All you loyal readers of my Kaiserslautern post might recall that one of the operas I saw there was Jonny spielt auf by Ernst Krenek (1900-1991). This was the opera that sparked a remarkably sudden shift in the tastes of German-language opera-goers in 1927, away from the lavish Neo-Romantic extravaganzas of Read More …
While Salzburg is full of impressive and significant places to visit, like the fortress, the cathedral quarter, the festival halls and the two Mozart houses, I must admit that my favorite place in this town is the Landestheater (State Theatre), an outwardly inconspicuous building on Makartplatz that you might not 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 …
Looking at this sturdy little theater today, you’d never guess that it used to have the reputation of being one of the most totally botched and bungled construction projects of the entire 19th century. It was built in the 1840s and was inaugurated with great pomp on the emperor’s birthday Read More …
Here on the shore of Lake Constance (Bodensee) at Bregenz, Austria, is the open-air opera venue where the Bregenz Festival is held every summer. On the grandstand there are 6800 seats for us spectators, surrounded by over 600 loudspeakers that are part of a sophisticated sound system called “BOA — Read More …