Annette Gerlach

Annual awarding of the Grimme Awards.

After a victorious battle, three witches predict that Macbeth, who commands King Duncan's army, will ascend the throne of Scotland. Urged on by his wife to force fate, he takes advantage of the monarch's stay in their castle to murder him... The daring Krzysztof Warlikowski revisits Verdi's most powerful Shakespearean opera, with baritone Vladislav Sulimsky and soprano Asmik Grigorian in the roles of the murderous spouses.

The Berliner Philharmoniker dedicate their New Year's Eve concert to famous lovers from the repertoire, embodied with intensity by French tenor Benjamin Bernheim. On the program: Don José (Carmen by Georges Bizet), Lenski (Eugene Onegin by Tchaikovsky), Werther (in the opera of the same name by Jules Massenet) and Romeo (Charles Gounod's Roméo et Juliette). Conducted by Kirill Petrenko, works by Gabriel Fauré, Emmanuel Chabrier, and George Gershwin round out this festive program.