Easter vacation part one: Leipzig and Berlin...

Yes, it it obvious that Leipzig was part of the former East Germany, and based on the gallery of photographs that I saw in the foyer of the opera house, the opera's facade was frequently used as a backdrop for East German propaganda. This picture of Stalin shows him looking quite friendly, for example... maybe it's just the 'stache. He looks like someone's grandpa, albeit one who would send you to Siberia without a second thought if you didn't eat your Brussels sprouts...


Leipzig is a really nice town. Apart from the modern Elektra staging that Keith distinguished himself in, we saw part of the rehearsal of the Matthew Passion, including one of the baritone solos, in the Nikolaikirche, which - along with the Thomaskirche - was one of Bach's main churches during his 27 years in Leipzig.


Speaking of the Thomaskirche, I finished my audition in just enough time to make it to the 15h motet service. It was quite the moving experience, as the choir sang a number of accompanied and unaccompanied works, by Bach, Mendelssohn, Bruckner and others. I even sang along with the congregation, and recited the Lord's Prayer as part of the Lutheran service, which reminded me strongly of my late Grandfather, who remained an enthusiastic Lutheran all his life.


Keith lives right around the corner from the Schiller house, so that necessitated a visit, of course. Although I haven't yet done the Beethoven Choral Symphony, I've been told that his setting of Schiller's An die Freude has a baritone solo part that isn't too bad... who knows? Maybe you've heard of it?

It really was a trip filled with German culture. One of my audition arias is from the Gounod opera on Goethe's Faust, and Keith and I happened upon this pub, called Auerbachs Keller, after the scene of the same name in Goethe's play. There was no Valentin statue, but we tried to look suitably Faustian and Mephistophelian, respectively...


A visit to the Bach museum rounded out a great weekend in Leipzig; that and a delicious meal of spicy chicken wings chez Keith. The next morning I took the train to Berlin, and checked out a number of its famous places on foot. The Brandenburg gate was interesting, with lots of oddly costumed people offering photographs of themselves with tourists for a mere 2 Euros each. These characters included, but were not limited to: "soldiers" of different nationalities, a chicken, a strange commedia dell'arte figure, and of course, a North American Indian, apparently Sioux, if his head-dress was any reliable indicator.


As I walked from the Brandenburg Gate in the direction of Checkpoint Charlie, I saw quite a few large and imposing buildings, including the Federal Ministry of Finance, which was originally the Aviation Ministry of the Third Reich, built in 1933-35. It was also the site of the founding of the German Democratic Republic in 1949, which is celebrated by Max Lingner’s 1950 Meissen tile mural featured in the reception area of the building.


Checkpoint Charlie was particularly moving, with its monuments to the people killed trying to cross the barrier. I was 19 years old the year the Berlin Wall fell, and was reminded again of how astonishing the event of its fall was, when anything seemed possible. It was like the whole world was holding its breath, but not in fear, but in excitement and anticipation...


After Checkpoint Charlie I continued south to the Jewish Museum, which should look familiar to those of you who live in or who have visited Toronto recently. It's the same angular titanium geometrical structure, somewhat counter-intuitively arranged, full of strangely-shaped empty spaces (described as "voids"), and grafted, almost like a mineral excrescence, onto a neoclassical building, that Daniel Liebeskind designed for the Royal Ontario Museum. Obviously these are two pieces in a series for this architect.


The museum had a lot of medieval and late neo-classical artifacts, plus a lot of the history of pre-20th century Jewish life in Europe and Germany. There was also a sparing selection of displays about the Holocaust of the 19302/40s. It was sobering to follow the line of European Jewish history through the centuries, to see the contributions made by Jewish Europeans, and to know what was coming up as I walked through the museum in chronological order. This museum celebrates the arc of European Jewish culture, and puts its history into context within European history, side by side with Islam and Christianity. Definitely worth visiting if you are in Berlin...

... coming up... Easter vacation, part two...