155Opera for All? Contemporary Strategies of Dissemination and Social Commitment of the Komische Oper Berlin as a Case Study

This essay analyses the politics of dissemination and social involvement of the prominent German opera house Komische Oper Berlin, existing since 1947, and born with the motto of "opera for all!", since its first director Walter Felsen stein, until the most recent productions.Among the dissemination strategies of Ber lin's third opera house, the actions of opera dissemination outside of the opera house appear to be most relevant.In 2011 the intercultural outreach-project Selam Opera! was launched, taking the image as an 'opera house for everyone' quite liter ally and aiming to create occasions for encounters between multicultural urban society and opera.After almost fifteen years, this innovative action of cultural acti vation is still evolving and strengthening the network between the opera house and the people in the city, also through a divulgative publication, Selam Opera! (2014) and through a documentary Eine Opernreise (2016) and has become a referring point in the Turkish-German cultural dialogue in Berlin.