W. A. Mozart (1756-1791) created a piece of music history with this unique stage work, which since its premiere in September 1791 has become one of the most popular and most performed operas worldwide.When the theater and bon vivant Emanuel Schickaneder approached the financially and psychologically troubled composer in 1790 and presented him with a fairy-tale libretto, Mozart was immediately taken with it and added the masonic ideals and rites that were fashionable at the time. These gave the “Magic Flute” a completely different meaning and transformed the piece from a colorful magic pose into an almost testamentary appeal to humanity - entirely in the style of the spirit of the Viennese Classicism. Musically, this great German opera or Singspiel unites different styles such as opera seria, opera buffa and tragédie lyrique. Mozart’s genius united the French romance, the Italian aria and the German Lied to a fascinating kaleidoscope that inspires young and old alike. Popular arias from the "Magic Flute" such as “The Birdcatcher I am”, “Hell’s Revenge is boiling in my Heart”, or “This Portrait is Enchantingly Beautiful” are easily accessible to everyone. Goethe attested that this music alone would have provided a worthy accompaniment to his Faust.

Who doesn’t immediately have the "Dance of the Four Little Swans" in their mind’s eye when they think of the subject of ballet? Or the touching pas de deux of the swan princess Odette and her prince Siegfried? Hardly any other work has had such a strong influence on ballet history up to the present day as Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s "Swan Lake". Yet the reaction to the premiere at Moscow’s Bolshoi Theater in 1877 was rather muted: the music too symphonic, but above all the choreography rather bland. The triumphant success of "Swan Lake" did not begin until 1895, when the choreographers Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov revised the ballet and staged it at the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg - Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) had already died.The choreography around the innocent white swan princess Odette, her seductive counterpart Odile in the form of the black swan and Siegfried searching for his great love is still considered the basis for all productions today.