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© Thomas Aurin
Antikrist
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Antikrist - Rued Langgaard (1893 – 1952)
Church opera in two acts and six scenes; revised version, BVN 192 (1930)
Libretto by Rued Langgaard
Scenic premiere on 2 May 1999 at the Tiroler Landestheater in Innsbruck
Premiere at the Deutsche Oper Berlin on 30 January, 2022
Recommended for ages 16 and up.
Duration: 90 mins / No interval
In German language with German and English surtitles
Pre-performance lecture (in German): 45 minutes prior to each performance
About the performance
About the work
The Antichrist makes his entrance into a godless world. Sent by Lucifer into the world, he adopts many guises. Mankind is tested and tempted by pride, lust, lies, despondency and hatred in an “all-against-all altercation”. Langgaard’s opera is suffused with fin de siècle atmosphere and pessimism, warning of catastrophe and denouncing the vices of the modern age: egotism, arrogance, frivolity. Langgaard, though, was also an optimist, convinced of the transformative, transcendental power of art and the importance of music as a thread connecting people to the godhead. So it is that the world is freed of all evil and sorrow in the culminating chorus scene in ANTIKRIST.
The work, composed in the early 1920s, drastically revised up until 1930 and referred to by Langgaard as his “church opera”, is a monument within the oeuvre of the Danish composer, which itself is dotted with striking and unusual compositions. Based on John’s Book of Revelation, it is a mystery play dominated by apocalyptic references which does little to conceal the turn-of-the-century mood – and the associative libretto can be analysed from today’s historical perspective. A spark of hope in the darkness is provided by the dazzling music, a score that is Late Romantic and orchestral in influence but constantly collapsing or distilling into austere details. This is the solitary artist Langgaard discovering his personal style, one that, albeit reminiscent of Strauss and Wagner, is also a nod to his contemporaries Hindemith and Schönberg. The symbolism of the text, the switching and changing music and the muscularity of the whole makes ANTIKRIST one of the most remarkable experiments in 1920s opera.
About the production
In the eyes of multi-award-winning director Ersan Mondtag, Langgaard’s opera foretelling a doomsday frenzy is a parable of our own times. His visually arresting production touches on issues such as social fragmentation, the roughening of public discourse and the increasingly bitter climate debate. These concerns are not permitted to out-do the scintillating richness of Langgaard’s music, much of which is purely orchestral: Rob Fordeyn’s choreography is a riveting physical rendition of the score. In his super-aestheticised, expressionist visuals Mondtag is referencing the fine art from the period of ANTIKRIST’s creation, presenting a surreal world in which the laws of physics seem to have been suspended. In his late-capitalist-era urban landscape the world is on the verge of collapse: a car plummets from above, satanic figures swirl around, people are tested and set loose on each other. The punchy, exaggeratedly fantastical images of the director, whose ANTIKRIST in 2022 was his first opera to be staged in Berlin, are perfectly suited to Langgaard’s end-time mystery.
Program and cast
Conductor: Stephan Zilias
Director, Set design, Costume design: Ersan Mondtag
Costume design, Costume painting: Annika Lu
Light design: Rainer Casper
Chorus Director: Jeremy Bines
Choreographer: Rob Fordeyn
Dramaturgy: Carolin Müller-Dohle
Lucifer: Kyle Miller
God’s Voice: Jonas Grundner-Culemann
The Echo of the Air of Mystery: Maria Vasilevskaya
The Air of Mystery: Arianna Manganello
The Mouth speaking Great Words: Thomas Cilluffo
Despondency: Martina Baroni
The Great Whore: Flurina Stucki
The Scarlet Beast: N. N.
The Lie: Thomas Blondelle
Hatred: Philipp Jekal
A Voice: Kyle Miller
Dancers: Ashley Wright
Dancers: Giorgia Bovo
Dancers: Ana Dordevic
Dancers: Sakura Inoue
Dancers: Vasna Felicia Aguilar
Dancers: Yuri Shimaoka
Dancers: Joel Donald Small
Dancers: Shih-Ping Lin
Dancers: György Jellinek
Dancers: Miguel Angel Collado
Chorus: Chor der Deutschen Oper Berlin
Orchestra: Orchester der Deutschen Oper Berlin
Photo gallery
© Thomas Aurin
© Thomas Aurin
© Thomas Aurin
© Thomas Aurin
Deutsche Oper Berlin
The Deutsche Oper Berlin is an opera company located in the Charlottenburg district of Berlin, Germany. The resident building is the country's second largest opera house and also home to the Berlin State Ballet.
The company's history goes back to the Deutsches Opernhaus built by the then independent city of Charlottenburg—the "richest town of Prussia"—according to plans designed by Heinrich Seeling from 1911. It opened on November 7, 1912 with a performance of Beethoven's Fidelio, conducted by Ignatz Waghalter. After the incorporation of Charlottenburg by the 1920 Greater Berlin Act, the name of the resident building was changed to Städtische Oper (Municipal Opera) in 1925.
Deutsches Opernhaus, 1912
With the Nazi Machtergreifung in 1933, the opera was under control of the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. Minister Joseph Goebbels had the name changed back to Deutsches Opernhaus, competing with the Berlin State Opera in Mitte controlled by his rival, the Prussian minister-president Hermann Göring. In 1935, the building was remodeled by Paul Baumgarten and the seating reduced from 2300 to 2098. Carl Ebert, the pre-World War II general manager, chose to emigrate from Germany rather than endorse the Nazi view of music, and went on to co-found the Glyndebourne opera festival in England. He was replaced by Max von Schillings, who acceded to enact works of "unalloyed German character". Several artists, like the conductor Fritz Stiedry or the singer Alexander Kipnis followed Ebert into emigration. The opera house was destroyed by a RAF air raid on 23 November 1943. Performances continued at the Admiralspalast in Mitte until 1945. Ebert returned as general manager after the war.
After the war, the company in what was now West Berlin used the nearby building of the Theater des Westens until the opera house was rebuilt. The sober design by Fritz Bornemann was completed on 24 September 1961. The opening production was Mozart's Don Giovanni. The new building opened with the current name.
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