Staatsballett Berlin
Nurejew at Staatsballett Berlin
A gay Soviet defector, a ballet banned in Russia, a director now based in Berlin—and a premiere that felt like the most important cultural event of the season.
Philip Zuschke
Lifelong opera stan projecting my sociological and queer perspective onto what’s playing on Berlin‘s big and small classical stages.
Staatsoper Berlin
Les Contes d'Hoffmann at Staatsoper Berlin
A man collapses outside a peep show, and spends the rest of the evening learning why. On shame, desire, and the particular wreckage of a man who never healed his inner child.
Neuköllner Oper
Selemo at Neuköllner Oper
Two traditions, one stage, and the quiet insistence that spring, contradiction, and simultaneity don't need your permission.
Staatsoper Berlin
Don Giovanni at Staatsoper Berlin
A rotating enchanted forest, a Giovanni who bleeds through the whole opera, and the production that knocked the wind back into my opera-tired lungs.
Komische Oper Berlin
Jewgeni Onegin at Komische Oper Berlin
An opera about not getting over a crush—and a production so gorgeous it makes 150-year-old heartbreak feel like yesterday.
Deutsche Oper Berlin
Violanta at Deutsche Oper Berlin
Psychoanalysis as science fiction: rooms within rooms, each one a door into what you've buried—some doors you open, and some you don't.
Staatsoper Berlin
Falstaff at Staatsoper Berlin
Berlin’s queer aesthetics, stripped of queerness—a glossy appropriation where underground culture becomes set dressing for straight comfort.
Staatsballett Berlin
Wunderkammer by Staatsballett Berlin and Marcos Morau
A hypnotic descent into Berlin’s queer club culture—where wonder carries the weight of otherness, and belonging is never guaranteed.
Deutsche Oper Berlin
Tristan und Isolde at Deutsche Oper Berlin (2025)
Between night and light, between longing and annihilation, lies a space where love becomes both wound and salvation.
Budapest Festival Orchestra
Don Giovanni at Vicenza Opera Festival
Between marble grandeur and moral decay, a centuries-old story of charm and cruelty becomes a mirror for power, privilege, and our age of artifice.
Staatsoper Berlin
Die schweigsame Frau at Staatsoper Berlin
Between camp and complicity, this production plays with tropes it should interrogate—and ends up reinforcing the very norms it claims to question.
Deutsche Oper Berlin
Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny at Deutsche Oper Berlin
A libertarian fever dream becomes a masterclass in why community is our only defense against collapse—and fascism.