The fresco in this photo (above) is at the north end of the Rue de la Gaîté, at the corner of Boulevard Edgar Quinet, where a popular ice cream shop attracts long lines of customers. As the name implies, the Rue de la Gaîté has always been a place of Read More …
What do the German cities of Kassel and Leipzig have in common? In the early 1950s, both cities held architectural competitions to see who could design the best new modern opera house. Both of these competitions were won by architect Hans Scharoun (1893-1972) — but neither of his proposed buildings Read More …
My cycling map showed a bicycle route along the right bank of the Seine River leading southeast out of Paris towards the place where the Seine is joined by its tributary the Marne. For some reason I wanted to go there (even though this is not exactly the most picturesque Read More …
Erfurt’s original opera house, now the Alte Oper or Old Opera, was first built in the nineteenth century. It survived the Second World War intact and was used as an opera venue more or less continuously until 1997, when it was condemned as a fire hazard. Actually, they went on Read More …
Fontainebleau’s municipal theatre is described on the city’s website as a “symbol of the cultural identity of Fontainebleau.” The theatre was built starting in 1905 in a “Louis XIII style that combines brick and stone,” and was inaugurated in 1912. It is not a part of the Château, but is Read More …
Cherbourg’s historic theatre, from the year 1882, faces onto the city’s main square, the Place Général de Gaulle. In the center of the front façade are the busts of three men: Corneille, Boieldieu and Molière. Two of these, Corneille (1606-1684) and Molière (1622-1673), are unsurprising. Corneille was best known for Read More …
In the summer of 1595 — or maybe it was 1596, nobody knows for sure — a young English playwright woke up from a weird and wonderful dream and started writing it all down as fast as he could, before the dream faded. In this dream the Duke of Athens, Read More …
This historic theater got its name from the fact that it was built on the bank of a small river called the Wien — a river that has since been banished underground. For many years the Theater an der Wien presented a mixed bag of operas, operettas, musicals and spoken Read More …
Bavaria at the turn of the 20th century was a kingdom within an empire. The king, Otto I, was insane, so he was kept locked up in a castle behind high walls while the kingdom was run by his uncle, Prince Regent Luitpold (1824-1912). During the twenty-six years of his Read More …
For sixty-two years, from 1955 to 2017, one of the unique attractions of Steinau was the Holzköppe marionette theater, which performed in the Marstall, a historical building which had originally served as the horse stables for the nearby Steinau Castle. The word Holzköppe means ‘wooden heads’ in the local dialect, Read More …