Staff Report
Three international voices, a renowned conductor and one of the world’s most famous concert halls: the Operngala-Nacht on 2 November 2026 is the autumn date for opera lovers heading to Berlin.
Berlin has three opera houses and one of the busiest concert calendars in Europe, but a handful of evenings each season stand out as occasions in their own right. On Monday, 2 November 2026, the Operngala-Nacht at the Philharmonie Berlin is one of them: the Filharmonie Brno under Maestro Arkady Beryn, with tenor René Barbera, baritone Florian Sempey and soprano Alisa Medvedeva, in the Großer Saal.
It helps that the hall is a destination in itself. Hans Scharoun’s Philharmonie, opened in 1963 and home of the Berliner Philharmoniker, was the first concert hall to put the orchestra in the middle and let the audience rise around it in terraces – the “vineyard” idea that has since been copied from Los Angeles to Hamburg. With 2,440 seats, nobody sits far from the stage, and the building’s golden, tent-like exterior at the Kulturforum is a few minutes’ walk from Potsdamer Platz.
At the podium is Maestro Prof. Arkady Beryn, a conductor with more than forty years of professional experience. Chief Conductor of the Internationale Symphoniker Deutschland from 2003 to 2011, he has since worked with the Berliner Symphoniker, the Camerata Salzburg, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and the Győr Philharmonic, and has conducted in the Vienna Musikverein, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw and the Philharmonie Berlin itself. His stage partners have included José Carreras, Roberto Alagna, Aida Garifullina and the violinist Maxim Vengerov, and a German newspaper once summed up his effect on an audience in a single headline: “Dirigent Beryn ist der Star”. The Filharmonie Brno, founded in 1956, is one of the Czech Republic’s leading orchestras.
The soloists are the reason many will travel. René Barbera, from Texas, became in 2011 the first singer to win all three top prizes at Plácido Domingo’s Operalia competition and has since sung at the Metropolitan Opera, La Scala, the Opéra national de Paris, the Vienna State Opera and the Bavarian State Opera. Florian Sempey, the French baritone, is best known for his Figaro in Rossini’s The Barber of Seville, which he has performed at the Opéra national de Paris, the Royal Opera House in London and the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro; in 2022 he was appointed Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. Alisa Medvedeva, a graduate of the Saint Petersburg Conservatoire, has appeared at Dubai Opera, Wiener Stadthalle and Mozarthaus Vienna, as well as in Paris, Monaco, Porto Cervo, St. Moritz and Bucharest, and has shared the stage with Andrea Bocelli, Il Divo, Vittorio Grigolo and Luca Salsi.
The programme is built from the numbers audiences know by heart. Barbera sings Rodolfo’s “Che gelida manina” from La Bohème and Nemorino’s “Una furtiva lagrima” from L’elisir d’amore. Sempey has the evening’s showpieces: “Largo al factotum”, the Toreador Song from Carmen and Don Giovanni’s “Fin ch’han dal vino”. Medvedeva sings Musetta’s waltz “Quando me’n vo” and Giulietta’s “Oh! quante volte” from Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi, and joins Sempey for the duet “Là ci darem la mano”. Between the arias, the orchestra plays the Polonaise from Eugene Onegin, the overtures to Le nozze di Figaro, La forza del destino and La gazza ladra, the intermezzi from Manon Lescaut and Cavalleria rusticana, the finale of Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony and a Dvořák Slavonic Dance. The Brazilian favourite “Tico Tico no fubá” and the Brindisi from La traviata bring everyone together at the end.
For readers in the UK, the timing is easy: a Monday-evening concert in early November, with Berlin a short flight away and the winter markets not yet crowding the city. The Operngala-Nacht begins at 20:00; 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
