Sept 28 2008

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorbus_aucuparia 

Today out my kitchen window the fog bed lifted by 8:30 and I could see the Vogelbeere Trees  (European Rowan or Mountain Ash) leaves which have turned a brilliant red. These trees literally named in German, "Bird Berry" because the small red berries,  are an important food and vitamin source for the birds before the onset of winter.  They are bitter but can be used in Jelly or marmalade. The fall trees in Germany are not as colorful as the northeast of the States but this year I must say that the foliage display is quite beautiful.  The maples are red and gold and I must get out with the camera to capture this year´s magic. G is feeding the cat Mohrle ( as in the English word Moor) pats of butter which are placed on the newspaper on the bench of the breakfast nook.  Not a good way to train an animal, but, if simply given the butter she drops it on the floor. This is somehow more hygenic. I walked to the bakery this morning to pick up fresh baked rolls which being Sunday the bakery is open from 8 to 11, a recent phenomena in Germany.  Up until recently, all shops were closed on Sunday.  They are slowly moving in the direction of other countries but things move here very slowly at times into the future which is not always bad.  When I came here 17 years ago, all stores and shops closed on Saturday at noon and you had to wait till Monday to do any shopping. Needless to say, Saturday morning was a mad rush to pick up any necessities.  During the week, all stores and shops closed at 6 PM and many were closed during the noon hour so the  employees could go home for at least an hour or so. I was working daily in the theater and when I got my mid-day break nothing was open!  Now the major stores are open till 8 on most days of the week as well as Saturday.  Sunday is still a quiet day for most people to stay home and be with their families. Trucks are not allowed on the highways from Saturday evening till midnight on Sunday making travel more pleasant. 

Later after church,  we drive to a small restaurant in a nearby village where we can sample the local Frankish food. The day is sunny and warm for a change as it has been an unseasonably cold September with frost in my garden killing the tomatoes. This sudden warmth is called "Alt Weiber Sommer" or old wife summer akin to our Indian summer.  Federweisser, the  new wine of the season,  is the drink of choice at this time of the year.  Its name is  comprised of Feder-Feather and Weisser-white from the yeast color suspended in the wine.  The yellow jackets circle the plates and glasses as we sit outside on the heavy wooden benches and tables outside of the Gaststätte. 

The rehearsal

I went to my first "Probe" at the theater in Rudolstadt in middle of December 1991, realizing that I had lost my chance to go back to the States with my plane ticket on the 15th of that month. I was on my own in Europe after a whirlwind audition tour that took me to agents and opera houses in Germany, Austria and Switzerland in around 6 weeks. I had a credit card and my daughter stationed at that time in the Army in Germany had staked me to some money to help tide me over during the audition time.

The morning was gray and overcast and I had stayed that night with a family in a temporary lodging as I was to get a more permanent rehearsal apartment this day after the rehearsal. The smell of brown coal hung over the city as I was driven in a mad fashion by the conductor, Herr Bach doing a Monte Carlo race in a Trabi. (Trabante, a DDR car that was driven by something like a lawnmower motor and exhuming plumes of smoke out the tailpipe). I began to notice that mornings after one awoke, the need to blow my nose and the black colored mucus on my handkerchief a result of the coal and probably exhaust fumes from Trabis. I was to find out that Rudolstadt is in a valley that contains smoke something like a bowl and there was serious lung problems in this area particularly with children who suffered various lung ailments causing them to be sent to clinics or a relative who lived in a healthier area.

Standing high over the city was Heidecksburg Castle, the former home of the German Prince Friedrich Anton von Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, who ruled the place in former times. This lovely castle is pictured in many ways throughout Thuringia including on milk cartons from the company of the same name.

I went through the artists entrance at the side of the theater which was a communist inspired, ugly functional architecture, that replaced the lovely former baroque theater that Richard Wagner for one had conducted performances which was torn down probably because it reflected the bourgeoisie . It complimented the then gray unpainted buildings and houses of the town and the then depressing non-colors of the DDR State.

I walked into the rehearsal room to greet for the first time Herr M. and my new colleague Beth J. who was luckily an American and my translator. Herr M. immediately fired stage instructions and ideas at me so that within a half and hour my head began to ache. Herr Bach was on the piano and correcting my German pronunciation as I spoke or sang with repeated interruptions making me exasperated. Beth translated as much as possible and after 4 hours or so I was let go to now schlep my suitcase to my new quarters about a mile or so from the theater.

This is a picture of the Theater in Rudolstadt. My first job!


I arrived in Rudolstadt, Thuringia in early December 1991 for an audition. I stayed at a hotel the night before that had floors of thick gray linoleum and the smell of brown coal smoke left a lasting impression on me to this day.

The theater was tiny and I sang several arias from the stage. The conductor and stage director talked to me after the audition and asked me if I would like to sing a role in their new production scheduled to premier at the end of January 1992.

I went up to the Theater Director's office and he talked in English to me explaining about the performances and the fee which was 5000 DM for around 10 performances. I had never reckoned in Deutschmarks before and it sounded pretty good. The problem was there was no provision for rehearsals and being a beginner in this system, I never even thought about it. That was to come back and haunt me till the summer of 1991. The theater also did not register me right away when the rehearsals began which was illegal but also left no record of work for December and I lost compensation for work later.

I had been offered a contract in Hof at the end of November which I decided to take and the season would begin in summer of 1992. This was one of the last auditions before I was to fly back to the States on the 15th of December. Here was a chance to stay in Germany without having to go back and find some temp work to keep me financially alive till the summer when I would have a full time two year contract with a German theater. I said yes immediately and did a coaching of the opera the next day and then left to complete the rest of my scheduled auditions. I returned shortly before Christmas and plunged into the new opera which was in German and had not only singing but dialogue as well.

Where I am..

I have lived in the town of Hof since the Spring of 1992. I came to this small town in upper Franken to work at the local theater and stayed ever since. I have had this blog for several years now and will try to keep things updated on a regular basis. The weather here (and weather is always an interesting subject) is surprisingly similar to the East Coast where I am from or say from New York west through Ohio into Indiana.. I keep a Yahoo weather update on my home website page to see what is happening from New Jersey, on to Ohio, to Iowa and Minnesota.

When I arrived at the Hof theater for the first time, I had been working at a small theater in East Germany, in the city of Rudolstadt. They had another dialect relating to Thuringia or in German Thüringer and I never even got close to that one as I started to work in German in December of 1991 with only my high school German to get me through rehearsals. http://www.rudolstadt.de/cms/website.php I was lucky to have two colleagues, Beth J. and Ken Phelps who were Americans and they were able to translate for me when the going got tough.

I was gradually starting to understand more of the language as the rehearsals in Hof began for the "Lorelei" by Catalani but I was amazed at the other Americans working at the theater who were so much more advanced than I.

When I arrived at the Hof theater for the first time, I had been working at a small theater in East Germany, in the city of Rudolstadt. They had another dialect relating to Thuringia or in German Thüringer and I never even got close to that one as I started to work in German in December of 1991 with only my high school German to get me through rehearsals. http://www.rudolstadt.de/cms/website.php I was lucky to have two colleagues, Beth J. and Ken Phelps who were Americans and they were able to translate for me when the going got tough.

I was gradually starting to understand more of the language as the rehearsals in Hof began for the "Lorelei" by Catalani but I was amazed at the other Americans working at the theater who were so much more advanced than I.

The Language is German and the local dialect is Frankish which takes a while to get used to. The local paper has a column called the "Hofer Spaziergaenger" (The Hofer Stroller) written in dialect and everyday there is at least one column written in dialect commenting on political or other topical events. I can read it and basically understand what is written but to hear it spoken is sometimes almost impossible to understand. An acquaintance of mine who is at the artist´s entrance to the theater greets me with smiles and talking a mile a minute. I cannot for the life of me understand 70 percent of what he is saying. I nod my head and smile as if I am taking it all in and by straining my ears and trying to catch a word or two I can about make out what he means.

The Theater Canteen at the old theater in Hof (the new one was being built to open in 1995) had a small room with tables and dispensers for coffee and beverages. We would congregate there during the rehearsal breaks to socialize and have a cup of java. In a German theater if you are with a group of people seated together at a table, everybody speaks German (I do not see this in the Czech theaters as later when I worked in the Czech Republic but that is another story) even if 6 out of 7 people in the group are Americans or from other English speaking countries. It is of course out of politeness and the Germans are very polite. They shake hands at every rehearsal and even if you are late to one you interrupt the proceedings to shake hands with the stage director or conductor. Embarrassing to say the least and a good reason to come on time.

Next blog: What it is like as an American to work in a German theater.

Bridge over the Elbe

This was an article in the Herald Trib. that caught my attention. The Elbe or Labe in Czech is the principal river running through Dresden. I have worked in Dresden and over on the other side in the Czech Republic and the river runs through the Saxon "Grand Canyon" reminiscent of the USA Grand Canyon..

Proposed bridge in Dresden fuels protests over modernization

By Nicholas Kulish

Friday, January 4, 2008

DRESDEN: The battle to stop a proposed bridge here has embroiled everything from a tiny endangered bat to the country's reigning literary lion, Günter Grass. Now activists with climbing gear and wooden planks have occupied a centuries-old beech tree to keep it from being felled as part of the construction of the controversial Waldschlösschen Bridge.

The tarps over the makeshift encampments in the beech tree's limbs whipped and banged so fast in a harsh, gusting January wind it sounded like a drum roll. Below, wrapped around the trunk, was a giant white sign decorated with a yellow sun and colorful flowers both absent on a recent winter afternoon, which declared in German, "I want to live."

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, better known by its acronym Unesco, agrees. The body has warned city and state officials that Dresden could become only the second site ever to lose its place on the World Heritage list if it builds the bridge, regularly described by opponents and even at times by supporters with the word "monstrous."

Unlike, for example, the historic center of Prague, it is the Dresden Elbe Valley, with its meadows and trees combined with its architecture that earned it a coveted spot on the list of 851 sites worldwide.

But backhoes and trucks are already at work, clearing ground from the meadows on both banks of the Elbe River and chainsawing down oak trees for construction of the access roads. While large construction projects are often the subject of legal battles and protests, the matter is particularly sensitive in Dresden.

Prior to World War II, Dresden was known as the "Florence on the Elbe," for its exceptional baroque and rococo architecture. The city was devastated in a series of Allied bombing raids in 1945. That began a long struggle to rebuild. Its status as a World Heritage Site is a point of pride for citizens of Dresden.

Leading a protest against the bridge here last month, Grass, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for works including "The Tin Drum," said that the history of the city's destruction meant "one must be particularly angry and alert that this form of destruction is never repeated."

Opponents have tried everything to stop the bridge from going up. For months construction was stalled after an administrative court ruled in August that steps needed to be taken to ensure that the endangered lesser horseshoe bat was protected. Experts estimate that only around 650 remain in Germany, some in the vicinity of the proposed bridge. But the courts ultimately ruled in November that work could proceed.

Protestors held a sit-in around several old oak trees which had survived the infamous fire bombing during World War II to prevent workers from chopping them down. Their action failed, leading a few days later to the predawn seizure of the beech tree.

Environmentalists from a nonprofit called Robin Wood approached at 5:30 a.m. on Dec. 12 and set up camp in and around the beech tree, where they have remained.

It is not an easy time of year to sit in a tree in the bitterly cold state of Saxony. "Sure is a lot of wind, loud rustling, but otherwise I slept well," said Alexander Gerschner, 42, who on Thursday morning had just come down from a six-hour shift in the tree.

The occupiers said they were being fed with donations by local supporters, receiving gifts of everything from Dresdner Stollen, the famous local Christmas fruitcake, to sushi.

Supporters of the bridge project say it will ease traffic congestion and better link the two sides of the city.

While the population of the state of Saxony, of which Dresden is the capital, has declined from 4.9 million at the time of German reunification to about 4.2 million currently, the rate of car ownership has risen more quickly than the population has fallen, from 423 per 1,000 residents in 1994 to 546 per 1,000 people last year.

Local officials sound exasperated when discussing the battle to build the bridge, which they say was first proposed for that very location back in 1896. Bridge proponents claim clear legitimacy, pointing out that the project won a citywide referendum three years ago with a convincing majority of 67 percent of voters.

"I'm for it," said Doreen Kaufhold, 20, a bookkeeper, waiting for a streetcar in central Dresden. "It would be a relief for traffic." She said she did not believe the bridge would ultimately cost the city its status as a World Heritage site.

"The bridge was disclosed in the application," said Gerhard Glaser, now retired but president of the monuments preservation office of Saxony from 1982 until 2002.

Planners are hoping to sway Unesco with modifications that would make the bridge less obtrusive, allowing them to have their crossing and their heritage status, too.

"We hope that with these changes we can reach a point where Unesco finds it acceptable and we can maintain the World Heritage status," said Michael Sagurna, a senior official in the Saxony state government. "Then we're fairly sure that with these changes the dispute won't be quite so heated as before."

Victor Homola contributed reporting from Berlin.

---

Gypsy Baron New Year´s Eve in Bayreuth review in German..

This Picture is of me on

The Horse named Urias in the first act of Zigeunerbaron or "Gypsy Baron". This is the first time I have ever sung on the back of a horse..
Großes Engagement bei einer großen Operette
02.01.2008 16:00
Einsatz, Witz, echtes Sentiment und sichtliche Begeisterung: Das Freie Theater Bayreuth spielte die Operette „Der Zigeunerbaron“

Von Frank Piontek

BAYREUTH. Sage keiner, dass die Operette ein Medium für Schmalz und Blödsinn ist. Die Prinzipalin weist darauf hin: Im „Zigeunerbaron“ ist nicht nur die Rede vom Waffenschmieden, sondern auch von dem, was ein Krieg jenseits der Propaganda ist: „So a Krieg is a Graus, Gott sei Dank is er aus!“ Natürlich spielt das Freie Theater Bayreuth, wenn es, nun schon zum dritten Mal in Folge, eine Silvesteroperette samt Büfett in die Stadthalle bringt, kein politisches Stück – aber der auf den problemlosen Jahresabschluss eingestellte Besucher bekommt ein Menü serviert, das sich sehen lassen kann, und dies gewiss nicht nur, weil das schöne Pferd mit dem unschönen biblischen Namen Urias, das den Tenor zu tragen hat, sich anständig benimmt.

Es ist schon erstaunlich, mit welchem ungeheuren Engagement die Truppe eine der allerersten Operetten über die Bühne bringt. „Der Zigeunerbaron“ ist ein schwieriges, der Oper benachbartes Stück – so benachbart wie Barinkay und der Schweinezüchter Zsupán, die inmitten des liebevoll hergestellten Ambientes (Zigeunerhandel, Sternenhimmel) ihren Konflikt austragen. Dass er sehr komisch ist, dafür sorgt der Vollblutakteur Uwe Zitterbart. Dass er schön sentimentbeladen ist, dafür sorgen James Clark als Barinkay und Nicola Becht als Saffi.

Was den Sängern gelegentlich an Durchschlagskraft fehlt, machen sie durch Charme und Spielfreude wett – tatsächlich: ausnahmslos alle spielen hier. Der Regisseur Adolf Brunner animierte sämtliche Kräfte, es sind wahrlich nicht wenige Sänger, ausgezeichnete Choristen und singende Kinderstatisten. Der Zamir Chor Bayreuth klingt nicht nur ausgesprochen gut, sondern spielt auch die Zigeuner und die Wiener Bevölkerung mit einem Spaß an der Freude, der keine Selbstverständlichkeit ist. Barbara Baiers Arsena, die Mirabella der schönen Claudia Mabell, Markus Seimel als zorniger, liebender Ottokar, die exzellente Barbara Schachtner als Czipra, Christian Theodoridis (ein guter Gast aus der Staatsoperette Dresden) als Conte Carnero, der österreichische Bassist Christian Büchel als Homonay, ein fescher Haudegen mit blitzenden Augen: sie verkaufen Strauss' Werk nicht unter Niveau. Man(n) hat seinen Spaß vermutlich vor allem am Ballett, das sich mehrmals klassisch, im Husarenhabit und als Darstellung ausgewählter Zigeunerinnenschönheiten beteiligt: die Elevinnen der Ballettschule Diroll sind unter der Leitung von Doris Diroll reifer geworden.

Voller Einsatz, Witz, echtes Sentiment und sichtliche Begeisterung: Diese Mischung scheint auch das Publikum zu schätzen. Im nächsten Jahr gibt’s Karl Zellers „Vogelhändler“. Ein auf den Ausnahmezustand eingestellter Operettenfreund sollte jetzt schon seine Kartenbestellung aufgeben: zu Händen der Christl von der Post.
1
Mit ungeheurem Engagement brachte das Freie Theater Bayreuth eine der allerersten Operetten über die Bühne: „Der Zigeunerbaron“ von Johann Strauß. Foto: Harbach