Brasserie Quarré at the Adlon & Berlin Staatsoper

A touch of Paris at the Hotel Adlon Kempinski Berlin, and overlooking the Brandenburg Gate, is Brasserie Quarré, where we dined before heading to the Staatsoper for the evening performance of Dido and Aeneas. The menu at Brasserie Quarré offered a selection of German-French classics as well as winter highlights that combined culinary finesse with contemporary lightness, inspired by the brasserie tradition and reinterpreted for the capital. A delicious beginning to a sumptuous evening of fine dining and extraordinary opera in one of the world's leading opera houses.

Glass of Tattinger Brut Réserve Champagne

The elegant interior of Brasserie Quarré

Champagne bucket with crazy purple lighting

The delicious French-inspired menu of Brasserie Quarré

Bisque de Homard: Lobster soup with fennel and rice chip

Burrata de la Maison with baked Hokkaido pumpkin, chestnut purée and parsnips

Beelitz corn-fed poulard breast with porcini mushroom waffle, glazed carrost, 

King oyster mushrooms and plum

Filet de Saumon with roasted cauliflower, sweet potato, grapefruit and leek beurre blanc

Crème Brûlée with Vanilla, shortcrust pastry, mandarin sorbet, kumquats and lemon balm

Arriving at the Berlin Staatsoper for the evenings performance of did and Aeneas by Henry Purcell, we were overwhelmed with the production. The setting is Carthage, in ancient times: the hero Aeneas flees from burning Troy and arrives in North Africa via the Mediterranean Sea with his fleet of ships, where he meets the beautiful queen Dido. They are lovestruck – and yet fail to bond because of fate’s intervention. Aeneas continues on his journey to form a new kingdom in Italy, while the abandoned Dido is left no alternative but to stay. 

Human passions are candidly unveiled – both their joys and excitements as well as their hardships and worries, all the way to deepest despair at the inexorability of divine will. Dido’s famous lament, with which she ends her life, and the opera draws to a close, and where an entire world is evoked in a few words, demonstrates Purcell’s extraordinary expressiveness. But his skill, too, in writing rhythmically concise dance movements and melodic choruses sealed the composer’s reputation among his contemporaries and ensured the admiration of a truly exceptional composer for posterity. Song, performance and dance combine to create this very special form of opera.

Berlin Staatsoper exterior at night 

Arriving for Dido and Aeneas by Henry Purcell at the Staatsoper

The ornate ceiling of the Staatsoper with suspended chandelier

2 actors watching the audience before the opera begins 

with a long pool just below them

The extraordinary start of Dido and Aeneas with actors diving into the pool

and swimming together in a beautiful fluid dance

The opera shift to a modern interpretation of the debauchery of Carthage 

Dido reaching for Aeneas, his one true love, 

whom he never manages to touch or save

Walking past the Brandenburg Gate on our way back to the Adlon after the opera

www.staatsoper-berlin.de/en/veranstaltungen/dido-aeneas