Berlin
Christopher and His Kind, BBC TwoSaturday, 19 March 2011
Is there a televisual instruction manual for Nazi-era dramas? Cabaret singers with heavily kohled eyes, champagne from unmatched glasses in a shabby-chic apartment, smoke-filled gay bars in cellars with muscled trade, Stormtroopers marching in... Read more... |
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Rattle, Royal Festival HallThursday, 24 February 2011
So the Berlin Phiharmonic’s high-profile five-day residency staked its ultimate curtain-calls on one of the most spiritual adagio-finales in the symphonic repertoire (most of the others, like this one to the Third Symphony, are by Mahler). We knew... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Berlin: The 61st BerlinaleSaturday, 19 February 2011
Another 400 films, another rush for seats, another biting wind from Vladivostock: the 61st Berlin Film Festival - the Berlinale - has packed ’em in in the centre of town at Potsdamer Platz (mainly) over the last 10 days and hoped to light up the... Read more... |
Opinion: 3D is as revolutionary as the talkieMonday, 07 February 2011
Tainted by its origins and association with the pulp cinema of the 1950s (classics like Bwana Devil, It Came from Outer Space and House of Wax were pioneers of stereoscopic technology), 3D cinema has remained the province of entertainment cinema, a... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Berlin: More Venezuelans, Even YoungerSunday, 10 October 2010
Just seconds into a performance by the Orquesta Sinfónica Juvenil Teresa Carreño it is immediately clear what Sir Simon Rattle meant when he said, “I have seen the future of music.” The passion and physical and mental energy with which they play,... Read more... |
Sarah Willis, First Lady of the French HornThursday, 02 September 2010
No woman has ever achieved a higher profile on the French horn than Sarah Willis. Why? It's not as if she is a renowned soloist. But she is the first and only woman to join the brass section of the world's most celebrated and widely followed... Read more... |
Vuvuzela: a final note from BerlinThursday, 22 July 2010The vuvuzela's long and literally monotonous journey from Soweto to the very epicentre of high European culture is complete. During the World Cup they blew it with incessant vigour on the terraces of South Africa's stadiums. Now they're blowing it... Read more... |
The Berlin Philharmonic European Concert 2010, Sheldonian Theatre, OxfordSaturday, 01 May 2010
"Madness! Madness! Everywhere madness!" The unsung words of cobbler-philosopher Hans Sachs in the third-act prelude to Wagner's Die Meistersinger might seem like an odd opening manifesto for the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra's annual May Day... Read more... |
Interview: Heiner Goebbels, on staging strange worldsMonday, 26 April 2010
First, the name. There’s no family link between the 57-year-old German composer and Hitler’s Doctor Death. This Goebbels cuts an impressive figure. Solidly built, with thick white hair and slightly cherubic features, and speaking fluent English, he’... Read more... |
Berlin Sounds, Ether Festival, Queen Elizabeth HallSunday, 25 April 2010
One of the recurring themes in BBC4's recent documentary, Krautrock: The Rebirth Of Germany, was the importance placed by so many of its participants upon transcending Germany's then-recent past. Move on several decades, and you now have a country... Read more... |
Berlin Sounds: the not-so-new BohemiaWednesday, 21 April 2010
“I'm moving to Berlin.” In artistic circles and especially those that include electronic musicians, over the past few years such a threat has become so commonplace as to be cliché. It's not without reason, though. For one, despite gentrification,... Read more... |
DVDs Round-Up 6Saturday, 17 April 2010
There's a piquant French perfume to our April round-up. DVD of the month is Olivier Assayas's magnificent family drama Summer Hours, reissued in the US with revealing extras (and available worldwide from Amazon). Maurice Pialat's work is considered... Read more... |
