Home of the world’s best opera company
My absolutely favorite place in Frankfurt am Main is the opera house. No, I don’t mean the Old Opera House. I mean the real opera house on Willy-Brandt-Platz, where they Read More ...
The sun in its travels …
Avignon was the hub of the universe for most of the fourteenth century. Or at least the hub of Western European Christianity.
Jacques Brel’s Marieke in Brugge/Bruges
In the song by Jacques Brel, Marieke was twenty years old when he loved her so much (and so long ago) between the towers of Brugge/Bruges and Gent/Gand in the Read More ...
Sixty-three opera houses in Germany
Up to now I have seen performances in sixty-three German opera houses, and I hope to get around to the other twenty-five in the next few years, before their funding Read More ...
Cutting edge technology …
… of bygone decades. In the winter of 1989 one of the monthly computer magazines — I forget if it was a German or an American one — came out Read More ...
Why the Dutch don’t wear bicycle helmets
For a conscientious helmet-wearer like me, it was shocking to see that hardly anybody in Amsterdam wears a bicycle helmet, not even the children. After asking around a bit, I learned Read More ...
Arrival in Tân Ba 1964
From October 1964 to March 1965 I was the lowest ranking member of a five-man American “advisory team” stationed in a small Vietnamese village called Tân Ba on the bank Read More ...
Wagner at Operaen
Copenhagen’s fantastic new opera house is called “Operaen”, which simply means “The Opera” because the -en ending is the definite article in Danish.
The triumph of cars over people
The Arc de Triomphe was commissioned by the Emperor Napoléon I in 1806 to celebrate the triumph of his armies over the rest of Europe in the early nineteenth century, Read More ...
About me
Hello, my name’s Don. I’m an American living in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, where I teach, ride a bicycle and go to the opera. I became an opera fan at Read More ...
Frankfurt OperaTalk
If you speak English, live in or near Frankfurt and are interested in opera, be sure to sign up for Germany’s only English-language opera appreciation course, Frankfurt OperaTalk, at the Read More ...
Opern-Gespräche
Seit 1999 leite ich einen Kurs namens „Opern-Gespräche“ an der Volkshochschule Frankfurt. In diesem Kurs reden wir (nicht nur ich!) mit fachkundigen Gästen aus dem Opernbetrieb über das reichhaltige Frankfurter Read More ...