The Repertoire : Germany

The works of the great classical composers are frequently performed in many parts of the country.
There are also traditional festivals (see chapter “Festivals”) devoted to the oeuvre of individual composers, such as the International Beethoven Festival in Bonn (Ludwig van Beethoven’s birthplace in Bonn attracts visitors from all over the world) or the festivals devoted to George Frideric Handel in Gottingen and Halle. The Richard Wagner Festival in Bayreuth is still a preeminent attraction. Helmuth Rilling, founder and director of the Gaching Choir and the International Bach Academy, specializes in the works of Johann Sebastian Bach, as do several ensembles in Leipzig, Dresden, Stuttgart and Munich.

The most frequently attended opera in Germany is Mozart’s “The Magic Flute” (audiences totaling about 380,000 in 1996), whereas the most popular operetta is Strauss’s “The Bat”. Today musicals are enjoying phenomenal popularity in Germany: The Hamburg production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Cats” recently celebrated its tenth anniversary, and visitors to the Hanseatic City can also take in a performance of “The Phantom of the Opera”. “Miss Saigon”, “Sunset Boulevard”, “Les Miserables”, “Starlight Express” and “Grease” are other entertaining musicals for which, as a rule, special theaters have been built in Germany’s metropolises. The world of ballet in Germany experienced what was termed a “miracle” in the 1960s.

This was above all due to the outstanding work of the South African John Cranko with the Stuttgart State Ballet, which was continued by the Brazilian Marcia Haydee. In more recent years the innovative ballet productions of Pina Bausch and her Wuppertal Dance Theater have been widely acclaimed by critics and the international public alike; the same is true of those of John Neumeier in Hamburg and Hans Kresnik in Berlin. Musical revue theater is the specialty of the Friedrichstadtpalast in Berlin.