There is a reason why opera is thought to be the perfect art form and institution of monarchy. The monarch paid the piper and called the tune at once. The opera house displayed his splendor and entertained the court, sometimes even the people. The king, however, is dead – long live the opera! In the almost 100 years that opera houses and modern states have been institutionally connected there has been a constant need to negotiate the tensions between opera’s feudal heritage and the democratic demands for access, transparency and accountability.

What kinds of difficulties they have to struggle with was shown once again Monday night in Berlin. Experts, politicians and artists met at the “neutral territory” of the Radialsystem, Berlin’s stylish new off-theater space, to discuss the crisis and future of the operatic landscape of Berlin. Among them Gerard Mortier and Klaus Zehelein, both internationally renowned managers of opera houses; Kirsten Harms, Andreas Homoki and Jürgen Flimm, the current and future heads of the Berlin opera houses; Monika Grütters, Alice Ströver and Barabara Kisseler as representatives of cultural policy and the public administration. Today, this debate fills the German feuilletons again – as it has done for years.

The “crisis of opera” has become a standing phrase in the ongoing debate on Berlin’s cultural developement for almost twenty years. It served as analysis and apology; as rational for demand and decline. Yet, what it this crisis all about? On the one hand, so it was stated at the top level panel discussion, everything seems to work out very well: The “Staatsoper unter den Linden” is celebrating international success; under its star conductor Daniel Barenboim, the “Staatskapelle” became one of the most distinguished orchestras in Germany. The “Deutsche Oper”, located with some disadvantage in the former West, is expecting a gifted new musical director with Donald Runnicles, while its chorus was voted “chorus of the year” by Germany’s top opera critics. The Komische Oper even became “opera of the year” in the same contest. Numbers of attendance are increasing at all three houses. So: little to wail and much to acclaim? The whole debate no more than a case of typical German lamentation?

Not at all! Since on the other hand the “Deutsche Oper” just announced a huge financial deficit that might lead to incapability of further artistic action; since at the “Staatsoper” the so acclaimed orchestra is rarely seen to be playing at home and the house decreased its number of opera performances drastically; and since the “Komische Oper” shows a break even as low as 18% and an average attendance at around 60%. Further, the three opera’s umbrella organization, ”Stiftung Oper in Berlin” claims itself powerless at the mercy of the dominant “Intendanten” and the Mayor of Berlin, Klaus Wowereit. The latter set himself in charge of cultural policy four years ago acting mostly at his own arbitrary willpower. The organization was founded in 2004 to save the “Deutsche Oper” from closure and to reduce the operating costs of all three houses. Now, finding it without power, is the existence of three artistically autonomous opera houses put at risk again?

All this was brought up by the different participants of the panel. As it had been the years before. Thus, the evening in Berlin turned out to be quite frustrating not only for the prominent participants but also for the large and expectant audience, which lost its patience while the hodgepodge of artistic, financial, political, conceptual or whatever crisis became even more obscure every hour. Contrary to the general statement, the crisis did not seem to be something acute, but rather a matter of creeping conflicts. The debates, again, revolved around solutions to rather elementary questions.

So again: What is this crisis all about? It might be fruitful to see in the importance of this term a matter of debate rather than a statement of fact. This crisis is, then, to be seen as a semantic space to articulate or hide conflicts; where traditions or their need to change is proclaimed; where current events must be linked to core values. Opera has, since its beginning, been a showcase of political power and therefore provides a window to the neural points of the relationship between politics and culture, culture and society, society and politics. With its long political tradition and as such deeply embedded mental and technical structures opera provides a link between the questioning of established fundamental values to the idea of change: the term “crisis” marks the vanishing point of communication, which connects current problems to fundamental values, whether in approving or challenging them.

This is especially true for Berlin. Whether it was the artistic profile or a lack of finance, the appointment of a new conductor or a flopped premiere – in the operatic landscape of Berlin of recent years, nearly every issue and conflict arose in connection to the city’s new role as capital of a united Germany. It increased the determination to break new ground in many areas and restricted the options nurtured by this atmosphere of departure at the same time.

“The structure of the three operas in Berlin is a result of the history of the Prussian capital, respectively of the division of the city” the politicians in charge claimed once and again. The new capital had inherited the three opera houses – the “Staatsoper” and the “Komische Oper” in the former East, and the “Deutsche Oper” in the West of the city. As the houses had played an important symbolic role during the Cold War, when both parts of Berlin had to be the cultural flagships of the two separated German states, after 1989 they did not get rid of their symbolic function. The struggle about the opera houses always reflected the state of the city’s reunification. The closure of one of them, this was made clear again yesterday, would still necessarily be seen as a statement about “East” and “West”.
For years the major issue of this debate was the question of who was actually responsible for the Staatsoper unter den Linden. Since it was build by a Prussian King and remained the Prussian State Opera after the First World War, it was declared essential to decide who could be regarded as the successor of Prussia in the federal political system of a unified Germany: The State of Berlin (das Land) or the Federation (der Bund)? Although Prussia had not existed for more than 50 years by this time, this matter was considered crucial in the question of what to do with the opera.

Further, the opera houses played a vital role in the question of what type of capital Berlin should be: a splendiferous one as it had been previously in its history or a rather modest and functional one as the former capital Bonn had been.

Last but not least after decades of uncontested public subsidies, financial cut backs and increased need for justification demonstrate the state’s dwindling financial virility and demand new strategies. The financial deficit that Berlin is facing and fighting is but one tip of the iceberg that the whole cultural sphere of Germany is heading for.
All of these were – and still are – questions related to power, vested interests, money and prestige. Therefore everybody was persuading a majority to accept a certain definition of a situation as a crisis. Admitting this, it is no wonder that denying a crisis for some of the participants was as right and important as it was for others to state it. It allowed to claim competence or to simply pass the buck.

Opera in Berlin is still a place to experience high quality performances, new talents and unexpected views. The opera city par excellence, with an at least potentially unrivaled variety. At the same time opera in Berlin became a pessimistic image and cultural metaphor: for the disastrous financial deficit of the city, the problems on the way to a finally united capital and the historical heritage that is burdening the metropolis. Put in either one context of this double bind situation, any single performance, personal decision or political concept is easy to communicate, but difficult to solve.

This photo graced the cover of the July 20, 1942 issue of Time Magazine.  The story discussed the upcoming radio broadcast by the NBC Orchestra of Shostakovich’s 7th Symphony (‘Leningrad’), a piece that had been brought via 100 feet of microfilm from Kuibyshev to Teheran, then to Cairo, and finally to New York.  Time considered this work to be the most highly anticipated American debut since the 1903 Manhatten premiere of Parsifal, a piece that was apparently so lofty as to be devoid of political ideology or national origins.

The description of the ‘Leningrad’ identifies it as a symphony that does not quite succeed as an example of its genre:

‘Written for a mammoth orchestra, Shostakovich’s Seventh, though it is no blatant battle piece, is a musical interpretation of Russia at war.  In the strict sense, it is less a symphony than a symphonic suite.  Like a great wounded snake, dragging its slow length, it uncoils for 80 minutes from the orchestra.  There is little development of its bold, bald, foursquare themes.  There is no effort to reduce the symphony’s loose, sometimes skeletal structures to the epic compression and economy of the classical symphony.’ (53)

This is not to say that the symphony did not accurately capture its Zeitgeist:

‘Yet this very musical amophousness is expressive of the amorphous mass of Russia at war.  Its themes are exultations, agonies.  Death and suffering haunt it.  But amid bombs bursting in Leningrad [ed. note: not 'in air!'] Shostakovich had also heard the chords of victory.  In the symphony’s last movement the triumphant brasses prophesy what Shostakovich describes as the “victory of light over darkness, of humanity over barbarism.”‘ (53)

There are more detailed ‘program notes’ that follow, such as this description of the first movement:

‘The deceptively simple opening melody, suggestive of peace, work, hope, is interrupted by the theme of war, ‘senseless, implacable and brutal.’  For this martial theme Shostakovich resorts to a musical trick: the violins, tapping the backs of their bows, introduce a tune that might have come from a puppet show.  This tiny drumming, at first almost inaudible, mounts and swells, is repeated twelve times in a continuous twelve-minute crescendo.  The theme is not developed but simply grows in volume like Ravel’s Boléro; it is succeeded by a slow melodic passage that suggests a chant for the war’s dead.’ (54)

I have a lovely mental image of households across America tuning in to hear Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony, Time Magazines in hand, following along with the broadcast.  Does anyone know if they ever tried this with Webern?

Biographical information about Shostakovich is provided, including a remarkably jaunty retelling of the Lady Macbeth scandal:

‘At the height of the Purge, when Russian nerves were badly frayed and people were plopping into prison like turtles into a pond[!], Stalin decided to hear Lady Macbeth. He did not like it, walked out before it was over.  Murder from boredom struck him as a bourgeois idea.  Besides, Stalin’s musical taste runs to simple, more tuneful things, zigzags between Beethoven’s Eroica and Verdi’s Rigoletto[!].  Also, he had a seat directly above the brasses.’ (54)

There is also a description of Shostakovich, the man:

‘At parties or among musicians, he unbends, jokes, outdrinks his companions.  He likes automobiles, fast driving, U.S. magazines, reads the U.S. authors who most appeal to Russia — Mark Twain, Jack London, Theodore Dreiser, Upton Sinclair  Strictly a city man, he dislikes dachas (Russia’s summer bungalows) and komaryi (Russia’s multitudinous mosquitoes).’ (55)

The article ends with an attempt to contextualize the Seventh Symphony and Shostakovich’s oeuvre: ‘Is Composer Shostakovich the last peak in the European musical range whose summit was Beethoven, or is he the beginning of a new sierra?’ (55)

Undoubtedly, you are curious to know why Shostakovich is wearing a fire helmet on his front cover.  When he was still in Leningrad during the Second World War (prior to his evacuation), he served in the citizens’ reserve fire brigade.

Berlin 1945 – Staatsoper Unter den Linden

This is the Berlin Staatsoper Unter den Linden in an image from the days shortly after the war. If you watch carefully (you will probbaly want to click on the image to get to a higher resolution), you will see a pedestrian in the left corner of the image, who has stopped to take a look at the bomed-out building. Is he looking at some of the sculptures that have miracolously survived the heavy air raids?

Other places were not as lucky. In Hamburg the opera house had to be partially reconstructed:

Hamburg 1955 – Reconstruction of the Opera

This is the model for the new opera house. Lots of glass, open spaces. If 1950s architecture is done well it has a irresistable aura of lightness.

The model for the Hamburg Opera House

Same building in use (much friendlier, don’t you think?)

Hamburg Opera House

Here are two images from Münster. As you can see (once you click on the image to enlarge), the entire structure is built around the remains of two 19th-century residential houses. A very powerful image, especially if one considers the integral role that opera plays in German (bourgeois) society nowadays.

Münster Opera House

Münster Opera House – Interior

As you can see in the image above, one interesting feature of the post-war opera houses is their conspicuous lack of a middle box. This often exuberantly decorated middle box was in most cases reserved for royal patrons or (ironically) the socialist/communist rulers of the post-war era, as the following image shows:

East-German and Russian socialists/communists in the Royal middle box of the Bolshoi Theater, Moscow

Thanks to Michael Scott Cuthbert for bringing this wonderful archive to my attention.

Karlheinz Stockhausen

“On Thursday, December 13th 2007, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. it will be possible to personally say farewell to Karlheinz Stockhausen in the chapel of the Waldfriedhof in Kuerten (Kastanienstrasse).”
– (http://stockhausen.org/stockhasuen_passes.html)

I wish I could go.

Interesting video to go along with KONTAKTE.

Stockhausen lecturing:

The Academy of Arts in Berlin will open its exhibition on the life and works of Walter Kempowski tonight. No other book in recent years has fascinated me as much as Kempowski’s Echolot. A collective diary, as Kempowski call his opus magnus in the subtitle, the book brings together thousands of autobiographical reports, letters, diaries, and newspaper articles from people all over Europe during the second world war, all arranged chronologically resulting in an impressive panoramic view of the war. Each days starts with a note from the Führerhauptquartier and ends with reports from the Nazi death camps. In between, Kempowski arranges texts that tell the story of war from various European perspectives. Kempowski, who has collected these materials during the last decades and has given his collection to the Academy of Arts a couple of years ago, will visit the Academy on June 10 to receive more unpublished diaries, films, and fotos. If you read German, ECHOLOT is a must, as is this exhibition.

– Walter Kempowski
http://www.wdr.de/tv/wdr-dok/archiv/2005/mke_10.phtml

Yesterday, at the Konzerthaus Berlin, musica reanimata hosted a moderated concert with the music of Karel Reiner (1910 – 1979), a Czech composer and pianist who was first persecuted by the Nazis and later on stigmatized as “formalist” by the communists. Reiner was sent to Theresienstadt, a German concentration camp in the Czech Republic, and miraculously survived the Nazi terror. He then returned to Prague where he became a prominent figure of Czech musical life, torn between affirmation and denigration by the communist authorities.

The concert, which took place in the Musikclub of the Konzerthaus, alternated performances of Reiner’s music with short discussions of his biography and works. The informative discussion round was moderated by Peter Sarkar and included Anke Zimmermann (musicologist focusing on Reiner) and Thomas Müller (composer and friend). The pieces on the program were committedly performed by Tara Bouman (clarinet and bass clarinet), Sebastian Foron (cello), and Hui-Ping Lan (piano). The evening also featured a screening of I Never Saw a Butterfly, a shocking and moving film (for which Reiner wrote the music) presenting the paintings and poems by children of Theresienstadt that were collected and smuggled out of the camp by Friedl Dicker-Brandeis.

What kind of music did a man compose who had been through the Nazi terror of the concentration camps, who escaped certain death in a Todesmarsch? Is there a direct connection between a composer’s life and personal experiences and the music that this person composed? There was only one work on the program that was composed before Reiner was sent to Theresienstadt (the Five Jazz Etudes for Piano (1930)). All the other works date from after 1945, the year of his liberation from the concentration camp. It may only be due to my imagination, but listening to these later works I detected a sense of urgency, an effort to compose positive, playful, happy music; music to make more bearable the terrors of the past. Reiner’s music, especially the wonderful Marginalié für Bassklarinette (1979) exhibits an almost simplistic style, employing natural gestures and fine melodic lines, balancing out colors and timbres. And yet, underneath the surface, loom the memories of the past, the hidden terrors of the holocaust, the dark alleys of a past life. These raptures and abysses were most detectable in the film score to I Never Saw a Butterfly. Here, Reiner impressively portrays the diffuse Angst, oppressed fear, and yet unshakeable vitality of the Theresienstadt children.

In this sense, yes, there is a connection between a composer’s life and the music, but it may only exist in the listener’s mind. Making audible the lost voices, feelings, and memories of those who died in the camps is the great merit of musica reanimata.

Walking around in my neighbourhood today I came across the old C. Bechstein piano manufactury in Ohlauer Strasse. This is virtually around the corner from where I live but I had no idea it existed! It was a nice coincidence that I had my camera with me to take this shot of the C. Bechstein signature underneath the sunlit roof top.

Bechstein used to have production facilities in that exact space since the 1880s. The building you see on the picture below was constructed in 1907 by A. Toepffer and it was used until 1988 when the company moved into a new building at the Moritzplatz which I cross every day on my way to the Staatsbibliothek.

More information on this building can be found at www.luise-berlin.de, a fantastic resource for the historic sites of Berlin.

Riding my bike along the numerous paths through the Tiergarten today, a friend of mine showed me a spot where one can see Begas’ Bismarck monument from behind. Set back from the huge traffic circle on the Großer Stern, it sits there between trees and bushes, almost hidden from those who rush by in their cars. Since we had no particular plans we stopped our bikes and gazed at the huge monument. At first, I did not notice that the Siegessäule was right behind the statue, but my friend who had recently read an article on the various Bismarck monuments in Germany soon brought the nice view to my attention.

Interestingly, both the Siegessäule and the Bismarck monument used to stand in a different spot, vis-a-vis the Reichstag on the Königsplatz (nowadays the Platz der Republik). But Hitler deemed it necessary to make Raum in front of the Reichstag and therefore both monuments were relocated. Trying to recall the details of the relocation and the addition of a fourth level to the pillar, I took a picture of the uneven couple. What strikes me now is that Bismarck is clearly looking away from Victoria, the golden figure on top of the column. It makes me wonder whether he had always averted his eyes from her, even when they were still standing near the Reichstag, before Hitler delegated them into the Tiergarten. When did Bismarck turn his head?

Spuren alter Reklame an Hauswänden. Schilder längst nicht mehr vorhandener Geschäfte und Werkstätten. Hinterhöfe voller leerstehender Garagen und Schuppen – wer arbeitete und lebte hier einst? Geschichten der einsamen Alten. Unterirdische Kanäle und Tunnel.

Wie lassen sich die Zeitschichten einer Stadt freilegen?