Above: Recent additions to this site. Below: Featured posts.
Ten days, eight operas, seven venues
The amazing thing about my visit to Paris in June 2006 was that in ten days I saw eight operas at seven different venues. As I wrote at the time, Read More ...
Opera Houses in Germany
At last count there were eighty-eight functioning professional opera houses in Germany (more than in any other country in the world), as listed in the yearbook of Opernwelt magazine. I Read More ...
Bizet’s Carmen in Toulon
Whatever else you might have heard about Toulon, you should be aware that it has a gorgeous nineteenth century opera house — one of the largest opera houses in France 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 ...
Phuoc Vinh 1964
Phước Vĩnh in 1964 was the capital of Phước Thành (“Happiness”) province and the headquarters of something called the PBT Special Zone, which started a few miles north of Saigon Read More ...
Saigon 1964
I was never actually stationed in Saigon (as it used to be called), but I have been there fifteen times so far: four times in 1964, eight times in 1965 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 ...
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 ...
Lyon’s unmistakable opera house
One thing I’ll say for the Lyon opera house: you can’t mistake it for any other building in Lyon, or for any other opera house in the world that I 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 ...