STUDIO 55
On 11, 12 and 13 September 2026
Neuköllner Oper invites five solo artists and collectives who will be featured throughout the 2026/27 season to present 11-minute miniature performances offering insights into their artistic practices and a preview of the season ahead. The equation is simple: 1 studio × 5 artists × 11 minutes = STUDIO 55.
WHAT DOES YOUTH SOUND LIKE?
Open-air Season Opening in the Passage
On 12 September 2026
Loud, angry, melancholic, bored, wild, creative? How do young people respond to an era in which multiple crises cast a shadow over the future? Throughout the 2026/27 season, Neuköllner Oper will provide a platform for young people in a variety of productions and projects, making space for what they have to say – and how they choose to say it. The season opens with the first voices of Berlin youth clubs, initiatives, and curious young people in the Passage Neukölln.
VOX HUMANA
A Singspiel
From 17 September 2026
What can the human voice do? It can sing, speak, pray, heal, protest, perform an opera, create a performance, or deliver a pop hit. Opera Aperta, a collective of Ukrainian artists living and working under the constant threat of Russia’s ongoing war of annihilation, explores these and many other questions in the season-opening production VOX HUMANA.
PÖBELARIEN
From 26 September 2026
The music theatre collective die schlangenknaben invites audiences to crawl into costumes, chew on operatic arias, and burrow through the canon of Western opera – from Carmen to The Magic Flute to Tannhäuser. They keep what nourishes them. Everything else is discarded.
TIRESIAS
From 5 November 2026
For her graduation production in the Master’s programme in Music Theatre Directing at the Hanns Eisler School of Music, Marlene Schleicher joins singers, musicians, and young people from Neukölln to explore one of Surrealism’s masterpieces: Les mamelles de Tirésias (The Breasts of Tiresias) by Guillaume Apollinaire and Francis Poulenc’s opera of the same name. Questions of gender, nationality, and reproduction are reimagined in a contemporary surrealist vision of music theatre.
DARK CHRISTMAS
A Christmas Concert Series
From 22 November 2026
In DARK CHRISTMAS, Neuköllner Oper shifts the focus from the birth of Jesus to the deaths of three pop icons who all passed away a decade ago: George Michael, David Bowie, and Prince. Christmas music for everyone who loves the festive season – or can’t stand it. Featuring Mara Snip, seven_, Niko Meinhold, Sarah Taylor Ellis, and the Naked String Quartet, among others.
1984
A Musical Inspired by George Orwell
From 26 November 2026
George Orwell’s 1984 is one of the defining classics of dystopian fiction and feels more relevant today than ever before. Emerging composer Rui Rodriguez and writer John von Düffel relocate Orwell’s story and characters to the year 2048 together with the third-year Musical Theatre students of Berlin University of the Arts.
BLUE HOUR
From 28 January 2027
“If a colour cannot heal, can it at least awaken hope?” asks Maggie Nelson at the beginning of her book Bluets. Artists and thinkers such as Goethe, Wittgenstein, and Derek Jarman turned to colour—especially blue—in times of crisis. Sarah Thom, Manuela Schininà, and Ariel Efraim Ashbel join young participants from NO Jung in exploring the sensory power of blue as a way of creating community and imagining a more hopeful future.
DARK SCHLAGER
glanz & krawall’s Ultimate TV Variety Show
From 27 February 2027
German Schlager is a melting pot of contradictory desires: nostalgic notions of homeland and folk music collide with profound longings for simplicity, belonging, and romance in an increasingly unstable world. Berlin-based music theatre collective glanz & krawall dissects this uniquely German pop-cultural phenomenon, which remains widely dismissed as mere entertainment within theatres and opera houses.
BERLIN OPERA AWARD
From 16 April 2027
Three emerging composers are given a year to create a 20-minute chamber opera based on Bertolt Brecht’s Baal, mentored by composer Moritz Eggert and librettist Bernhard Glocksin. The resulting works will be presented by students of the Hanns Eisler School of Music at Neuköllner Oper before the prize is awarded.
METROPOLIS
On 23, 24 and 25 April 2027
To mark the centenary of Fritz Lang’s movie classic Metropolis, Neuköllner Oper and the (music) theatre collective Lauratibor invite young people to imagine the future. What will the world look like in 2127? What utopias and dystopias shape their vision of the next hundred years?
HUNTER
From 29 April 2027
Following guest performances in Strasbourg, Ghent, Mannheim, Wiesbaden, and elsewhere, the acclaimed production HUNTER returns to Neuköllner Oper. Inspired by Björk, Liesa van der Aa joins Kat Frankie and the a cappella ensemble B O D I E S on a musical hunt for basketballs.
CRIME OF PASSION
May 2027
Following a completely sold-out premiere run, CRIME OF PASSION returns to the repertoire. In this music theatre performance, Anthony Hüseyin investigates femicide on the opera stage, its historical roots, and its continued presence in everyday life.
VIEW FROM NOWHERE
June 2027
Four figures meet on a small blue surreal golf course and are given an impossible task: to define the universal qualities of humanity. Unsurprisingly, they fail. At best, they arrive at a tragic description of who they are – or who they wish they were. Dutch music theatre duo Annelinde Bruijs (composition) and Suze Milius (direction) make their German debut at Neuköllner Oper with VIEW FROM NOWHERE.
SEASON FINALE
With NO Jung
June/July 2027
The season ends where it began: with a production centred on young people. For the first time, they will not only perform on stage but also take responsibility for the musical direction, directing, stage design, and every other aspect of creating a theatre production.
