Oper Leipzig has announced
its 2014/15 season. There are no fewer than six new opera stagings: the first, Gounod’s
Faust, which opens in October; Non
Rota’s Aladino e la lampada magica, in German
translation, continuing the company’s commitment to children’s opera; Madama Butterfly; Gordon Getty’s The Canterville Ghost; I
pagliacci; and, perhaps most eagerly awaited, the third instalment of the new
Leipzig Ring, as it
reaches Siegfried. Ulf
Schirmer conducts, and Rosamund Gilmore directs. The cast includes Christian
Franz, Dan Karlström, John Lundgren, and Elisabet Strid. First night will be 12
April; it will also appear in the Wagner-Festtage
2015 (22-31 May), which will additionally take in
Parsifal, Das Liebesverbot, the ballet Ein Liebestraum, Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, a semi-staged Tannhäuser, and a symposium. In addition to those Wagner revivals,
repertoire performances will range wide: Die
Zauberflöte (both a children’s version and the ‘real thing’), Nabucco, Die Frau ohne Schatten (premiered this season), Tosca, Don Pasquale, The Rake’s
Progress, Rigoletto, La traviata, Hänsel und Gretel, La bohème,
and Manon
Lescaut. As usual, the Gewandhaus Orchestra plays for all performances. A
full list of ballet performances is also available; the three premieres are a
new Rachmaninov ballet (on the second and third piano concertos), Othello, and West Side Story.
