Josh Weiner
Maestro Arkady Beryn conducts the Operngala-Nacht on 2 November 2026 in the Philharmonie Berlin.
The Philharmonie Berlin opened on 15 October 1963, four months after John F. Kennedy told a crowd in the divided city that he was a Berliner, and a few hundred metres from the Wall that had gone up two years earlier. Herbert von Karajan conducted Beethoven’s Ninth. Sixty-three years later the hall still stands at the Kulturforum, now in the centre of a reunited city, and on Monday, 2 November 2026 it hosts an American tenor in a gala with a Czech orchestra, a French baritone and a Geneva-based soprano.
The Operngala-Nacht brings the Filharmonie Brno to the Großer Saal under Maestro Arkady Beryn, with René Barbera, Florian Sempey and Alisa Medvedeva as soloists – a programme of the arias, duets, overtures and intermezzi that define the operatic repertoire, from Mozart and Rossini to Verdi and Puccini.
Barbera is the American story in the cast. Born in Laredo and raised in San Antonio, he won the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in 2008 and in 2011 became the first singer to win all three top prizes at Plácido Domingo’s Operalia competition. He made his Metropolitan Opera debut in 2016 and returned there in Der Rosenkavalier; at home he has sung with the Dallas Opera and Los Angeles Opera and performed Verdi’s Requiem with the Detroit Symphony. Abroad he is a regular at La Scala, the Opéra de Paris and the Vienna and Bavarian State Operas. In Berlin he sings Rodolfo’s “Che gelida manina” and Nemorino’s “Una furtiva lagrima”.
Sempey, the French baritone whose Figaro in Il barbiere di Siviglia has been heard at the Opéra de Paris, Covent Garden and the Rossini Opera Festival, and who was named Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres in 2022, sings “Largo al factotum”, the Toreador Song from Carmen and Don Giovanni’s “Fin ch’han dal vino”.
Medvedeva, a Saint Petersburg Conservatoire graduate now based in Geneva who has appeared with Andrea Bocelli and Il Divo, sings Musetta’s waltz “Quando me’n vo”, Bellini’s “Oh! quante volte” and the duet “Là ci darem la mano”. All three join in the Brindisi from La traviata.
The orchestra carries the symphonic weight: the Polonaise from Eugene Onegin, the finale of Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony, the overtures to Le nozze di Figaro, La forza del destino and La gazza ladra, the intermezzi from Manon Lescaut and Cavalleria rusticana, a Dvořák Slavonic Dance and “Tico Tico no fubá”. The Filharmonie Brno has been one of the Czech Republic’s leading orchestras since 1956. Maestro Prof. Arkady Beryn, who conducts, brings more than forty years of experience: Chief Conductor of the Internationale Symphoniker Deutschland from 2003 to 2011, guest conductor of the Berliner Symphoniker, the Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz, the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, and a conductor who has appeared in the Vienna Musikverein and the Amsterdam Concertgebouw as well as in this hall. In July 2026 he led a concert performance of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin in Jerusalem; his stage partners over the years have included José Carreras, Roberto Alagna, Aida Garifullina and Maxim Vengerov.
The Großer Saal seats 2,440 in the terraced “vineyard” arrangement that Hans Scharoun pioneered here and that later shaped halls from Los Angeles to Hamburg. The evening begins at 20:00, and tickets from €26.50 are available via Eventim.
EVENT INFORMATION
Operngala-Nacht – Opera Gala at the Philharmonie Berlin
Monday, 2 November 2026, 20:00
Philharmonie Berlin – Großer Saal
Herbert-von-Karajan-Straße 1, 10785 Berlin, Germany
Conductor: Maestro Arkady Beryn
Soloists: René Barbera, tenor; Florian Sempey, baritone; Alisa Medvedeva, soprano
Orchestra: Filharmonie Brno (Brno Philharmonic)
Programme: Arias, duets, overtures and intermezzi by Tchaikovsky, Mozart, Puccini, Bizet, Verdi, Mascagni, Bellini, Donizetti, Rossini, Dvořák and Zequinha de Abreu
Tickets: from €26.50 via Eventim – eventim.de/artist/philharmonie-berlin/operngala-nacht-philhamonie-berlin-4122419
Event page: Philharmonie Berlin – berliner-philharmoniker.de/en/concert/calendar/57371
Event listing: visitBerlin – visitberlin.de/en/event/brno-philharmonic-opera-gala-night
