The city of Leipzig, birthplace of Richard Wagner, has been holding a Wagner Festival each May since 2006. In a quiet little way. All that is set to change in 2013. The 2012 schedule hasn't even been announced yet, but an impressively full programme has already been laid out for the composer's 200th birthday celebrations.
Running from 16 to 26 May 2013, the festival will include operas (some in collaboration with Bayreuth), concerts, talks, exhibitions, theatrical events, a cabaret and even a new ballet.. Ulf Schirmer conducts the Gewandhaus Orchestra in Lorin Maazel's edited highlights package Ring without Words (without singers, without their wage bills). A walk through Leipzig has been designed to link locations related (with varying degrees of tenuousness) to Wagner. A Wagner cycle ride is planned. Conceivably there are Wagner Würste and a neckbeard competition in the offing. In short, it's a Megawagnerfest.
If that's not enough, the dates coincide with the annual Wave Gotik Treffen, which claims to be the world's largest Goth festival. In true festival spirit, the whey faced medievalists will be joined by various middle-American Wagner Societies and stray academics in some kind of crossover event.
