Welcome

Hi! 👋 I'm Philip, and I've loved opera all my life. Moving to Berlin with its three opera houses, as many concert halls, and countless smaller stages, seeing operas and concerts has quickly become a full-time hobby: I see about 10 to 15 shows a month now, which means that it has been necessary to start collecting my thoughts and documenting what I see. I've been sharing these thoughts and reviews on Instagram for some time now (@philipoftheopera) and have enjoyed connecting with like-minded opera stans and concert fans.

While singing in a boys' choir and performing in concert halls and on opera stages throughout Germany and Europe as a child was my gateway into classical music, I have no advanced musical training or musical theory background. I did, however, pursue an academic focus on political sciences and social policy. Therefore, what most interests me when seeing an opera—beyond enjoying the music—is not so much what is heard, but rather "what it means". I want to interpret the sociocultural narratives offered by a production, read into artistic criticism of our society, and understand the world that is created by a certain storytelling taking place. Let's be so real: we live in a time of dominant and conflicting narratives about the society we live in, the future we envision, and normative beliefs about who should determine all this. I believe that opera has a unique artistic advantage in processing what is happening around us today, and delivering it to a broad audience across the world.

That being said, I'm now trying something new with this website. It turns out that Instagram captions are not the best medium for long-form text! Things will be up and running here shortly, but you can subscribe in the meantime if you'd like to stay up to date and receive emails when new content is published. Keep in touch!