Name: »Charms«
Start: 2026-03-13T19:30:00
Location: Oper Leipzig

Olena Tokar

Igor Gryshyn

Oper Leipzig

During a concert, Dutch singer Maartje de Lint had a sudden realization about the topic of dementia. Since then, she has actively worked for individuals with dementia, and, with the support of scientists, has developed special sing-along concerts for individuals and families affected by illness. Since the 2017/18 season, the Oper Leipzig has offered these concerts in cooperation with the Selbst-Determined Leben eV association.

A song sings within me

Love takes many forms ... Wednesday Addams, a young adult, and Lucas Beineke are in love. The only problem is that the Addams family is, let's say, a little different from the average family. But the Beineke family is invited to the gloomy Addams home, where the Addams' penchant for the eccentric and macabre collides with the bourgeois milieu of the Beineke family. And there's something else: Wednesday's father, Gomez, promises Wednesday that he won't tell her mother about Lucas and her marriage plans. But Gomez cannot lie to his beloved Morticia, and so not only this one secret is revealed. A perfectly normal evening ...

The Addams Family

The Flying Dutchman navigates the earth, accursed, tirelessly searching for salvation. But he can only find deliverance if he finds a woman who will promise to be faithful to him, even in death. Wagner’s atmospheric thriller encompasses the search for home and the desire for another.

The Flying Dutchman

»Die Fledermaus« is considered the ultimate operetta, full of waltzes, polkas, who-with-whom, champagne, mistaken identity, masquerading and fraternization. How refreshing it is that Gabriel von Eisenstein, eager to have some quick fun with young ladies before he goes to prison, is repaid tit-for-tat by his wife Rosalinde: with her old vocal coach Alfred. Only a tenor could be so audacious! Adele, the maid, has high aspirations, but first she attends the ball as Miss Olga in the dress of her gracious lady. And this is how all the lovable characters, who are not too concerned with the truth, converge at the ball of Prince Orlofsky. He is young, rich, bored – such a retaliatory action by Dr. Falke is just what he needs. The latter has a score to settle with Eisenstein: "This is the way the bat takes revenge!" Orlofsky's ball becomes a stage. And in the end they all meet again in prison. Here Herr von Eisenstein learns who his close pal, the Chevalier Chagrin, really is and what the doppelganger in his dressing gown is all about. Eisenstein's acquittal is celebrated with champagne, because after all, he alone was to blame, was he not?

The bat

Musikalische Komödie

Holidays at last: check into a beautiful hotel and unwind – ideally with a view of the water. But no: at the hotel “Weißes Rössl” (“The White Horse Inn”) on the shores of the lake “Wolfgangsee”, things are going haywire. Farewell relaxation! The inn is completely packed, work and personal life become indistinguishable, and both staff and guests are wildly in love, which, due to mix-ups and secrets, keeps ending in chaos. After layoffs, dismissals and tears, however, a few things can be clarified – both professionally and privately. The next holiday is bound to follow!

The White Horse Inn

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

With »Mozart / Rachmaninoff«, the Leipzig Ballet pays tribute to Uwe Scholz, whose choreographic work characterizes the city like a silent echo. His art is shaped music, a language of light, space and movement that captures the ephemeral while also exploring the eternal.

Mozart / Rachmaninoff

»This is how my story begins. As the daughter of a white woman and a black man. Between Sange, southern Tanzania, and Gera, Thuringia. Between colonial past and GDR dictatorship.« Leipzig-born Tupoka Ogette, consultant and trainer in the field of anti-racism, writes in her new book »Nevertheless at Home« about the search for belonging, about living in contradiction, in between. She recounts growing up as a black child in the GDR, of flight, loss, sexism and violence – but also of love, motherhood, resilience and self-empowerment. Of friendships she makes and those she loses. Of a new beginning in the FRG. And of finding calm in the storm. In March, Tupoka Ogette will present her book at the Musical Comedy theater in conversation with journalist Daniel Schulz.

Tupoka Ogette: "Still at home"

Audience favorite Olena Tokar invites you to the concert foyer with her enchanting soprano voice and will perform arias and songs by well-known and (still) unknown female composers.

»Charms«

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

This opera, which Puccini himself considered his favorite and best work, moves everyone who hears it. In the summer of 1900, Puccini saw David Belasco’s theater piece »Madame Butterfly« in a London Theater, and was indelibly touched. It was a tragic story of very human proportions, coupled with an old-fashioned dose of Far East exoticism. As Belasco did, Puccini set his opera in the present, in the year 1904, the year of its world premiere. The strict rules and customs of Japanese society are confronted by the western world, in the form of the American marine lieutenant Pinkerton. For him, his fictitious marriage with the young geisha Cio-Cio San, also called »Butterfly«, is nothing more than an exotic romantic adventure. For her, though, it is the chance of a lifetime: Fascinated by the notion of the different, freer world that her lover could give her, she’s ready to break with everything she’s ever known. She believes steadfastly that Pinkerton will return to her, even long after he has left Japan. And when he finally does return, after three years, it spells disaster.

Madama Butterfly

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.