Exciting news from Leipzig: a 22 June meeting of the city council approved an 'extraordinary grant' ('außerordentlichen Zuschuss') to support celebrations for the upcoming two-hundredth birthday of the city's greatest son, Richard Wagner. Oper Leipzig, under the leadership of Intendant Ulf Schirmer, will work in collaboration with the Bayreuth Festival. Full details haveyet to be announced, their revelation being scheduled for a Berlin press conference on 27 October. However, the collaboration will involve performances, both in Leipzig and in Bayreuth, of those early operas never previously performed at Bayreuth: Die Feen, Das Liebesverbot, and Rienzi. A visit either to Leipzig or to Bayreuth will, it seems, prove mandatory...