Leipzig Opera

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Logo of the Leipzig Opera
The opera house - the larger of the two venues

The Leipzig Opera is a three-branch theater , consisting of the actual opera, the Leipzig ballet and the musical comedy (operetta and musical). It is - in addition to Gewandhaus , drama and theater of the Young World - one of the cultural Eigenbetriebe the city of Leipzig . The Leipzig Opera operates two venues: the opera house on Augustusplatz in the city center (for opera and ballet) and the Dreilinden house in the Lindenau district (musical comedy).

The Leipzig Opera stands in the tradition of almost 330 years of musical theater maintenance in Leipzig. In 1693, the first Leipzig Opera House was opened on the Brühl as the third bourgeois music theater in Europe after the Teatro San Cassiano in Venice and the Opera on Gänsemarkt in Hamburg.

With over 600 employees, the Leipzig Opera is one of the largest medium-sized employers in the city. This includes an ensemble of 24 dedicated vocal soloists, the Leipzig Opera choir with 69 members; the ensemble of the Leipzig Ballet with 39 dancers; as well as the 14 soloists, the choir, the ballet and the orchestra of the musical comedy. The Gewandhaus Orchestra also usually makes music in performances of opera and ballet .

Since the 2009/10 season is Ulf Schirmer music director of the Leipzig Opera since 2011, he is also the overall operation as a director before. Under his musical direction, the works of German and Italian Romanticism ( Richard Wagner , Richard Strauss , Giuseppe Verdi , Giacomo Puccini etc.) move into the focus of the repertoire. Ballet director and chief choreographer is Mario Schröder . In the musical comedy, Stefan Klingele acts as music director and chief conductor, and Cusch Jung as chief director.

history

First forerunners

Hall of the old theater around 1850

The history of the opera houses in Leipzig goes back to 1693. On May 8, 1693, Leipzig's first opera house, the Opernhaus am Brühl (today: Ritterpassage), was opened by Nicolaus Adam Strungk . After Hamburg and Venice, the Leipzig Opera House was the third civil music theater in Europe at that time. Construction defects caused by an overly hasty construction were soon noticed and the ailing building was attached to the St. Georg orphanage in 1729 and later demolished. Up until 1766 there were guest performances by Italian groups in particular in Leipzig. In addition, the birth of the German Singspiel in Leipzig is dated to the year 1752, with the premiere of the Singspiel Der Teufel ist Los or Die bewandelte Frauen, in the new version by Christian Weisse and Johann Adam Hiller .

Almost 40 years after the demolition of the first music theater, the comedy house was rebuilt on the Rannische Bastei (today: Richard-Wagner-Platz) on October 10, 1766. Another 51 years later, after the renovation, the reopening of the " Theater der Stadt Leipzig " followed on August 26, 1817 under the direction of the lawyer Karl Theodor von Küstner . The chief building director Friedrich Weinbrenner , inspired by the classical architecture and art style of the time, laid out the auditorium in concentric circles like in the Greek amphitheater. The Leipzig stage became a venue for many romantic operas, among others by Heinrich Marschner and Ludwig Spohr . The partnership between the opera and the Gewandhausorchester  , which has continued to the present day - the Leipzig Opera does not have its own opera orchestra - began in 1840. The ensemble, which was founded in 1743 as the “Big Concert”, was taken over by the city in 1840 and has been playing under the name ever since "Gewandhausorchester" in churches, concerts and as an opera orchestra.

Opera in the New Theater

The New Theater around 1900

After a donation of over 60,000 thalers from Leipzig merchant and junker Friedrich August Schumann, construction of a second stage in Leipzig could begin - also with the help of additional donations. On January 28, 1868, the opening of the New Theater was celebrated in the presence of the Saxon royal couple and other high-ranking representatives of the city. The New Theater, in which operas and plays were initially played, was built on the north side of Augustusplatz - the current location of the Leipzig Opera. The Berlin builder Carl Ferdinand Langhans succeeded in convincing the city council that the square was the ideal location for a new theater for urban planning, structural and representative reasons. The shape of the building by Langhans - a proponent of classical architecture - was not changed until it was destroyed in 1943.

Another turning point in Leipzig's theater and opera history was recorded in 1912, when Privy Councilor Max Martersteig accepted the post of Leipzig artistic director. He ended the leasing system on the Leipzig theaters. Martersteig, who worked in the city until 1918, assigned the opera and drama sections to individual venues. In 1912, for example, the drama moved to the Old Theater on the Rannische Bastei and the New Theater on Augustusplatz housed the opera stage. Among other things, the premiere of the opera Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill took place here on March 9, 1930 . After the director of the municipal theater, Guido Barthol, retired in 1932, it was initially planned to separate opera and drama from an organizational point of view. Ultimately, although the branches were given greater autonomy, they remained united under the roof of the Städtische Theater Leipzig . The new opera director Hans Schüler ( member of the NSDAP from May 1, 1933 ) received the title of "General Manager" in 1939.

The old and new theaters were destroyed in an air raid on the night of December 3rd to 4th, 1943. The opera ensemble continued its performance in Haus Dreilinden - today Musical Comedy  - until September 1, 1944 and immediately after the end of the war on July 20, 1945. The reformer of the dance theater Mary Wigman staged the musical drama Orpheus and Eurydice based on Christoph Willibald Gluck at the house in 1947 . In 1950, the GDR Council of Ministers decided not to rebuild the New Theater, but to build a new opera house in the same place. Construction began on January 2nd, 1956. In the meantime, the interim game cities in the Dreilinden house remained.

Today's opera house

Main stage of the opera house, 1961

On October 8, 1960, the opera house, the construction of which cost a total of 44.6 million marks, was inaugurated in a ceremony. The traditional cultivation of Richard Wagner's works, which continues to this day, was continued in the festival week from October 9th to 16th, 1960 with the beginning of his Mastersinger of Nuremberg . The stage equipment of the new Leipzig Opera House was one of the most modern in Europe at the time. In the meantime, the operetta division, which has been operating under the name Musical Comedy (MuKo for short) since 1964, has moved into the Dreilinden house . In 1969 the basement theater was integrated into the opera house for the performance of chamber-style theater works (now closed) and in 1990 a small art gallery.

Udo Zimmermann, general manager from 1990 to 2001

Until the turn of 1989/90, the opera house, together with the cellar theater, musical comedy, theater, chamber plays (or “New Scene”) and theater of the young world, belonged to the Leipzig City Theaters . The opera was just a branch that was directed by an opera director but did not have its own artistic director. After the dissolution of this “theater combine” on January 1, 1990, the city initially formed four independent institutions, each with its own artistic director, including the Leipzig Opera and the Musical Comedy.

After a few turmoil, Udo Zimmermann was won as artistic director in March 1990 and, under his leadership, opera, ballet and music theater were merged into a three-branch theater (while maintaining their own ensembles). Zimmermann's repertoire and personnel policy was geared towards international standards and a supraregional reputation. She paid less attention to the local habits of the Leipzig public. In the 1992/93 season, the Leipzig Opera was named Opera House of the Year in Opernwelt magazine .

List of artistic directors and opera directors

(General) artistic director of the Leipzig City Theater
General manager of the Leipzig City Theater
Intendant of the Leipzig Opera
Opera directors (selection)

List of General Music Directors

Ensemble members (selection)

World premieres (selection)

Numerous works were premiered and premiered by the Leipzig Opera. These include:

literature

Web links

Commons : Opernhaus Leipzig  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ About us: Oper Leipzig .
  2. ↑ Artistic concept for the 2013.2014 season (PDF) ( Memento from January 13, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ^ Waltraud Volk: Historic streets and squares today. Leipzig. Publishing house for construction, Berlin 1981.
  4. ↑ Alexander von Maravic, Harald Müller (ed.): Oper Leipzig. Spotlights on five decades of music theater. Theater der Zeit, Berlin 2010, p. 11.
  5. ^ Gudrun Dittmann: Opera between adaptation and integrity. To the world premieres of contemporary German operas at the Leipzig New Theater in the Nazi state. The Blue Owl, 2005, p. 60.
  6. ^ Manfred Pauli: A theater empire on the Pleiße. Studies on Leipzig theaters in GDR times. Schkeuditzer Buchverlag, 2004, p. 86.
  7. ^ Manfred Pauli: A theater empire on the Pleiße. Studies on Leipzig theaters in GDR times. Schkeuditzer Buchverlag, 2004, p. 193.
  8. ^ Manfred Pauli: A theater empire on the Pleiße. Studies on Leipzig theaters in GDR times. Schkeuditzer Buchverlag, 2004, p. 194.
  9. ↑ "Bad Checks for Art". In: Spiegel , No. 52/1993, p. 156.