(Photo Credit: Bielefeld Marketing GmbH)

In the northwest of Germany lies one of the most important venues for operatic history past and present. Situated in the Ostwestfalen-Lippe region of North Rhine-Westphalia, the city of Bielefeld boasts a funny conspiracy theory that the city, in fact, does not exist at all. However, the city does exist, and its cultural history is something to talk about. The birthplace of many notable individuals over the centuries, from expressionist Hermann Stenner, activist musician Hannes Wader, and Richard Strauss scholar Hartmut Schick, Bielefeld deserves its place in history. 

Alongside the Bielefelder Philharmoniker and their home, the art-deco Rudolf-Oetker-Halle, Bielefeld also has its own opera and theater venue, Bielefeld Theater, home of the Bielefeld Opera. Covering three buildings, hosting up to 600 performances per year, the complex is a fascinating look into a long legacy of cultural patronage. First conceived of in the 1880s, the theater opened in 1904, had a rocky start during World War One, underwent renovation during World War Two, and in 1953, under the directorship of newly appointed Herbert Decker, Bielefeld Opera became a place of innovative works never before seen in the venue’s history—past and present combined.

In 1978, British director John Dew took over and helped further the work done by his predecessors. After many tumultuous decades, in 2005 Gregor Zöllig brought contemporary dance to the theater for the first time. In 2013, Sabine Schweitzer took over as the theater’s opera director, and was succeeded by Michael Mund just recently. However, as interesting as the theater’s history is, a very particular set of years, specifically the ‘Bielefelder Opernwunder’ era under German director Heiner Bruns, stand out. 

During these 23 years, from 1975 to 1998, many currently unperformed and highly modernist works were championed by Bruns and gave the theater an international reputation which, it must be said, was not generally continued by his successor, Regula Gerber (1998-2005). Nevertheless, it is this period that deserves to be remembered as it was here that the theater became a beacon of experimental hope for the operatic world.

Mixing modernist operas from the post-World War One era, pre-war ‘grand opera,’ and post-World War Two new works, Bruns focused on combining social commentary of the inter-war Weimar Republic era with post-war artistic experimentation. This resulted in a unique mixture of underperformed classical works like Heinrich Marschner’s “Der Vampyr” (1828) alongside ‘new’ works such as Franz Schreker’s “Der Schmied von Gent” (1932), and the even ‘newer’ “The Ballad of Baby Doe” by Douglas Moore (1956). Post-world war (both the first and second) modernist operas from the likes of George Antheil, Max Brand, Paul Hindemith, Viktor Ullmann, Ernst Krenek, and Ernst Toch, to name a few, were given a place alongside their progeny like Adams, Karetnikov, Cotel, Weir, and Villa-Lobos. 

Most of the operas performed during Bruns’ ‘Bielefelder Opernwunder’ era have had inconsistent revivals, with some having no contemporary revival as of yet. Schreker’s generally unremembered “Irrelohe” (1924), premiered by the Cologne Opera, was revived by Bruns in 1985 and received several performances, the latest being in 2022 by Opéra National de Lyon. But many others performed by Bruns were then shelved once again. Antheil’s “Transatlantic” (1928) had a total of six performances before being all but forgotten (though it was revived by Minnesota Opera in 1998). Bruns’ love of French ‘grand opera’ saw the incorporation of quintessential works like André Grétry’s “Zémire et Azor” (1771) and Fromental Halévy’s “La Juive” (1835) alongside modernist lyric operas like Bohuslav Martinů’s “Julietta” (1938) and post-Mahler symphonic operas like Leonard Bernstein’s “A Quiet Place” (1983). In recent years, composers like Jake Heggie, Pierangelo Valtinoni, and Stuart MacRae have been featured—but it is always supplemented by traditional, and highly predictable, composers like Rossini and Verdi.

If anything, Bruns’ legacy at Bielefeld opera represented a unique chapter in operatic history where post-war modernism was not an exotic ‘Other’ in operatic artistry, but simply an extension of opera’s aesthetic development. Nowadays, these post-war experiments are hardly performed and if they are, they are done so in one-off ways. Instead, Bruns saw these operas as foundations in making sure opera progressed both upwards and outwards, maintaining a ‘popular’ connection without sacrificing artistry in the process. Only time will tell if Bielefeld Opera will go back to its heyday under Bruns, but I do hope they will soon: the world needs another ‘Opernwunder’ era.

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