In July 2022, after a gap of seventeen years, I returned to Bregenz and took another tour of the festival grounds and the lakefront stage, this time to see the stage that had been built up for Andreas Homoki’s new production of Madame Butterfly by Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924). Since I Read More …
This sign on the pier leading out to the lakefront stage on Lake Constance tells workers what action to take in case of high water at various levels. From level 494 (which is still one meter below the level of the aluminum pier) they should close the aluminum wall of Read More …
The Salzburg Festival is one of the world’s largest and most intensive summer music and drama festivals, with more than two hundred performances packed into six weeks in July and August each summer. I have never attended any of these performances, both because they are beyond my price range and Read More …
Copenhagen’s fantastic new opera house is called “Operaen”, which simply means “The Opera” because the -en ending is the definite article in Danish. Operaen was built in only three years, from 2001 to 2004, on an island in the Holmen district of Copenhagen. The site for Operaen was carefully chosen Read More …
When I was in Gelsenkirchen in 2007 I happened to be there on a day when they were offering a guided tour of the opera house, including the backstage areas that most of us don’t get to see very often. Here some people from our tour group are standing on Read More …
The only way to have a look at the backstage areas of the Opéra Bastille (unless you have business there) is to take a guided tour. These begin at 5.00 pm on some afternoons from September 1st until July 16th. You can find more details on their website. Tickets go Read More …
Twice so far I have been lucky enough to be in Leipzig on one of those Saturday afternoons when they offer a tour of the opera house. These tours are listed on their website, where you can also book tickets. The cost as of 2018 is € 10.00. The tour Read More …
The National Theater (“National” meaning Bavarian, not German) is the main venue for the Bavarian State Opera. The building has had a quite typical history for nineteenth-century opera houses in this part of the world. It was first built from 1811 to 1818. In burned to the ground in 1823 Read More …
In 2004, I took a backstage theater tour of the Baden State Theater during their annual Open House. They started a new tour group every ten minutes or so, and said right at the start that they would follow the yellow arrows posted throughout the building, so anyone who wanted Read More …