In Lübeck I attended the premiere of a seldom-performed opera from the year 1755 called Montezuma, about the indigenous Mexican emperor and his defeat in the early 16th century by a small group of Spaniards under Hernán Cortés. The libretto for this opera was written by none other than the Read More …
Czech and German nationalists used to get all sentimental about this river, and some still do, for instance the obnoxious Sudeten-German refugees in Bavaria, now in their third or fourth generation of exile and still suffering volubly while driving to refugee conventions in their fat BMWs. (I am distantly related Read More …
In August 2013 I went on another guided walking tour (in French) that I found listed in the back pages of the now-defunct weekly magazine Pariscope. This was mainly a tour of the Île Saint-Louis, but since that island has no Métro stations, we met at the kiosk by the Read More …
In July 2014 I took a guided walking tour (in French) of the Saint-Germain-des-Prés quarter of Paris. We met at the exit of the Métro station Mabillon, because this is a small station with only one exit, so there was no danger of anyone picking the wrong one. Our guide Read More …
One of William Shakespeare’s biggest fans in the 19th century was the great Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901), who based three of his operas on Shakespeare plays, namely Macbeth, Otello and Falstaff. The composer’s second favorite author was the 18th century German playwright Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805), whom Verdi admired not Read More …
This plaque in Geneva’s Old Town reads: “Jean-Jacques Rousseau was born in this house on June 28, 1712.” And then at the bottom in smaller print: “Refurbished façade.” I remember as a student sometimes feeling intimidated by Rousseau, because his influence seemed to be everywhere. No matter what other authors Read More …
Rue d’Auteuil was the main street of the village of Auteuil, until that village was divided up between Paris and Boulogne in 1860. At that time more than half of Auteuil was incorporated into the city of Paris. This part is now the 61st administrative quarter of Paris and is Read More …
Germany’s largest opera house was built in the 1990s on the site of an old railway station, incorporating the station’s elaborate entrance hall and front façade. The station itself had been built a century earlier as the terminus of a 4.3 km branch line. At first glance this might seem Read More …
In the spring of 2019, the Musée Maillol in Paris exhibited artworks from the Emil Bührle Collection from Switzerland, featuring paintings (and a few sculptures) by Manet, Degas, Renoir, Monet, Cézanne, Gauguin, Van Goth, Modigliani and Picasso. I went twice, once to see the collection on my own and once Read More …
L’homme est né libre, et partout il est dans les fers. “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.” This quotation from the beginning of The Social Contract, by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), is one of those that used to be on display in the town of Montmorency, a Read More …