Ich bin immer noch in Berlin!

SO update time here we come....

A quick apology for the delay. It's become a perpetual race of taking in experiences, planning the next day, and attempting to reconcile the two. Somehow the blog is left on the back burner and the realities of life take over. But apologies and concessions aside, lets get to the realities!

REALITY:
Berlin is an amazing city filled with theaters, operas, concerts, shows, events, and even when I try to go to the countless things I research, I feel like I'm merely scratching the surface of something full of potential.
At the risk of seeming to gloat or sounding incredibly pompous, here are a few of these "cultural endeavors" that I sought out. Sometimes I was alone, other times with friends, and while some things were more interesting than others it was all a wonderful way to experience different sides of the city. So here we go...

1. Museum Island and State Museums: thank you Jahrescarte (Year Card) which for 20Euro has allowed me to waltz in and out of the state museums at will. The Altes which is a textbook of Greek and Roman antiquities, the Neues to check out Nefertiti, and the Pergamon to be awed by the beauty of Hellenistic sculpture. Since I was living so close to the island some days I would just run over, sketchbook in hand, and walk through a museum for an hour. Also went to the Gemaldegalerie where the INCREDIBLE Caravaggio Cupid painting is along with several Boticellis and one of the most impressive collections of Dutch art (Haals!). It was a real surprise to find so many impressive pieces in Berlin of all places!

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10100468642812853&set=a.10100468642762953.2877157.1240915&type=1&theater


2. Ballet! Can't remember if I mentioned this but way back in May I saw La Esmeralda which was STUNNING (a GOAT was brought on Stage! wow) And by stunning I mean the dances and costumes were stunning. The music was actually pretty awful (overly regular) but that was remedied by...

3. OPERA! Berlin is now the city where I FIRST experienced Opera. I saw Die Zauberflote (The Magic Flute) in May and although the costumes were (frustratingly) modern, the music was phenomenal. The Lady of the Night had an incredible arores solo thing that seemed superhuman. So beautiful. Also saw TOSCA which was phenomenal for it's sets and it's singing with an incredible stage that recreated Rome perfectly. And more recently saw Samson and Delilah which was good EXCEPT that the director decided to change some key elements to make it "modern" and unfortunately left me utterly confused. The best part was the music and the conductor who had great curly Italian hair that stood up and flew with each thrust of his baton. It was more entertaining that the performers!

4. Berliner Ensemble George or Georgette show: despite being utterly confused since the entire show was in German, it was fun to watch this call back to a traditional Berlin entertainment of drag preformance theater. Georgette (or George) was wonderfully charismatic and I only wish I had been able to understand the great jokes that she must have been cracking!


5. Berlin Art and Design convention at Templehof: An incredible opportunity to walk through the old airport's hangars and browse selections of art and design: furniture that went from functional to bizarre. Best part was Jashen's friend Dörte had her own table on display and also these really cool "function" wall tiles which were normal wall tiles but had a lemon juicer http://www.lemontile.de/, or melitta filter built into it--design meets function! Plus it was fun to see her really using the event to promote her work in such a cool space.

Dörte's table with movable slats: beauty and function!

 6. Wiemar Weekend trip! With the class we had a cultural weekend in the city that was the heart of the German intellectual movement: Goethe, Schiller, List, Bauhaus design... Incredible overload of music culture in an incredibly beautiful town. I got exposure and appreciation to a world of culture that the American system of education had somehow never conveyed to me. Perhaps I'm supposed to go out and read up on these ideas and famous authors independently.. After walking through Goethe's house, seeing his countless casts of Roman sculpture, copies of raphael paintings, collections of coins, rocks, and minerals, I was astonished at how incredibly intelligent the man was (and how much he was interested in not only literature but arts and sciences). I have never read Faust (a true shame) but I must now! We also got to see a Basoon concert, which was a real treat since I had never heard the instrument played all on its own, and it was beautiful.
We also saw a sad side of human history, the Buchenwald concentration camp which is just outside Weimar. I'm interested in history and think it is important to visit these things, but I'd rather just leave it at that--a horrible reality that once was and hopefully will not happen again.







7. Fete de la Musique. On the Longest day of the year, June 21st, Berlin is filled with stages and free music performances. I was lucky enough to catch some chamber music at Humboldt University. Also a mens choir sang a very traditional German song and the whole audience clapped along. Unfortunately I couldn't stay out all night because of a minor housing crisis which I guess I shall explain in a separate post (as not to abruptly shift from the current theme :)

8. CONCERT! I saw the inside of the Berlin Philharmonic Hall and experienced my FIRST EVER Concert. I had very incorrectly underestimated the beauty and excitement of watching a live concert. Having only ever heard recordings of classical music, I assumed a live performance would be much the same. Plus wasn't that the sort of thing that old elites listened to? Not young people like myself? Thank God I took up my friend's recommendation and showed up early to get rush tickets to the show which I knew nothing about except that there would be a famous Female violinist playing Mozart and a Bruckner piece. Specifically...

Herbert Blomstedt
HILARY HAHN		Violine
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart		Violinkonzert Nr. 5 A-Dur
Anton Bruckner		Symphonie Nr. 1 c-Moll

(apologies dear reader if you have made it this far only for me to keep going, just warning you that my "novel" experience of the concert may seem boring(or exciting) depending on your interest! if you have been to a concert my harangue may seem a bit overdone, but if you haven't I recommend trying it out since you might be surprised)

But anyway, back to the concert. So I show up alone (which is always strange) to get my early ticket. As a happy Classic Card holder I can get any last minute seat for a cool 8Euro. So finally I get up to the window, flash my Classic card, hand over 8 euro and the teller hands me my ticket. There on the bottom left corner it reads:

A Rechts
58,00 EUR Normalpreis

I'm already excited, the price was right and the seat seemed legit.

So after an hour of killing time (which involved buying a sunflower seed pretzel outside, wandering over to the Gemaldengalerie which was having some special pianos exhibit, strolling across to a church and accidentally walking in on a service, and finally finding a little street beverage cart and caffinating up on a surprisingly delicious espresso. A little food, a little coffee, and a little stroll, I was ready for my first ever concert.

As I walked up the stairs into the hall it was interesting taking in the people around me. Lots of older people dressed very well but also a surprising number of young and middle aged people. And while everyone clearly tried to dress nice, there was no sense of social hierarchy set by fashion. People dressed well and that was all. Since my shoes have recently broken I felt rather silly in my flip flops but oh well, it was the best I could do! (I tried to make up for it by "dressing up" with a fancy scarf however that probably didn't fool anyone!)

Once in my Block (block A Rechts) I finally entered the Hall, and WOW. Nothing could have prepared me for the space that is the Berlin Philharmonic. Beautifully elegant but visually functional. The tiers seemed to come out of the wall only so that an audience could listen in on an amazing sound that was being created. The entire space felt like it was made for music. Nevertheless the audience did have the opportunity to look around and really see everyone. As I sat down (my mouth was probably open in awe) I noticed people siting in the "bleachers" behind the Orchestra were waving to friends in nearby seats. It was a scene of friends and families and familiarity--a comfortable environment where everyone was there to enjoy the music, no pretensions about being an "opera goer" (at least not as much as I thought there would be), instead just the simple pleasure of a night out to some stellar music.

And that's just the room, the MUSIC was phenomenal on so many levels. Visually I was so engrossed I was scared to blink--the sharp uniformity of the violinists bows thrusting so forcefully one moment and then delicately providing the softest tone in the next. It was unreal. I hadn't realized that music could be such visual medium in addition to auditory. The space gave the performance such drama. As did the musicians themselves: their entire bodies moved with the music and several people's faces expressed the genuine emotions of their music.

Hilary Hahn was something to see--like a ballerina and yoga master she controlled her Violin with such elegance that it seemed a natural extension of her posture perfect pose. And obviously her incredible ability. I don't even know what the "limits" are of violin since I'm totally new to concert music, but she seemed to be doing stuff that shouldn't be possible. And what was more, she showed total control in doing it. No overly emotional expression or physical involvement, always dignified, exact, and fully aware of what she was playing and what she would play next. She finished the show off with an encore that was Schubert's "Der Erkonig", a piece written in response to the Goethe poem. It was a beautiful melancholy but also powerfully playful piece, it felt very innovative and different perhaps because it was written for piano, really wonderful to see. She must have played it in particular to pay tribute to her  Berlin audience. The audience gave a huge exhale after the piece, as if they had been holding their breath (like I had) the whole time and then ecstatically applauded.

The second half was just as good except very different: the full force of Bruckner with incredible trumpet and drums driving the strings to incredible crescendos of sound. The conductor, Blomstedt, seemed restrained at first and then would suddenly unleash his energy and vigor just before the moment when the instruments all joined up as one force. It was incredible to watch the interplay between the musicians and the conductor. In the "heat of the music" when the musicians playing the huge cellos were straining and exerting such physical energy simply to cover all the notes, Blomstedt was relatively reserved, and he would save his fire of energy for those moments when a spark was needed to excite and ignite the next movement. Really wonderful.

So, after all that writing I have no idea if what I said was valid, but it's what I took away from the whole experience. It was an incredible first time at a concert. I met up with Jashen and his friend Martin during the intermission and when they found it was my first we joked that I had started with the bar pretty high, luckily there's always Vienna!