Name: World Dance Day
Start: 2026-04-29T17:00:00
Location: Oper Leipzig

Oper Leipzig

Overwhelming audience demand has helped certify the success enjoyed by the Musical Comedy's series of baby concerts. Once again, children are allowed to bring up to two adults, and little ones can crawl, squeal, and delight to their heart's content to the sounds of classical music.

Baby Concert Musical Comedy

On selected dates, we will sneak into a stage orchestra rehearsal of the Musical Comedy Orchestra together, take a first look at the new production and experience how balance, gestures, facial expressions and techniques are being screwed and tinkered with, because the premiere is drawing ever closer! Before and after the rehearsal, you will have the opportunity to talk to those involved in the production and learn exciting new things.

Sample of a musical comedy

Whether Undine, Rusalka, or Ariel, mermaids have historically been all the rage in children's literature – and the present is no exception. These creatures – half-human, half-animal – that move between worlds provide endless fascination. After Peter and the Wolf and Carnival of the Animals, The Little Mermaid is one of the most performed orchestral works for children in the German-speaking world.

The Little Mermaid

Musikalische Komödie

Three worlds, three waters, three lives merge into one breath: Anouk, a young writer, endures a relentless struggle to draw breath, as she suffers from cystic fibrosis. This struggle leads her on a journey into the past, to another country, to another woman. She is spellbound as she reconstructs the mysterious story of the »Inconnue de la Seine«, the unknown body found in the Seine shrouded in secrecy. As Anouk immerses herself in this French tragedy, she recognises the connections between her own life, that of the unknown woman, and that of a Norwegian dollmaker. The man, scarred by the loss of his drowned son, designs a doll that can be used to learn mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. He selects the death mask of the »Inconnue de la Seine« for the doll's visage, and its smile will now save lives. This opera links three lives across the flow of time. The Leipzig-based composer Bernd Franke, who explores musical, social and topographical boundaries, has created a life-affirming, hope-filled opera that crosses times and countries. In the end, everything is one and we are a part of it.

Coming up for air

A Russian tsar, a small-town mayor, a shipyard worker, and three foreign diplomats meet in the time of Peter I. In the middle of it all, Marie fights with heart and mind for her groom. Like many of Lortzing's other operas, Zar und Zimmermann premiered in Leipzig. One of the Musical Comedy's artistic goals is to cultivate Lortzing's works, in order to keep the composer alive and well in the musical city of Leipzig.

Tsar and Carpenter

With stirring music and arguably the greatest love story in the literary canon, “Romeo and Juliet” is one of the most popular ballets of all time. The tale of young, impetuous love and deep-seated, age-old hatred has been adapted countless times for stage, film and television.

Romeo and Juliet

Lortzing's popular play opera features many of his signature themes, including craftsmanship, love and comical mix-ups, as well as a humorous yet critical view of the bourgeoisie and the nobility.

The Armourer

Long live freedom! In 1848, when Albert Lortzing wrote his impressive last opera "Regina", was a revolution. And that is exactly what the work, which Lortzing named after his wife, is about: Two politically active factory workers love Regina, the daughter of the factory owner Simon. But they belong to different camps. One of them, Stephan, is a radical rebel who occupies the factory and holds Regina in his power. However, she is engaged to the more peace-loving Richard. In the end, all their lives and the awakening harmony lie in Regina's hands. Lortzing's revolutionary opera was kept under lock and key and censored for a long time. Perhaps its time has now come once again: Time for peace and freedom.

Regina

"Song and Love"

Mendelssohn-Haus

World Dance Day

Albert Lortzing's stage works are often categorised as belonging to the comic genre and thus supposedly lighter in tone. However, his operatic oeuvre also includes several works that can be classified as belonging to more serious traditions and address central issues of his time, such as social injustices in »Regina or the debate about the existence of the human soul in »Undine. Of course, these works also contain comic moments, while conversely, Lortzing's more light-hearted pieces such as »Zar und Zimmermann« or »Der Waffenschmied« occasionally strike a serious note.

"Albert Lortzing and the relationship between comedy and seriousness in operas of the first half of the 19th century"

Leipzig University

Two things must be known about Undines, aquatic beings in feminine form; first, they can only attain an immortal soul by marrying an earthly man. Second, if Undine's love is betrayed, she must kill the unfaithful man. When the knight Hugo falls in love with Undine, it seems that happiness is perfect at last, the wedding bells ring, the village rejoices and celebrates. But then Bertalda appears and the lake's water level ominously begins to rise.