German Opera

Beethoven’s only opera, “Fidelio,” is the centerpiece of this week’s all-Beethoven Sunday Opera (6/21 3:00 p.m.) in a production from the Vienna State Opera with Maylim Bystrom in the titular role.

Most people have heard selections form Bedrich Smetana’s “The Bartered Bride,” but this week’s Sunday Opera (6/14 3:00 p.m.) will give listeners the change to enjoy the entire work in a live performance from the Vienna State Opera.

Everyone needs a little fantasy from time to time, and on this week’s Sunday Opera (5/17 2026), we’ve got some in the guise of a libretto by Siegfried Wagner for his opera “an allem ist Hutchen Schuld!” (“Everything Is Little-Hat’s Fault!”). This fairytale opera about an invisible, mischievous goblin named “Little-Hat” or “Hattie,” was cobbled together from a number of the stories of The Brothers Grimm with a little Hans Christian Anderson thrown in.

We’re turning to two of Richard Strauss’ lesser-known one-act operas on this week’s Sunday Opera (5/10 3:00 p.m.): “Daphne” and “Feuersnot” (“The Need for Fire” or “Lack of Fire”).

Beethoven is probably the best known composer of one-and-done when it comes to operas. However, there were others, and on this week’s Sunday Opera (4/26 3:00 p.m.), we’re focusing on one of those: Robert Schumann’s 1850 work “Genoveva" based loosely on an event in the life of Genevieve de Brabant.

Franz Schreker was another composer whose work was censured because of the rise in anti-Semitism in Germany in the early 1930’s, and he went from being hailed as the future of German opera to obscurity. We’ll celebrate the music of Schreker which is said to be a lush mixture of Romanticism, Naturalism, Symbolism, Impressionism, and Expressionism on this week’s Sunday Opera (4/19 3:00 p.m.).

Our final production from the Vienna State Opera is the feature on this week’s Sunday Opera (12/14 3:00 p.m.) as we turn to Richard Strauss’ gentle comedy, “Arabella.” The opera is set in Vienna in the 1860s even though it didn’t premiere until 1933.It centers on the Waldner family who are facing bankruptcy because of the father’s (Wolfgang Bankl) gambling. The mother’s (Margaret Plummer) only hope is that one of their daughters, Arabella (Camilla Nylund), will marry a wealthy man.

Germanic paganism mixed with some Early Middle Age Christianity and a splash of Greek tragedy is the recipe for this week’s Sunday Opera (11/30 3:00 p.m.) and the Bayreuth Festival’s production of Richard Wagner’s “Lohengrin.”

We’re back at the Bayreuth Festival for the second of three Wagnerian operas on this week’s Sunday Opera (11/23 3:00 p.m.).This time it’s Wagner’s last opera, one that took him 25 years to complete, “Parsifal” which premiered at the second Bayreuth Festival in 1882 and will fill this week’s program.

The Royal Opera House at Covent Garden is once again the home for this week’s Sunday Opera (8/31 3:00 p.m.) as we turn to the second of the operas in Richard Wagner’s Ring Cycle, “Die Walkure" with Christopher Maltman as Wotan and Elisabet Strid as Brunhilde.