The building where for 40 years the Stasi had its headquarters for the district of Leipzig now houses the "Runde Ecke" (Round Corner) Memorial Museum.

A tour of the exhibition, "Stasi - Power and Banality", brings home to visitors how the SED developed its surveillance state and systematically robbed GDR citizens of their basic rights.

Today the Opera house has a large repertoire of performances both classical and modern opera and ballet, accompanied by the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, a tradition that goes back to 1766.