The Miracle of Meiningen is not an invention of the features section. Music and theatre are part of everyday life in Meiningen in southern Thuringia and are always the talk of the town. Thanks to its art-loving dukes, Meiningen maintained its status as an important Central German music centre over the centuries. Members of the Bach family worked here, as did the composers Johannes Brahms and Max Reger. The court orchestra and theatre had a pan-European appeal. The residential city on the Werra experienced its cultural heyday under the Theatre Duke, George II of Saxe-Meiningen.