Performer: Alessandro Zuppardo

Carried by a handful of standout performances, Britten’s story of madness and infection comes into its own in 2021, in the Opéra National du Rhin's clever and inventive staging. 

Oper Leipzig served up Rienzi, der Letzte der Tribunen as the closing piece of its Wagner Festtage “Frühe Werke”. 

Where to place Wagner’s first opera Die Feen? Not a typical comedy, but it’s also not a tragedy. Oper Leipzig's powerful production is one to fall in love with. 

Oper Leipzig's co-production with Bayreuth Festspiele pulls off a delightful take on Wagner's Das Liebesverbot. With excellent vocals, the Gewandhaus Orchestra, and great wit, Wagner's comedy comes highly recommended.

The Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra under Alan Gilbert deliver a satisfying account of Mahler's titanic Third Symphony in the Berlin Festival, with a memorable solo from alto Gerhild Romberger.

Leipzig routinely honours its native son with performances of Parsifal scheduled on and around Good Friday, which tempts a state of ritualized enactment best confined to the opera itself. (Vienna maintains the same tradition and is a magnet for self-appointed enforcers of the Bayreuth applause customs and their confrontational silencing of the ‘transgressors’.