The WGT brings together fans from all over Europe for opulent and spectacular costumes
The German city of Leipzig hosts this weekend the largest concentration of followers of the gothic, steampunker and baroque movements in Europe in the 29th edition of the «Wave Gotik Treffen» (WGT) that lasts until Pentecost Easter Monday. After two years of forced pause due to the coronavirus epidemic, the Saxon metropolis is overflowing with people dressed in opulent suits and spectacular makeup, who like to visit cemeteries and listen to sinister music. Representatives of all ages of the so-called black scene, dark hippies, fans of vampirism also attend the rally, which has a program of more than 50 events, such as acts in cemeteries with titles such as «Funeral poetry, whispers from beyond the grave and music ghostly”, open days in mortuaries and crematoriums or night excursions to discover the shelters of local bats.
Among the 200 scheduled musical events, the open-air concert in the gigantic Monument to the Battle of Nations «The Prophecy» with music from the «Game of Thrones» series or the film «The Hobbit» and the interpretation by the choir stand out. of the internationally renowned Gewandhaus musical theater from Joachim Raff’s “End of the World – Last Judgment” oratorio, while the Leipzig Opéra Comique stages Carl Nielsen’s “Masquerade”.
Theater pieces such as “El Revisor” by Nicolas Gogol and variety shows such as “Cuestión de Nerves” by the group “Adrenalin & Comedy”, but also film screenings, including the Austrian film “Luzifer”, seminars and conferences, exhibitions and parties in clubs and in the open air complete the program that opened this Monday with a “Victorian Picknick” in the Clara Zetkin park, in which extravagant clothes and very elaborate costumes were worn.
“It’s a see and be seen,” explains Sabine, who is attending the WGT for the seventh time with her husband, both decked out in custom-made baroque suits and wigs and in which they acknowledge having invested several thousand euros. Isabel comments that “here I can give free rein to my inner fantasy once a year” and confesses having traveled from Regensburg with seven suitcases to wear a different model every day, so lavish and complicated, that she needs her husband’s help to get dressed.
The oldest participant is Luis Felipe de Orleans, an 87-year-old German who imitates the brother of the Sun King and dazzles with an elegant period suit in his twelfth participation in the eccentric concentration. Every week he enjoys dressing up as members of the Dresden Baroque Association, which holds balls set in the 17th century. The meeting in the East German city was held for the first time in 1992, three years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, then with some 2,000 people and eight music bands. Now thousands of fans come from all over the world.
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