FESTIVAL RICHARD WAGNER (WAGNER FESTTAGE)

Every year in May, the anniversary month of Richard Wagner's birth in Leipzig (22 May 1813), the Wagner Festtage takes place, a musical week dedicated to one of the city's child prodigies. This festival has established itself as one of Germany's leading music festivals. In 2016, the Leipziger Oper had programmed the cycle of The Ring of the Niebelungen, as well as the composer's first operas. In 2019, the one-act musical work L'Or du Rhin opened the festival. The main partner sites of this dedicated event are of course the opera house, but also the Gewandhaus, the Schauspielhaus theatre, the Thomaskirche and the Fine Arts Museum. The festival actually invests the whole of Leipzig, since it programs Wagnerian pieces in parallel on much more unusual sites, such as former factories or other industrial wastelands converted into cultural sites open to the public. It also showcases Richard Wagner's work and life through plays, cabaret shows and audiovisual exhibitions.