Berlin's Staatsoper Opera Studio Stages 'Flower Power' on Oct. 27

The International Opera Studio of the Staatsoper Unter den Linden will present "Flower Power" on Tuesday, Oct. 27, in the Apollosaal in Berlin.

The program strings together selections from seven operas: Mozart's "Le nozze di Figaro," Donizetti's "L'elisir d'amore," Puccini's "Madama Butterfly" and "La Bohème," Bizet's "Carmen," Delibes's "Lakmé" and Lehár's "Die lustige Witwe." The connective thread is simple and literal — flowers, used throughout the repertoire as a symbol of love, seduction and transience.

That framing does real organizational work. A flower sits at the center of several of these scores: the cherry blossom that measures Cio-Cio-San's waiting in "Madama Butterfly," the camellia-adjacent garlands of "La Bohème," Carmen's cassia flower, and the duet that Lakmé and Mallika sing by the river in Delibes's opera. The studio has picked repertoire where the image already carries dramatic weight.

The showcase features five singers from the ensemble: sopranos Defne Celik and Etīna Emīlija Saulīte, mezzo-soprano Jingjing Xu, tenor Chen Li and bass baritone Irakli Pkhaladze. Markus Zugehör accompanies on the piano, with Detlef Giese and Katharina Duda hosting the evening.

What is the International Opera Studio?

The studio functions as the young-artist program of the Staatsoper Unter den Linden (a training ensemble for singers in transition from conservatory to professional careers). Its members appear in mainstage productions during the season, and recital formats like this one give them solo exposure in a smaller room.

The Apollosaal — the Staatsoper's neoclassical second hall, distinct from the main house — is the venue where the company typically programs these compact, themed evenings. Piano accompaniment rather than orchestra keeps the focus on the voices.

What does the program tell us?

The mix spans roughly 130 years of repertoire, from Mozart's 1786 "Figaro" to Lehár's 1905 operetta. That range is the point: a studio recital designed to show five young singers across Mozartean comedy, bel canto, verismo, French opera and operetta in a single evening.

The genre spread also signals casting breadth. A program combining Figaro, Nemorino, Cio-Cio-San, Carmen and Hanna Glawari asks each singer to move between styles that professional houses still cast separately.

For Berlin audiences, the Oct. 27 date offers an early-season look at the studio's current cohort before those voices turn up in the main house's larger productions.