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 The Leipzig Opera and the City
Hochhaus by Nemorino
The letters mdr at the top stand for Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk or Middle German Radio, which is the large publicly-owned radio and television corporation serving this part of Germany.
The building is 142 meters tall, which makes it about the same height as the 12th and 13th tallest buildings in Frankfurt am Main, the Frankfurter Büro Center and the City-Haus. Leave a Comment
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 Europe's largest ceiling
painting by Nemorino
The painting covers a total area of 712 square meters on four diagonal slabs of ceiling, and they say it is Europe’s largest ceiling painting.
At night they light it up with spotlights, so you can see the painting from inside the lobby and through the glass façade of the building from the square outside. Leave a Comment
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 Gewandhaus by Nemorino
The orchestra was founded in 1743, and over the centuries has had such famous Music Directors as Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Arthur Nikisch, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Franz Konwitschny and Kurt Masur. The current Music Director is Herbert Blomstedt, who was born in Springfield, Massachusetts in 1927.
The Gewandhaus we can see today is the third building to go by that name. It was built over a nearly five-year period from 1976 to 1981, and was inaugurated on October 8, 1981. The Great Hall seats over 1900 people and contains a huge organ with the inscription Res severa verum gaudium (True pleasure is serious business) -- this is a quotation from the Roman philosopher and dramatist Lucius Annaeus Seneca (who lived from about 4 BC to 65 AD), and has been the motto of the Gewandhaus since 1781. Leave a Comment
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 Museum of City History by Nemorino
This new building is where they have their special exhibitions, for instance one on the history of satirical cartoons, one on the writer Friedrich Schiller in Leipzig, one on the composer Richard Wagner in Leipzig, one on the Nazi genocide of the Sinti and Roma people ("gypsies"), and one on the history of referees at soccer games, called "Referee -- the 23rd man."
It is open Tuesday through Sunday from 10:00 to 18:00, and also on holidays except for December 24, 25 and 31. Admission costs EUR 3.00 (or EUR 2.00 if you get a reduction), which gets you in both to the new building and to their permanent exhibition of Leipzig history at the Old City Hall (Altes Rathaus). Leave a Comment
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Photos:
1. In the Leipzig Opera House
2. Lobby of the Leipzig Opera House
The current Leipzig Opera House was built during the 1950s after several architectural competitions and considerable uncertainty about what an opera house should look like in the new Socialist State of the Workers and Farmers.
It came out looking quite Spartan and egalitarian, but the acoustics are good and you can see perfectly well from every seat in the house. It was the only completely new opera house built in the German Democratic Republic during the nearly forty-one years of its existence.
This building replaced the former "New Theater", which was built here from 1864 to 1868, and was destroyed by bombing in the night of December 3-4, 1943. Leave a Comment Address: Augustusplatz 12Phone: (03 41) 12 61 - 0Directions: Tram lines 4, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 15 and 16 to Augustusplatz.Website: http://www.oper-leipzig.de/
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 Backstage at the Leipzig Opera by Nemorino
Unlike the tour of the Semper Opera in Dresden, the Leipzig tour concentrates on the backstage and below-stage areas of the opera house, starting with their small but unique lighting museum in the basement.
See my travelogue "Behind the scenes in Leipzig" for more photos and details of this tour. Leave a Comment Address: Augustusplatz 12Phone: (03 41) 12 61 - 0Directions: Tram lines 4, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 15 and 16 to Augustusplatz.Website: http://www.oper-leipzig.de/
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 In the Leipzig Opera House by Nemorino
Although I like the Leipzig Opera House and always feel right at home there when I attend an opera, I can't help regretting that they didn't build it they way it was sketched by the architect Hans Scharoun (1893-1972) in his proposal for the first architectural competition in 1950. To get some idea of what his building might have been like, take a tour of the magnificent Philharmonie concert hall that he built a decade later in Berlin.
Scharoun's proposal for the Leipzig Opera house was unfortunately way ahead of its time in 1950. Stalin, who hated modern art and architecture, was still alive and ruling with an iron hand. Nobody in Eastern Europe would have dared to risk Stalin's wrath by building a light, airy, modern opera house, certainly not the East German leader at the time, Walter Ulbricht.
A quarter of a century later both Stalin and Ulbricht were dead, so the city of Leipzig was able to get away with building a beautiful modern concert hall (see next tip) on the same square facing the opera house. Leave a Comment Address: Augustusplatz 12Phone: (03 41) 12 61 - 0Directions: Tram lines 4, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 15 and 16 to Augustusplatz.Website: http://www.oper-leipzig.de/
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 Augustusplatz by night by Nemorino
During the four decades of the German Democratic Republic this square was known as Karl-Marx-Platz -- which didn't stop them from using it as a parking lot for much of that time. Leave a Comment Directions: Tram lines 4, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 15 and 16 to Augustusplatz.
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Photos:
1. New City Hall, built 1899-1905
2. Entrance to the New City Hall
3. No-handed cyclist at the New City Hall
4. Two more cyclists at New City Hall
5. Cyclist at the entrance to New City Hall
This vaguely Medieval-looking New City Hall was built from 1899 to 1905 in a style known for obvious reasons as "historicism".
It is basically a large office building, and is used to this day for the offices of the Leipzig city administration.
The building suffered some damage during the Second World War, but was completely repaired by 1949. Leave a Comment Address: Martin-Luther-Ring 6, 04109 LeipzigDirections: GPS 51°20'9.13" North; 12°22'22.20" East
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 Leipzig Central Station from
the City Hochhaus by Nemorino
Looking north and northeast, though, you get better views from the cafe on the 29th floor, which is where I took this picture of the main Leipzig railroad station illuminated by a fleeting moment of sunshine from a gap in the clouds. Leave a Comment
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- Ibis Leipzig West
Ringstrasse 83 Dölzig, Leipzig - Novotel Leipzig City
Goethestrasse 11, Leipzig - Globana Airport Hotel
Frankfurter Strasse 4, Leipzig - Stern Hotel
Merseburger Strasse 158, Leipzig - Palais Sonnenschein
Hans-Driesch-Str 52, Leipzig - Top Hotel Alba Halle Leipzig
An Der Muehle 1, Leipzig - Lindner Hotel Leipzig
Hans Driesch Strasse 27, Leipzig - Holiday Inn Leipzig City Centre
Kurt Schumacher Strasse 3, Leipzig - Park Hotel Seaside Leipzig
Richard-Wagner-Strasse 7, Leipzig - Hotel Zur Linde
Russenstrasse 194, Leipzig - City Partner Suite Hotel
Permoserstrasse 50 (Formerly Artis), Leipzig - Best Western Premier Victor's Residenz Hotel Leipzig
Georgiring 13, Leipzig - Hotel de Saxe
Gohliser Strasse 25 Gohlis, Leipzig - Marriott Leipzig
Am Hallischen Tor 1, Leipzig - Precise Hotel Accento Leipzig
Tauchaer Strasse 260, Leipzig
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