How to Start Your Day with an Orgy (and Other Life Lessons from Wagner)

A Berlin Opera Diary

To set the scene: I'm writing this from a little desk in my Numa apartment in Charlottenburg. The window’s open, letting in the soft chaos of Berlin—occasional sirens, someone shouting about ruhezeit, and the distant hum of the U-Bahn. My brain is full of Wagner, and my cafe bought coffee is agressively lukewarm.

Yes, dear reader, you did indeed read that title correctly.

Start Your Day with an Orgy.

But in the spirit of foreplay (narratively speaking), I’ll hold off on that for just a bit.

I’m in Berlin working on a Wiederaufnahme (a revival, for the non-German speakers among us) of Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg at the Deutsche Oper. It’s a towering, complicated, occasionally ridiculous opera that pits artistic freedom against rigid tradition. Think Dead Poets Society with more brass, fewer sweaters, and sadly no Robin Williams. Our hero, Walther, is a rogue tenor (aren’t we all?) trying to win both a girl (aren't we all?) and artistic recognition in a society of musical gatekeepers (...hmm, also sounds familiar?)

At its core, Meistersinger is about mentorship, legacy, and the painful-but-necessary act of evolving old institutions. You know, light stuff.

Our production resets the whole opera in a Hochschule—a music conservatory. The meisters are the professors, and the Lehrbuben (the apprentices—thirteen of us in this staging) are their slightly chaotic, Croc-wearing students. Yes, Crocs. Everywhere. Bright yellow ones. Lime green. At one point, we have to use them as nightmarish torture devices for Hans Sachs.

The staging leans heavily into that conservatory culture. There’s drama, awkward flirtation, evidence of the misuse of power and influence, institutional politics, and a 30-minute Johannestag themed slumber party turned 'cuddle puddle' turn orgy in Act 2. You know—just your standard evening at the opera.

The Mighty Lehrbuben Crew for Deutsche Oper 2025

The 13 Lehrbuben are an international buffet of personalities—Germany, Poland, Sweden, Croatia, New Zealand, China, Korea, Australia. It’s like Eurovision, but with better diction (Johannnnnestag). From day one, we were expected to bond—quickly. And nothing says “team-building” like choreographing a simulated orgy on the floor while a soloist pours his heart out onstage.

That said, there's a real camaraderie in this group and we're all a bit folorn we only have three performances.

Outside the opera house, Berlin’s been treating me well. I’ve reconnected with friends from university, others from past gigs in Italy and France. We've gone ice-cream hunting across the city (pro tip: go where your ex-Berliner friends tell you, Hokey Pokey Eispatisserie, they know their stuff). I’ve stumbled up on hidden bars, gotten lost navigating the S and UBahn, dodged cyclists with death wishes, and spent more time in 'Zeit fur Brot' than I’ll publicly admit.

And then—somewhere between costume fittings and the Brandenburg Gate — I turned 31.

I’ll admit, I was planning to ignore it. Quiet denial seemed the most elegant way to mark the passing of another year in an unfamiliar place. No fuss, no cake, no reminders that I'm now firmly in my thirties and can throw out my back just by sleeping wrong. But my new colleagues had other plans.

They found out—because opera singers are like bloodhounds when it comes to information—and suddenly there was a birthday bretzel, there was singing (of course), a signed card in all the languages of my castmates. It was sweet and oddly moving.

There’s something special about being celebrated by people who barely know you but choose to anyway. It's a reminder that even on the road, surrounded by near-strangers in borrowed apartments and borrowed cities, you’re never truly on your own. And maybe that’s what getting older is about—not avoiding time, but recognizing how strange and beautiful it is that people keep showing up. Even when you're trying to ghost your own birthday.

I’ve also been cramming music for upcoming auditions—there’s something inherently humbling about trying to sing high notes into a damn pillow while your Airbnb neighbors argue through the walls. It's the glamorous life.

But let’s circle back.

Start Your Day with an Orgy.

It’s not clickbait. (ok it is) It’s our actual call time for Act 2 rehearsal: 10:00 AM, blocking the slumber party/orgy scene. Picture this: twelve singers, not yet caffeinated, dragging themselves into rehearsal, only to be told: “Right, let’s start with everyone on the floor...”

There’s something deeply humbling about miming suggestive sleepover antics before lunch, under harsh fluorescent lighting... but this is the joy and absurdity of opera. One moment you’re sipping espresso, the next you’re on all fours, pretending that you do yoga everyday and you are indeed flexible when you are equally indeed NOT flexible —all in the name of high art. Heilige Deutsche Kunst indeed...

Every time I find myself in moments like this—whether it’s shouting (appoggiato style) over Wagner’s orchestrations or sitting in a park eating Französiche Shokolade gelato—I’m struck by how lucky I am. This job, for all its unpredictability and existential terror (bi-weekly at least), brings people together from all over the world, through language barriers, bad rehearsal pianos, and inexplicable staging choices.

We share a deep, weird love for this thing. This career. This calling.

So yes, start your day with an orgy. Or at the very least, with something that scares you a little, makes you laugh, and reminds you that art—however ridiculous—is worth showing up for.

Bis bald,

From Berlin,

Zachary