Freiburg im Breisgau is a pleasant university city at the edge of the Black Forest in the southwest corner of Germany, near the borders with France and Switzerland. In other parts of Germany, Freiburg is envied for its relatively mild climate, since the daily weather maps in the newspapers and Read More …
Würzburg is a city of 130,000 people, located on the Main River not quite 220 kilometers upstream from Frankfurt. There are fine bicycle paths all along the river, so it’s no problem getting here. And if you’re in a hurry, there are about thirty-seven trains per day in each direction, Read More …
In Brussels I saw the same opera two nights in a row in two different versions. The first night the title role was sung by a baritone, Ludovic Tézier, and the next night the same role was sung by a tenor, Andrew Richards. This is highly unusual, because usually a Read More …
In June 2012 I went back to the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées on Avenue Montaigne in Paris, this time to attend a benefit concert with the Ensemble Matheus, conducted by Jean-Christophe Spinosi, featuring six prominent singers who often perform in French opera houses. The ladies in this photo are, from left 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 …
At 129 rue Saint Antoine in the Marais district of Paris there is a small bakery and pastry shop with the marvelous name Aux Désirs de Manon, referring to the heroine of the novel Manon Lescaut by Abbé Prévost (1697-1763) — a novel which was the inspiration for operas by Read More …