Enjoying the Best in Music, Opera, and Ballet in .NET

Making QR Code ISO/IEC18004 in .NET Enjoying the Best in Music, Opera, and Ballet

You don t need to know German in order to enjoy a performance in one of Germany s wonderful array of opera houses and concert halls Lovers of classical music, ancient music, pop music, opera, and ballet will find that Germany is a gold mine Tickets for musical events, including grand

opera, are reasonably priced, and the quality of musical performance is extraordinarily high Berlin ( 12) is home to three major symphony orchestras, including the famed Berlin Philharmonic, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle, and three opera houses that share their stages with resident ballet companies Club and concert venues pulse nightly throughout the city A visit to Dresden ( 14) can be made even more memorable by an evening at the Semperoper (Semper Opera House), one of the world s great opera houses, or hearing a concert by the Dresden Philharmonic Up north, Hamburg ( 13) plays host to the Hamburgische Staatsoper (Hamburg State Opera), the Hamburg Ballet, and three highly regarded orchestras The city of Leipzig ( 14) is home to the world-renowned Gewandhaus Orchestra and the acclaimed Leipzieger Oper (Leipzig Opera) Leipzig celebrates its most famous citizen the composer Johann Sebastian Bach, who lived and worked in the city for more than 40 years with the yearly Bachfest In Munich ( 15), one of the great cultural centers of Germany, the brilliant Bayerischen Staatsoper (Bavarian State Opera) shares the National Theater stage with its ballet company, while the magnificent M nchner Philharmoniker (Munich Philharmonic Orchestra) performs in the Philharmonic Hall The Stuttgart Ballet in Stuttgart ( 18) hit international stardom in the 1970s when John Cranko took over the company Cranko is gone, but the company still performs at the State Theater, and so does the Staatsoper (State Opera) For a city of its size, Cologne ( 19) has an amazing array of musical offerings Major artists appear at the Oper der Stadt K ln (Cologne Opera), the Rhineland s leading opera house, and two fine orchestras the G rzenich K lner Philharmoniker (Cologne Philharmonic) and the Westdeutscher Rundfunk Orchestra (West German Radio Orchestra) perform in the K lner Philharmonie concert hall The group Musica Antiqua K ln is one of the world s foremost early-music ensembles And thanks to its huge student population, Cologne is home to a throbbing club and pop-music scene Opera Frankfurt/Ballet Frankfurt gives a big musical boost to Frankfurt ( 20), as does the Frankfurt Philharmonic

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Perusing the main events in Germany s history Recognizing Germany s architectural heritage Discovering German food, beer, and wine Finding books and movies about Germany

his chapter helps you find out more about Germany and deepens your experience of the country I distill the essence of Germany s complicated and tumultuous past so you can get a clear, quick sense of the major epochs I highlight the main architectural trends, whet your appetite with a primer on German food and drink, and recommend some excellent books and movies about Germany

Germany s long and tumultuous history remains clouded by the horrors of World War II How a civilized European nation slipped into the state of barbaric inhumanity that existed during Nazism s rise and the war that followed is a question that continues to occupy historians and survivors and haunt the Germans themselves The following list highlights the main trends in German history: Early history: Prehistoric humans hunted in the Rhine and Neckar valleys of present-day Germany By the first century ad, the Roman sphere of influence extended well into the borders of present-day Germany, with garrisons established at Cologne ( 19), Koblenz, Mainz, and Trier Following the Roman withdrawal from Germany in ad 400, the empire of the Franks represented the transition from a loose conglomeration of German tribes into what eventually would become the German Empire Charlemagne (Karl der Grosse; 768 814) was responsible for the earliest large-scale attempt to unite the lands of Germany under one ruler