Class Act: Peter Konwitschny’s schoolroom ‘Lohengrin’ augurs well for Leipzig, suggests Mark Berry

Peter Konwitschny’s production of Lohengrin, with its schoolroom setting, has become quite celebrated, but this revival in Leipzig, where Konwitschny has recently been appointed director of productions, provided a welcome opportunity for me to encounter it for the first time. It has many strengths, though there are sections, especially in the first part of the third act, which transfer less well to this setting. (A wedding is one thing, but preparations for a wedding night? Laying out of the marital bed is a strange form of sex education for what appears to be a rather old-fashioned kind of establishment, however universal the acclaim for Lohengrin as leader.)