured that it didn't get boring. And even though I haven’t got a clue what was perfectly implemented or badly done, the experience itself was very worthwhile for me and I will probably go to the opera again. If so I'm going to watch it with a new perspective and a different mindset.” #operafan #audience #operalover #opera #deutscheoperberlin (hier: Deutsche Oper Berlin) https://www.instagram.com/p/CVQbBzFsJss/?utm_medium=tumblr

My experience is that a multiple visit of an opera production not only deepens the experience and sharpens the perception, it also always leads to new perspectives, for the simple reason that one oneself, i.e. the person participating in the performance as a spectator, is somehow different each time (differently tuned, occupied with other things in the heart and in the head, more awake, less awake, more present, less present, more physical, more spiritual, softer and more receptive, or hardened and closed in on oneself, calm and serene or tense and nervous). In this way, the most intensive repetition of the visit to ONE opera production becomes not only a confrontation with the work, but also a confrontation with the self, and then again, with the encounter of the self with art. And this works particularly well in the RING DES NIBELUNGEN. Don‘t waste your life: Go to the opera. #opera #operalover #audience #operafan #deutscheoperberlin #thering (hier: Deutsche Oper Berlin) https://www.instagram.com/p/CVNnftfMRPB/?utm_medium=tumblr

"It was my first opera since the beginning of the pandemic and I enjoyed it so much. I didn't realise how much I missed this feeling of getting soaken into a performance full of emotions and getting goosebumps all over my body. I will definitely visit the opera more often again - just like everybody should.“ #opera #operalover #operafan #audience #berlin (hier: Deutsche Oper Berlin) https://www.instagram.com/p/CUwymDLsbr_/?utm_medium=tumblr

"For me, opera is a mirror of life, with all its drama and tension. A beautiful and playful way of condensing, by all its intensitiy always with a certain lightness in the seriousness of these dramas. My first opera: That's where my parents took me, at the age of 12, in Frankfurt. My father had a special relationship with the newly built opera house in Frankfurt. As a very young journalist, he produced reports about it for the opening.” #opera #operfan #audience #operalover (hier: Staatsoper Unter den Linden) https://www.instagram.com/p/CT9V7Tys5As/?utm_medium=tumblr

"All I can say: I am overwhelmed! This is the first time I experience an opera performance in an opera house; so far I have learned about opera via Youtube videos. The energy that is transferred to the audience during a performance cannot be put into words. And DAS RHEINGOLD here at the Deutsche Oper Berlin is magnificent and thrilling.” #opera #audience #operafan #operalover #berlin (hier: Deutsche Oper Berlin) https://www.instagram.com/p/CQYHrQFBW2x/?utm_medium=tumblr

"We love opera! And have learned in the time of the pandemic how much it means to us. The togehterness of the audience, the preparation for the evening, the anticipation. The experience of artists on stage and in the orchestra pit coming together to give us something very special. The uniqueness that every opera evening has, the unrepeatable. It is a great luck for us to be here today, at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, for a performance of DAS RHEINGOLD. We are very, very excited“ #opera #audience #operafan #operalover #berlin (hier: Deutsche Oper Berlin) https://www.instagram.com/p/CQWhUv5hudq/?utm_medium=tumblr

„Oper is my emotional go to. It is my emotional happy place. During the pandemic is was the one thing I missed most, I have to say. And is not only the opera itself, the music, the art, the Gesamtkunstwerk, but it was exactly encounters like with you, meeting fellow opera lovers, like you, and just chatting along, finding directly some connection, without may not having anything other in life in common, but alredy having some connection over the love to music, and especially the opera.” #opera #operalover #operfan #audience #berlin (hier: Deutsche Oper Berlin) https://www.instagram.com/p/CQQg9PwhsjV/?utm_medium=tumblr

”Opera is back! Und ich bin es auch. Staatsoper Wien, INCORATIONE DE POPPEIA. Die Welt hat uns wieder und uns schlägt das Herz vor Freude und Erregung, aber auch, weil es die Schwingungen der Musiker und Sänger sind, die, imselben Raum wie wir, das Publikum, uns bewegen und rühren und beseelen.” #oper #opera #operaisback (hier: Wiener Staatsoper) https://www.instagram.com/p/CPbHDhjB4b-/?utm_medium=tumblr