Giuseppe Verdi's Don Carlo intertwines family tragedy and historical panorama. This grand opera premiered in 1867 and was repeatedly reworked in the following decades. In the four-act Italian version, the abysses of Spanish absolutism open up even more dramatically: arbitrary rule, an emaciated people, fanatical autodafés – and the experience that friendship can be stronger than the hated bonds of blood. Based on Schiller's "dramatic poem", Verdi focuses on the inner conflicts between political duty and personal desire. In Marco Arturo Marelli's production, this struggle is condensed into an archetypal spectacle. Such a drama needs charismatic voices; this season, singers such as German bass Tareq Nazmi as Filippo II, Ève-Maud Hubeaux as Eboli, Adriana González as Elisabetta and Nicola Alaimo as Posa are waiting to be rediscovered. Najmiddin Mavlyanov takes on the title role. Dan Ettinger, who has already been general music director in Mannheim and Tel Aviv, conducts at the Deutsche Oper for the first time.