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Opening Ceremony Musikfest Berlin 2026

VenueBerliner Philharmonie
CalendarFri 28 Aug 2026
Synopsis/Details

Opening Ceremony Musikfest Berlin 2026
75 Years of Berliner Festspiele
Duration: approx. 2 hours

 

Musikfest Berlin opens with Le Grand Macabre by György Ligeti while also celebrating the 75th anniversary of Berliner Festspiele. Ligeti's only opera is a pitch-black parable about war and the end of the world. Yet, in the end, humor prevails, helping to overcome the fear of death almost incidentally. It is no surprise that this satire has become one of the most frequently performed works of contemporary music theatre. Nicholas Collon leads the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra as its Chief Conductor, joined by the Helsinki Chamber Choir and an international ensemble of soloists, through Ligeti's grotesque end-of-the-world scenario. Thanks to the Helsinki Festival, this "Anti-Anti-Opera," as the composer himself described it, will receive its first-ever performance in Finland just a few days earlier.

Cast

Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra
Nicholas Collon: Conductor
Sarah Aristidou: Soprano (Venus and Gepopo)
Heidi Melton: Soprano (Mescalina)
Andrew Watts: Countertenor (Prince Go-Go)
Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke: Tenor (Piet the Pot)
Leigh Melrose: Baritone (Nekrotzar)
Karl Huml: Bass (Astradamors)
Elisabeth Freyhof: Soprano (Amanda)
Jingjing Xu: Mezzo-soprano (Amando)
Luke Terence Scott: Bass (Black Minister)
Tuomas Katajala: Tenor (White Minister)
Jussi Merikanto: Baritone (Schabernack)
Tomi Punkeri: Baritone (Schobiack)
Sakari Topi: Baritone (Ruffiack)
Vokalhelden
Helsinki Chamber Choir
Nils Schweckendieck: Chorus Master
Frederic Wake-Walker: Stage Director

 

Programme
György Ligeti
Le Grand Macabre

Venue
Berliner Philharmonie

The Berliner Philharmonie is a concert hall in Berlin, Germany. Home to the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, the building is acclaimed for both its acoustics and its architecture.

 

The Philharmonie lies on the south edge of the city's Tiergarten and just west of the former Berlin Wall, an area that for decades suffered from isolation and drabness but that today offers ideal centrality, greenness, and accessibility. Its cross street and postal address is Herbert-von-Karajan-Straße, named for the orchestra's longest-serving principal conductor. The neighborhood, often dubbed the Kulturforum, can be reached on foot from the Potsdamer Platz station.

 

Actually a two-venue facility with connecting lobby, the Philharmonie comprises a Großer Saal of 2,440 seats for orchestral concerts and a chamber-music hall, the Kammermusiksaal, of 1,180 seats. Though conceived together, the smaller venue was added only in the 1980s.

 

By subway (U-Bahn):

Lines U2 (Bahnhöfe Potsdamer Platz or MendelssohnBartholdy-Park)

By city train (S-Bahn):

Lines S1, S2, S25 (Potsdamer Platz)

By regional train:

Lines RE3, RE4, RE5 (Potsdamer Platz)

By bus directly to the Philharmonie:

Lines 200 (Philharmonie), M48, M85 (Kulturforum or Varian-Fry-Straße),
Further bus lines: M29 (Potsdamer Brücke), M41 (Potsdamer Platz)

By car:

A limited number of parking spaces are available on the Philharmonie property. Please use the parking garages under the Sony Center and under the Potsdamer Platz Arkaden (Entrance at Reichpietschufer).

By bycicle:

A limited number of bycicle stands are available on front and behind the Philharmonie. Additional stands can be found in front of the State Library (Staatsbibliothek) across the street.

Accomodation

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