Like the ballets "Swan Lake" (1876) and "The Nutcracker" (1892), "Sleeping Beauty," which premiered in 1890, was also a commissioned composition and was conceived from the outset as ballet music that could be danced to. With its symphonic, artistically demanding elements, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) placed his ballet music far from a simple "background music" for the stage dancers, but rather - today of course - as a genre on an equal footing with opera and concert. Even if Tchaikovsky’s "Swan Lake" and "The Nutcracker" are more often in the foreground in the repertoire of the great opera stages, the composer himself considered "Sleeping Beauty" to be one of his best works.Based on the fairy tale "La Belle au bois dormant" by Charles Perrault, the ballet tells the story of the king’s daughter Aurora, whose curse can only be lifted by the kiss of the prince.

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.