It began as a song cycle for two voices and piano accompaniment and became a choral symphonic mammoth work: Arnold Schoenberg's ‘Gurrelieder’ tell the story of the love between Tove and King Waldemar, based on poems by the Danish writer Jens Peter Jacobsen. In the ‘Gurrelieder’, Schönberg, in the tradition of Richard Wagner, Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss, combines all the musical influences of late Romanticism into an almost two-hour monumental work that is a high point of that artistic epoch – and at the same time a turning point: In fact, Schönberg had already taken the step towards atonality during the years of the completion and world premiere of ‘Gurrelieder’.

The performance of ‘Gurrelieder’ also marks the end of an era at Deutsche Oper Berlin, as it is part of the farewell of General Music Director Sir Donald Runnicles, who will step down from the role at the end of the 2025/26 season after almost twenty years in the post.