Organization

Singer

Willem Dafoe

Film Actor

Stage director

Marina Abramović

Lynsey Peisinger

Conductor

Yoel Gamzou

Lighting designer

Urs Schönebaum

Costume designer

Riccardo Tisci

Set designer

Video designer

Nabil Elderkin

Dramaturge

Benedikt Stampfli

Written by

Petter Skavlan

Visual Intermezzos

Marco Brambilla

Soprano

Diana Lamar

Floria Tosca

Performance

Spoken

Actor

Irene Roberts

Carmen

Valeriia Savinskaia

Desdemona

Adela Zaharia

Lucia Ashton

Flurina Stucki

Norma

Antonia Kim

Cio-Cio-San

Mané Galoyan

Violetta Valéry

Antonia Ahyoung Kim

Bayerische Staatsoper

Deutsche Oper Berlin

Opéra National de Paris

Greek National Opera

Fondazione del Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino

Orchestra

Orchester der Deutschen Oper Berlin

7 Deaths of Maria Callas

Berlin

Germany

The Seven Deaths of Maria Callas Nikodijević

Public

German

English

Approved

No singer can ignore the dramatically dying woman; she owns the most famous arias in opera history. Maria Callas also died many times in her career. The performance icon Marina Abramović takes seven of her operatic deaths as a starting point: she detaches them from the plot and experiences them herself, projected on a video screen. Each time the artist is killed in a different way. The aesthetically exaggerated pain ritualizes and stylizes the Callas' love and death into a myth. At the same time as the video, seven sopranos will sing the famous Callas arias live. At the end of the evening, Abramović himself is on stage when it comes to the death of Maria Callas and reality and her portrayal merge. In 7 DEATHS OF MARIA CALLAS the Serbian artist deconstructs the opera and places it in dialogue with performance art: as her personal homage to one of the greatest singers of the time, but also as a snapshot of a life for art; along with the pain and fascination it can cause.

Marina Abramović, who was born in what was then Yugoslavia, has had a major impact on the international art scene and, above all, performance art since the 1970s. Her partner in this production is the American film actor Willem Dafoe, known among other things for his portrayal of Vincent van Gogh in "At Eternity's Gate" and his membership in the Wooster Group. The new composition by the young Serbian Marko Nikodijević complements the original arias from the seven operas.

7 Deaths of Maria Callas by Nikodijević, From (2022/2022), Directed by Marina Abramović, Lynsey Peisinger,, Conductor Yoel Gamzou, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Berlin, Germany

Performance credits (Cast & Crew )

Cast

Crew

Ensemble

Co-Producer

Program, About & Synopsis

Videos

Photos

Further reading

Performance Dates & Venues

Venues