He was a genius – and a madman: the poet Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz. With his personal tale of woe, Lenz himself became a literary figure. In a novel, Georg Büchner described how Lenz fell into mental derangement. Wolfgang Rihm made a chamber opera out of this material 40 years ago, which has held its own on the repertoire to this day. On June 23, the premiere of a new production of Rihm's "Jakob Lenz" took place, this time at the Staatstheater Nürnberg. Director was Tilman Knabe, musical direction was in the hands of Guido Johannes Rumstadt.