Gaetano Donizetti's opera buffa "Viva la Mamma!" takes the audience into the wonderfully chaotic reality of the theater business with plenty of wit, irony and a lovingly critical look at the world behind the scenes. In Daniel Kramer's production, the stage of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein is transformed into a turbulent rehearsal chaos - a homage to the theater itself, between self-irony, shrill characters and great musical fun.
Theater, theater everywhere! During rehearsals for the highly tragic period piece "Romulus and Ersilia", everything somehow goes wrong: the prima donna doesn't feel well, the trouser role doesn't like itself and the tenor finally wants to play first violin.
And to make matters worse, Mamma Agata, the second soprano's weird helicopter mother, bursts in...
When the trouser role and the tenor finally leave in a huff, the need is great: who is going to sing Romulus? Without further ado and very helpfully, the completely unmusical Mamma Agata wants to step in. But before it gets that far, let alone before the opera can be performed, everything is over and the opera house is to be closed!
In his opera buffa, in which the Mamma is played by a baritone (!), Gaetano Donizetti creates a musically colorful and virtuoso parody of the customs and mores of the theater with all the clichés and eccentric tendencies of the artists, staged in a comedic, shrill and colorful way by director Daniel Kramer ("Die tote Stadt").
Premiere October 2
Further performances: October 4, 11 and 25, November 2 and 22, 2025
