German news round-up

Germany was alive and kicking this weekend with several unusual headlines hitting the news.

Thousands celebrate German pop song festival in Hamburg
I thought that the only person that actually enjoyed German 'Schlager' lived a few doors down from me. 'Schlager' are folky German pop songs that are sung by mustachioed orange-tanned grinning Bavarians and have plenty of accordion in them. Actually, I think the songs are specially designed to be carried by a gentle breeze, propagating themselves like pollen.


I was astounded to discover that 300,000 fans celebrated this music in Hamburg on Saturday. And the organisers had expected half a million! Several lorries were converted into huge 'Schlager' floats which blasted the music out through the streets during an all-day procession.
Check out some images from the 5th Schlagermove, here, at Stern.

World's longest concert continues
The church organ in Halberstadt played the next - sixth - chord of John Cage's As Slow As Possible work to much rejoicing amongst locals. The performance began in the year 2000, so with one chord ringing out for more than a year on average, the tonal change must have been a breath of fresh air.

Hitler head torn off
Minutes after the opening of Madame Tussauds wax figure museum in Berlin on Saturday, an angry German visitor attacked the wax effigy of Adolf Hitler. He jumped over a rope supposed to separate the exhibit from the public. When another visitor tried to stop him, a melee ensued and the result was a headless Fuhrer. The man in his forties came from the leftist district of Kreuzberg police said after they had detained him. Museum officials swiftly removed the damaged waxwork.

Today, media reported that the museum is fixing the figure which will remain a part of the exhibit of politicians.

'Fidelio' by Beethoven

There must be something special about the Neue Oper in Frankfurt. 'Fidelio' is the third opera I have seen there and it easily matched the other two for sheer musical brilliance and modern theatrical style.

If you think opera today is about fat singers in period costume melodramatically prancing around cardboard cut-out sets then think again.

The Neue Oper is clearly at the cutting edge. Again the audience was treated to an ultra modern stage design. The entire back and side walls were an invigorating full yellow. Clever use of lighting either took you inside the prison or to the exercise yard.

Basically the piece is about a woman, Leonore, who rescues her lover from prison by pretending to be a man called Fidelio. Surprisingly nobody dies. This is an uplifting moving opera about heroism and justice.

Swedish-American soprano, Erika Sunnegardh, is simply outstanding as Fidelio/Leonore. She sang like a nightingale and her athletic figure was ideally suited to the demanding dual role.

The other stand-out performance was that of bass singer James Cresswell who played the prison master Rocco. As demanded by the music, his voice was deep and commanding, but at the same time he somehow managed to convey a sense of irony about any situation.

It is a credit to the performance that the two characters with the biggest parts were also the most enjoyable to watch and hear.

Danish film review: ‘Prague’ (2006)

A gripping dark drama, artistically shot and lined with black humour.

Christoffer (Mads Mikkelsen) travels to Prague with his wife Maja (Stine Stengade) to organise the shipment of his dead father back to Denmark. He is unemotional about the whole thing and only expects to fulfil the practicalities. It is 25 years since his father ran away from Denmark leaving him and his mother behind.

At the hospital, Christoffer is unable to wave a fly off of his dead father’s face. He just stands and stares – that is the extent of his stunted feeling. The doctor drolly tells him ‘Life is hard. And you cannot have it all.’ A mantra repeated by the completely bald elderly lawyer played by Czech actor Bořivoj Navrátil.

Whilst the coffin with his father is mistakenly sent to Singapore, events in Prague rapidly develop. Christoffer and Maja’s marriage begins to fall apart. Maja has been seeing a man altogether more lively and tender than the detatched Christoffer. Meanwhile, a surprising fact of his father’s history emerges.

Mikkelsen plays Christoffer very well – lonely, sad, even nihilistic, his placid pale face rarely changes expression. But Stengade really wins your heart as the long-suffering wife who can’t stand her moody self-absorbed husband any longer.

Danish cinema does dark abstract movies well and black humour is its forte. In any Danish film I always find myself looking out for features of the influential Dogme 95 school of cinema. ‘Prague’ does not disappoint. It has all this and more. Stark realism is its most powerful attribute.

Book review: 'Snow' by Orhan Pamuk

Snow by Orhan Pamuk
First published in Turkish, 2002
English translation by Maureen Freely, 2004
436 pages, £5.99 on amazon.co.uk

‘Snow’ is a beautifully written and very human novel. Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk explores religion, politics and art with a set of passionate characters, but the story is mainly about one man’s search for love and happiness.

That man is called Ka. He is a poet who, after years of political exile in Germany, returns to Turkey. He travels to Kars, posing as a journalist sent to investigate the suicides of the so-called ‘headscarf girls’.

Headscarves were banned at the local college, and people believe this is why several ardent Muslim girls committed suicide. But Ka talks to the locals and finds that other reasons probably led the girls to do it, such as the brutality of their fathers.

Thick snow falls and all the transport routes to the remote town are cut off. As the town is hit by a military coup, Ka falls madly in love with Ipek, daughter of the 'enlightened' hotel owner, Turgut Bey.

Interesting characters and wry humour illuminate this novel. For example, Serdar Bey, the editor of the local newspaper, publishes the next day’s news before it happens. And the Islamic extremist Blue is a complex character who stands out for both his brutal conviction and his gentlemanly wiles with women.

Poems come to Ka as if by divine inspiration, and we see him furiously penning them in a public toilet or at the kitchen table. Pamuk alternately pokes fun at artistic pretentiousness and celebrates the electric rush of pure creativity.

Pamuk often digresses from the main plot but this only makes the novel richer. Some books you can’t put down, but I often put this book down just to savour what I had read and to avoid reaching the end too soon.

Kars and its people finally make Ka realise what he wants from life. But at the same time he does not want to shake off the solitude and depression that he knows so well. Will Ka leave his lonely poet’s world for love? Or will raw emotion overtake him?

Germany has a new super star

Saturday night, i found myself glued to the TV for a good four hours. It was the final of Deutschland sucht den Superstar on RTL.

Fady Maalouf competed with Thomas Godoj for the viewers hearts and a record deal.

It was clear for me who should win. Bohlen again hit the nail on the head when he said that Fady's singing reminded him of the warm feeling he got as a little boy when he had peed himself!

Thomas has a great voice for the rock side of pop. His first two songs of the evening: 'Fairy tale gone bad' by Sunrise Avenue and 'Chasing Cars' by Snow Patrol ranked with his best performances on the show.

To me, Fady's crooning voice was all-over the place again on non-discript pop songs.

I was happy when Thomas won (I even sent in an sms) and also very relieved.

The amount of advertisement breaks they slotted in with increasing frequency before the winner was announced was terrible. RTL had a captive audience of perhaps a couple of million and they unashamedly battered us senseless with dozens of commercials on a loop.

Tom's final song which will be released as a single this week could have been better. Firstly, the lyrics of 'Love is You' are pretty banal. Secondly, the song itself is way too poppy for his so-called rock image. And thirdly, this is not a song to launch a super star career. But hopefully, others will come soon that are.

So Tom was number 1 from 30,000 original entrants. Maybe his victory was most pleasing due to his underdog status. In terms of his singing ability he was no mere beginner. But what about his image? At his audition Bohlen brutally told him that it looked like a coffin lid had hit him three times in the face! The English expression, 'third time lucky' springs to mind.

In the end, it is reassuring to see that an 'outsider' with true talent can still beat all the pretty vacant wannabes out there.

Awesome military might

Red Square, Russia, 09 May 2008

The Russians celebrated the 63rd anniversary of their victory over Nazi Germany with style.

What could be more rousing than a good honest military parade on Red Square? At last, Put-in had put-away enough money in his piggy bank to afford a big hootenanny for his patriotic followers. Forget spending anything on the decrepit schools and hospitals!

Did you see the pictures? By Jove, it was heartening to see the Russians flex their military muscle. No beating around the bush, like those sneaky Yanks. Check out the BBC video here.

Hold on a minute though. Is it just me, or do those jeeps look a trifle dated? Sure they've been done-up a bit, but I've seen more lethal jeeps on my way to the local supermarket in Nottingham. And those tanks? I know the T-34 was one of the deadliest fighting machines of the Second World War, but come on, they're a little bit past it now aren't they?

I feel sorry for the Russians who wanted to paint the garden fence or the garage over the weekend. There must have been a shortage of dark green paint in the D.I.Y shops!

Seriously, I'm sure the Putin had quite a hefty bill from the cleaners. All that dusting off of 17-year-old-plus hardware.

Do military museums exist in Russia? If so, I suppose all they had left to show were a couple of pick axes (donated by retired assassins) and a sharp spade or two. Everything else was in the parade!

And what about those whopping great missiles, probably longer than a London bendy bus? One gets the feeling, that Medvedev et al. are compensating for something.

Night of the Museums in Frankfurt a.M.

Nacht der Museen, Saturday 26 April 2008

Around 50 museums and galleries opened their doors to the public from 7pm until 2am. A special ticket for the bargain price of 12 Euros gave you admittance to every single one of them if you had the stamina and resolve.

This was a great opportunity to do a quick whip around and find out which museums were worth a second more considerate visit in the future. Or so I thought.

Huge crowds, meant that long snaking rows of people crawled around from exhibit to exhibit at snails pace. Or the larger museums resembled over-excited ant hives as masses of visitors swarmed around. It was an incredibly lively occasion as far as museums go!

In the end I made it to five along Museumsufer (Museum Embankment):

1. Städel art gallery. Enjoyed a glass of wine whilst watching a live calypso band in the hall at the back. Did not witness a single artwork. They were actually operating one-in, one-out at the door. Never mind, I was here before, and the collection is extremely impressive.

2. Museum für Komunikation. Again very busy. A modern building with lots of glass. Got a great aerial view of the classical dance performance, from the third floor looking down to the large open floor at the bottom. Seemed a bit thin on exhibits. But an interesting exposition on diary writing and blogging, offered me some inspiration.

3. Deutsches Architekturmuseum. Models of human settlements through the ages. A little bit boring. Strange layout meant slow moving crowds. Blueprints displayed more like artwork, than technical drawings and little more than basic information offered.

4. Museum der Weltkulturen. World cultures? All I saw was a small wooden canoe and a stuffed crocodile!

5. Museum für angewandte Kunst/Museum of Applied Arts. Another modern building with lots of glass and spacious rooms with white walls. A lot on offer here. Vases, furniture, electric appliances, toys, kitchen implements etc. All practical yet 'arty' in their own inimitable ways. The special exhibition called 'FRAGILE' (pronounced as in Latin, with hard 'g') showed the best collection of Soviet Union porcelain I had ever seen. No, surprisingly, this was the museum highlight of the evening. The delicate cups with intricate proletarian designs, made my tea mug look stone age.

Every city with more than two museums should have an evening like this!