Berliner Opernpreis

RADICAL. MOVING. BEAUTIFUL.

This is the music theater that NEUKÖLLNER OPER and GASAG have been inviting composers from all over Europe to produce a half-hour music theater since 1997 – at the expense of the award sponsors with world premiere performances in Berlin.

The composers and creative teams supported by the BERLINER OPERNPREIS want to get out of the academic art bubble and into an exchange with society and its various musical languages from popular and folk music, classical music of European and non-European tradition, such as jazz and much more. They want to be heard and have something to say, now that political extremes are growing and people’s relationship to the truth is in question. The Berlin Opera Prize aims at the universally linguistic, unifying and integrating and seeks the beautiful, emotional and pleasurable aspects of music in today’s diverse, often confusing world.

BERLIN OPERA PRIZE

More than 50 applicants from Germany and abroad took part in the current call for entries for the Berlin Opera Prize, which closed on September 25. A jury consisting of representatives from the Hanns Eisler Academy of Music in Berlin, the Academy of Music and Theater in Munich, and the Neuköllner Oper selected 10 works from the concepts on the theme of “Baal.”

At the beginning of January, the final jury will convene, consisting of one representative from each of the above-mentioned institutions, as well as Dorothea Hartmann (artistic director of the Hessian State Theater in Wiesbaden) and composer Brigitta Muntendorf (artistic director of the Herrenhausen Art Festival 2026). The jury will then select three applicants whose concepts will be brought to the stage of the Neuköllner Oper in a curated workshop process by students of the HfM Musik Hanns Eisler.

2024

2020/2022
comPOSITION
1st Price: A LIGHT BLUE DAY / EIN HELLBLAUER TAG (Andys Skordis/Jelena Vuksanovic)
2nd Price: SUBOTNIK (Samuel Penderbayne/Theresa von Halle)

2018
Take it or leave it
1st Price: ARIANNA, ARIADNE, ARIANE (Tom Smith/Caitlin van der Maas)
2nd Price: PROTHESEN DER AUTONOMIE (Thierry Tiedrow/Zsófia Geréb/Franziska vom Heede)

2016
GAME OVER # GO ON!
1st Price: POST-NUCLEAR LOVE (Yuval Halpern/Svenja Viola Bungarten/Anja Kerschkewicz)
2nd Price: WESENDONCK-LIEDER HEUTE (Het Geluid/Annelies van Parys)

2014
NIGHT IN EUROPE
1st Price: GO, AENEAS, GO! (Xavier Bonfill, Raquel García-Tomás, Octavi Rumbau, Cristina Cordero Crespo)
Förderpreis: LUFT_SCHLOSS, ERD_REICH (Verena Marisa)

2012
NEW DEAL
1st Price: HONOLULU VAGAMAMI (Kompanie [zwischen])
2nd Price: MEIN CHINESISCHES HERZ SINGT DIR EIN LIED (Anna Peschke)

2010
VERBOTENE LIEBE
1st Price: DER UNFALL (Heera Kim/Julia Langkau)
2nd Price: WEST SIDE STORNO (Simon Frei)
3rd Price: 20 MINUTEN (Michaela von der Nahmer/Andreas Bisowski)
4th Price: ROMEO UND JULIA HEUTE (Markus-Lehmann Horn/Andrea Heuser)

2008
DER SONDERERMITTLER
1st Price: Constantin Bömers
2nd Price: Robert Krampe

2006
TOD EINES SCHNEIDERS
1st Price: Bruno Nelissen
2nd Price: Adrian Sieber
3rd Price: Nikolai Zinke

2004
PUTZFRAUEN
1st Price: WISCHEN / NO VISION (Gerd Noack/Marc Seitz/Andreas Bisowski)

2002
MÜNCHHAUSEN – HERR DER LÜGEN
1st Price: Dan Dediu
2nd Price: Maxim Selojanov
3rd Price: Uri Rom

2000
HUNDEHERZ
1st Price: Antonis Anissegos
2nd Price: Roland Merz
3rd Price: Torben Maiwald

1999
ALICE
1st Price: Hanno Siepmann
2nd Price: Torben Maiwald
3rd Price: Björn Rabenstein

1997
DER WURM
Award winners: René Arnold, Ulrich Kallmeyer, Stefan Schneider-Uerdinger, Benjamin Rinnert,  Johannes Martin Kränzle, Alexander Wagendristel/Robert Wiche

Berliner Opernpreis by Neuköllner Oper and