Let it rain, let it snow. With three renowned opera houses, the pleasure of Berlin’s 2012 season won’t end until a great number of fat ladies have sung. October and November offer the opportunity to attend Staatsoper’s new productions of two Czech classics, Janácek’s Aus Einem Totenhaus (From the House of the Dead), with the orchestra conducted by the Berlin Philharmonic’s Sir Simon Rattle, and Smetana’s The Bartered Bride. Architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel’s ornate Staatsoper building on Unter den Linden is closed until 2014 for a much- needed facelift, so productions are at the Schiller Theatre, a less impressive venue but one which, with 450 fewer seats, lets opera buffs be close to the action even in €20 and €28 ‘nosebleed’ seats.

Prices at all the opera houses – Staats, Deutsche and Komische – are cheap compared with other major cities. A ticket that would cost $345 at the New York Met or £205 at London’s Royal Opera House costs only €90 in Berlin. And the choice is almost overwhelming. The next two months alone will see the staging of Candide, The Barber of Seville, Wozzeck, La Traviata, L’Étoile, Orpheus in the Underworld, Tosca, Falstaff, Carmen, Rusalka, plus insect saga Mikropolis and Aschenputtel (Cinderella) for kids.

More than half a million people go to the opera in Berlin during the season, which also includes ballets, liederspiels and concerts. Capacity figures are the kind many other opera companies can only dream of: the Staatsoper recorded 91% in 2010; even the Deutsche Oper, with 1,865 seats to fill, played to 81% capacity.

Another reason that Berlin is such an opera city, apart from the low admission prices, is the houses themselves. These are considered among the finest not only in Germany, where more than 153 cities have their own opera companies, but in all of Europe. The Staatsoper opened in 1742; the Komische Oper (featuring an innovative multilingual translation system and focusing on the light and experimental), was founded nearby in 1947, in what had been a theatre for 200 years; Deutsche Oper lost its own historical building to the Second World War and moved in 1961 into a massive and modernist edifice which it calls an “ornate-décor-free zone.”

The high attendance is also down to the fact that the art form is less elitist in Germany than perhaps anywhere in the world, with the possible exception of Italy. Even the West’s Deutsche Oper roots are as a ‘people’s opera’ affordable to all.

Nevertheless, because of the sizeable cost of keeping three companies going, in Berlin the word ‘opera’ is often followed in press articles by ‘crisis’. Berlin mayor Klaus Wowereit has long been committed to establishing the city as an international culture centre and stumps up the lion’s share of the operas’ joint €145m budget, but this only goes so far. Two of the houses, the Staatsoper and the Komische Oper, lie in the old East, where creativity was accompanied by the loss of crucial state subsidies. West Berlin’s Deutsche Oper is untouchable, a symbol of freedom. After reunification, old loyalties led to a raging German ‘opera war’ and even today, many Staats regulars are unhappy that the company’s temporary quarters are now on the ‘wrong’ side of town.

In 2003, when a money-saving scheme was proposed to merge the companies under one federation, the heresy incited near-hysteria, culminating in Daniel Barenboim, the much-celebrated Israeli- Argentinian director of the Staatsoper, threatening to walk away from his post.

A €22m subsidy to salvage the opera houses’ independence was found, but they were forced to begin sharing workshops, their separate ballet companies became one, and hundreds of workers were laid off.

Unlike in other countries – particularly the US – there are no private foundations picking up a huge part of the tab for lavish productions; in Germany, all financing comes from federal, state and city government pockets. (The German federal government coughed up €200m for the Staatsoper makeover.)

The result has been a triumph of make-do and mend. As opera critic Leonard Turnevicius notes: “Whether you call it Regietheater, Eurotrash or unorthodox, you’re bound to encounter it.” La Traviata might feature little more than a chair on the stage, Don Giovanni’s only prop may be a motor scooter, tables might double as divans, and costume changes are few, if any – in fact nudes or sopranos in their undies occasionally grace the stage.

But while foreigners may occasionally gasp, Berliners relish their novel approach. Within open scaffolding, in front of Airstream trailers or behind images of scenery projected on a scrim, the performances are often sublime, and the starkness of new productions is balanced with lavish repertory standbys such as Deutsche Oper’s La Bohème or Staatsoper’s The Magic Flute, the sets and costumes enduring for years.

Even if this winter proves as long and hard as last year’s, the three houses are expected to provide their own warm glow, intensified by the news that Barenboim has recently signed a new 10-year contract.

And you can count on Berlin’s opera scene remaining a reflection of the city: sometimes classic, sometimes avant-garde, bare-bones minimalism alternating with over-the-top extravagance; flesh offsetting frou-frou, the famous and the wannabes cheek by jowl as divas on the stages thrill their audiences of society dowagers, working people and the city’s ever-swelling number of cultural tourists.

THE SCHILLER THEATRE
Bismarckstraße 110 10625 Berlin +49 30 2035 4555 tickets@staatsoper-berlin.de

DEUTSCHE OPER BERLIN
Bismarckstraße 35 10627 Berlin +49 30 3438 4343 info@deutscheoperberlin.de

KOMISCHE OPER BERLIN
Behrenstraße 55-57 10117 Berlin +49 30 202600 info@komische-oper-berlin.de