Opernwelt Award for Dora, conducted by Elena Schwarz

Bernhard Lang's opera Dora has won Opernwelt's Premiere of the Year Award for 2024, in a production conducted by Elena Schwarz at Staatsoper Stuttgart.

The awards are made by a panel of 40 international critics and the magazine decribed the work: 'How the private expands in political, how both are mutually dependent, was shown in a particularly sophisticated and musically dramaturgically effective way by Bernhard Lang's "Dora" on a libretto by Frank Witzel.'

Online Merker wrote of Schwarz's work: 'The orchestra sounds extremely virtuoso and well-prepared under the direction of the Australian Elena Schwarz, who balances the different sound structures well and forces them together.

SWR Kultur wrote: 'At the podium of the Staatsorchester, Elena Schwarz holds this great new musical theatre together with a perfectly coordinated ensemble and the New Vocal Soloists as a soloist choir. Whoever misses this devilishly good opera evening is to blame.'