Norfolk-based arts writer, Tony Cooper, enjoys a musical heritage tour to Leipzig, a relaxing and inviting city to visit awash with so much musical history.

The Gewandhaus at the Augustusplatz in Leipzig-Mitte with the Mendebrunnen at night (2016)
(Photo: Wikimedia - By Ichwarsnur - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0) 

Come 2025, the Leipzig Gewandhaus will be staging a major international festival in honour of Dimitri Shostakovich marking the 50th anniversary of his death

A frequent visitor to Germany attending Ring cycles here, there and everywhere, Tony Cooper recently enjoyed a short break in Leipzig taking in a concert by the Gewandhausorchester conducted by Alan Gilbert featuring Shostakovich’s 10th symphony whilst also enjoying a rare performance of Thea Musgrave’s opera, Mary, Queen of Scots.  

With so much musical history and knowledge wrapped up in Leipzig’s cultural portfolio, Tony also took adventurous steps by way of trekking the Leipzig Music Trail stopping off to visit the Bach-Archiv, conveniently situated opposite St Thomas’ Church and the Mendelssohn House Museum not forgetting, of course, the Schumann House while soaking up the city’s illustrious past discovering that Richard Wagner was born here, Georg Philipp Telemann worked here and just up the road in Halle, George Frideric Handel, entered life. And that’s just for starters!  

Wagner 22: Oper Leipzig says farewell to its music director with all 13 of Wagner's operas

Wagner: The Ring - Siegfried - Oper Leipzig in 2018 (photo Tom_Schulze)

In 2018, our correspondent Tony Cooper saw Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle at Oper Leipzig [see Tony's review], conducted by the company's music director and intendant, Prof. Ulf Schirmer. In 2022, Oper Leipzig will bid farewell to Prof. Schirmer with Wagner 22, a spectacular leaving present consisting of performances of all 13 of Richard Wagner's music dramas, with all the operas (except for the Ring Cycle) performed in chronological order, and the festival will include Wagner's three rarely performed early works, Die Feen, Das Liebesverbot and Rienzi. The Leipzig Gewandhausorchester will perform for all the events. 

To date, the list of confirmed guests includes Evelyn Herlitzius (Kundry), Jennifer Holloway, Lise Lindstrom, Daniela Sindram, Manuela Uhl, Markus Eiche, René Pape, Iain Paterson, Andreas Schager (Tristan), Stefan Vinke, Klaus Florian Vogt, and Michael Volle (Wotan in Das Rheingold).

The event will also be accompanied by a scholarly and artistic programme.

Wagner 22 is being dedicated to the memory of Gustav Brecher (1879-1940), who was music director and opera director from 1923 to 1933 and did much to put Oper Leipzig on the map, and Brecher is intimately linked with the idea of performing all of Wagner's operas, as Oper Leipzig's press release explains:

Gustav Brecher saw in Richard Wagner’s musical dramas the representation of the ideal union of music, text, and drama. That is why he wanted to present the composer’s complete works in Leipzig, the city of the composer's birth. Gustav Brecher’s dismissal and expulsion from Leipzig took place immediately after the premiere of Kurt Weill’s Silbersee in 1933. His vision of an artistic Wagner festival was ideologically seized upon by the Nazi’s unjust state, and five years later, the project was realized for the first and only time in the 20th century, in celebration of the composer’s 125th birthday. The antisemitic dismissal, the exile that followed, and fear cost Gustav Brecher his life: Brecher, along with his wife and mother-in-law, committed suicide while fleeing Germany in 1940.

In search of Bach and Handel, and Mendelssohn too: Baroque music aficionado, Tony Cooper, travels to Leipzig and Halle

St Thomas’ Church, Leipzig (Photo: S-kay - Own work, Public Domain)

I’m strolling through the lovely and welcoming city of Leipzig and for some reason or other I feel there’s a touch of magic in the air! Maybe it’s because I’m lost in the mists of time in the company of that great German baroque composer, Johann Sebastian Bach. Who knows!

Statue of Bach,
St Thomas' Church, Leipzig
Photo Eric Pancer

Leipzig, however, enjoys a rich musical tapestry inasmuch as Richard Wagner was born here, Felix Bartholdy Mendelssohn died here and JS Bach spent the best part of three decades here employed as Kapellmeister at St Thomas’ Church from 1723 until his death in 1750. Robert Schumann also lived here, Georg Philipp Telemann worked here and just up the road in Halle, George Frideric Handel was born. That’s just for starters! And Leipzig’s St Thomas’ Boys Choir is almost as old as the city itself as this world-famous choir was founded in the early 13th century.

Surprisingly, during his lifetime, Bach was not recognised as the great composer he is today until a revival of interest in his music was led in the first half of the 19th century by the young Felix Mendelssohn. He conducted at the age of 20 in 1829 the St Matthew Passion, the first performance since the composer’s death. That started the Bach ball rolling and, thankfully, it hasn’t stopped. And Leipzig plays its role to the full by staging the BachFest - inaugurated in 1904 but held on an annual basis since 1999 - which is nothing but brilliant. Its current artistic director is Sir John Eliot Gardiner who also serves as President of the Bach-Archiv Leipzig.

A frequent visitor to the British Isles, Mendelssohn was truly outstanding becoming conductor of the famous Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra in his mid-twenties and going on to found the Leipzig Conservatoire while only in his early-thirties.

Wagner: Der Ring des Nibelungen at Oper Leipzig

Wagner: The Ring - Siegfried - Oper Leipzig (photo Tom_Schulze)

Wagner: Der Ring des Nibelungen; Rúni Brattaberg, Robert Dean Smith, Christian Franz, Kathrin Göring, Claudia Huckle, Gal James, Dan Karlström, Danae Kontor, Christine Liber, Jürgen Linn, Karin Lovelius, Monica Mascus, Meagan Miller, Thomas Mohr, Iain Paterson, Tuomas Pursio, dir: Rosamund Gilmore, cond: Ulf Schirmer; Oper Leipzig, Leipzig
Reviewed by Tony Cooper on April 2018 Star rating: 4.0 (★★★★)
The Ring returns to Wagner’s birthplace

Our correspondent Tony Cooper experiences Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen in Wagner's birthplace at Oper Leipzig in April 2018, directed by Rosamund Gilmore, conducted by Ulf Schirmer with Iain Paterson, Christiane Libor, Christian Franz, Thomas Mohr, Robert Dean Smith, Meagan Miller and Jürgen Linn.

Gotterdammerung - Thomas Mohr, Christiane Libor
Oper Leipzig (photo Tom_Schulze)   

Leipzig is rich in musical history inasmuch as Richard Wagner was born here, Felix Bartholdy Mendelssohn died here and Johann Sebastian Bach lived and worked here - from 1723 until his death in 1750 he was Kapellmeister at the Thomaskirche. Robert Schumann also resided in Leipzig and Georg Philipp Telemann worked here, too, while George Frideric Handel was born just up the road in Halle. And that’s just for starters!

History has pointed out, too, that Wagner had a difficult start in his home town but, likewise, history has also shown that Leipzig and Wagner are bound together in a common union. For one thing, the first complete performance of The Ring outside of Bayreuth took place here in 1878.

So the return of The Ring to Leipzig for the first time in over forty years - one of the prime initiatives of Ulf Schirmer on his appointment as musical director of Oper Leipzig in the 2009/10 season - has to be wildly applauded.

Like Frank Castorf’s Bayreuth Ring [see Tony's review], Oper Leipzig’s production, conceived by the English-born director/choreographer, Rosamund Gilmore, was mounted in celebration of the 200th anniversary of Wagner’s birth in 2013 starting, of course, with the première of Das Rheingold and building up to the first complete cycle in June 2016. No plans were on hand to revive it but the production is, gladly, still in the repertoire.

Not surprisingly, Ms Gilmore - who worked at Stuttgart with the former (and well-respected) Royal Ballet choreographer, John Cranko - incorporated an element of dance in her production and to this end a troupe of 14 dancers complemented the overall stage action. And symbolism was an important factor too, in the production. For instance, a pair of rams represented Fricka and for Wotan, ravens, the latter, of course, a significant feature in Germanic-Norse mythology upon which the Ring is loosely based upon. And on the death of Siegfried in Götterdämmerung, a pair of ravens hovered directly above him.