Friday, October 11, 2013

Kultur Vultures

We have enjoyed a plethora of cultural activities during our trip with visits to galleries, ballet, organ recitals, chamber music recitals, choral performances and the Dresden Symphony Orchestra.  Several of these have been by some world reknowned  groups.

Berlin has been no exception.  We spent last night at the ballet and the night before at the opera.  Both were performed in the modern German Opera House so no 'La Traviata' type photos.  The opera was Mozart's The Magic Flute, which is the most performed opera in Germany.  This was a modern adaption with lots of added dialogue and a different approach to costuming.  It was sung in German but fortunately had subtitles....... in German!

The ballet was Schwanensee - Swan Lake.  This was absolutely brilliant - best thing we have ever seen performed.  We could go on with a lot of superlatives but the audience loved it so much that we thought the curtain calls would never stop.

We have also visited the Alte National Gallery where we particularly liked the Impressionists and the Gemildegalerie, considered to be one of the great museums of the world.  You could spend all day here.  We just looked at the recommended highlights in each room.

To provide some balance, we also visited the wonderful Technikmuseum.  This was enormous in size, located in several buildings with huge collections of trains, boats, planes, telecommunications, a brewery, manufacturing and some excellent interactive sections for children.

Did Margaret Olley see this?

Gail with a Monet at the Alte National Gallery

Gail at Lego Land - another cultural highlight.  This is a dangerous place to stand!

What is this?  It is part boat, part car and part plane.

German Jeannin Stahltaube 1912

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Totally Margaret Olley.

And it looks like the prototype for Chitty Chitty Bang Bang...did Ian Flemming see it?

xoxo
Di

Amanda said...

When you get home, ask Stu about how he almost won a trip to Legoland when he was 8. It still makes him cry, haha.