Berlin, Rejoice!

November 9, 1989. After 28 years  of dividing the city, the Berlin Wall fell, and the call, "Berlin, Rejoice!" rang out through the chaos of overwhelming emotions that gripped the city.

"Berlin, Rejoice!" is the theme of the benefit concert in the Berliner Dom (Berlin Cathedral) on Monday, November 9, that celebrates the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. For the first time in history, the Rundfunk-Sinfonie Orchestra, Berlin (Berlin's Radio Symphony Orchestra) and its choir, the Rundfunkchor Berlin, will perform together with the Deutsches Symphonie Orchester (or DSO), and the RIAS Kammerchor (RIAS Chamber Choir).

The significance of this memorial concert is enormous. The RSO, Germany's oldest radio symphony orchestra, was under the supervision of the GDR radio from 1949 till the Fall of the Berlin Wall, while the DSO was established by the US forces during the occupation. At that time it was known as the RIAS Orchestra, the acronym standing for Rundfunk im amerikanischen Sektor, or Broadcasting in the American Sector, the radio station to which the orchestra was linked. During the Berlin blockade, RIAS played a central role in carrying the message of the Allied forces' determination to resist Soviet intimidation.

On Monday, November 9, the four great orchestra/choirs will perform together in a unique commemoration of reunification.

The program includes sacred music by Schubert and Mendelssohn -- a tribute to the religious tolerance in which freedom is rooted; Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and Schönberg's "Friede auf Erden" -- an expression of the magnitude of the event;  and Richard Wagner's Overture from "Die Meistersinger vom Nürnberg" -- a reference to the long shadows cast by history.

The performance will be transmitted live on Deutschlandfunk, BBC, Radiotelevisione Italiana, as well as radio stations in Denmark, Lithuania, Canada and Romania.


"20 Jahre Mauerfall - Das Konzert" takes place at the Berliner Dom on Monday, November 11 at 8:30 PM. Tickets are between 15 EUR and 70 EUR and are available at the ticket counter of the Berliner Dom every day between 11 AM and 6 PM (though tickets are going fast). Public transportation to the Berliner Dom includes: U and S-Bahn to Alexanderplatz; S-Bahn to Hackescher Markt, Bus 100 and 200 to Lustgarten.  More information is available at www.musikinkirchen.de

Berlin's Neues Museum Opens after Seven Decades

Long lines snaked across Berlin's Lustgarten this morning. The line started gathering momentum as early as 7 am on this cold, grey, blustery day -- three hours before Berlin's Neues Museum opened to the public.

This is a great day for Berlin -- the renovations by British architect David Chipperfield, which took ten years of discussion, debate, planning and construction, is brought to light; the last of the five-museum ensemble in Berlin's Museum Island is now in place; and the Neues Museum is open for regular viewing for the first time in seventy years.

Phoenix from the Ashes
Built by Friedrich August Stüler between 1855 and 1859, the museum was hastily emptied of its exhibits at the start of the Second World War. By 1945 there was nothing left of the beautiful neoclassical building except rubble. After the war, the GDR repaired the worst of the damage, but the building remained a scarred, war-torn ruin for about another half century.

photo: ddp

When Chipperfield first took on the project in the 1990s, he saw a ruin forgotten by history. His idea -- radical, audacious, fiercely contested and just as fiercely defended -- was to rebuild the museum without letting go of the original materials. Into the new structure, with modern features such as slim pillars and glass roofs, he incorporated parts of the original structure -- fragments of frescoes, wall, mosaics and raw brick, still bearing the marks of ravage by bullets, fire-bombs, and exposure to the forces of nature for over half a century.


Statement in Marble
The museum's most dramatic feature is probably the central staircase in cement and marble, sweeping up toward the high ceiling, stripped of decorative elements. Chipperfield's design recalls at once the original ornamental staircase and the image of its burned out remnants.

photo: ddp

Nefertiti

The Neues Museum  houses artifacts from the Egyptian Museum, its Papyrus Collection, and the Museum of Pre-and-Early History. The star of the show will undoubtedly be the 3,400-year old bust of Nefertiti in the north cupola, her gaze shooting across the entire length of the building, through hall after hall, era after era, finally meeting that of the Sun God Helios in the south cupola, in a breathtaking axis of perspective.

photo: Getty Images

Musuem in a Museum

The Neues Museum is more than "just" a museum. Like the Reichstag dome and the Gedächtniskirche, it shows how the city grapples with the problem of restoring and renewing without forgetting. But probably no other building in Berlin comes close to the Neues Museum in the way its reconstruction has embraced both the original architectural vision and the damage of war in its concept of renewal.

The Neues Museum is located on the Museum Island, Bodestraße 3, 10178 Berlin. Public transportation options include: S-Bahn to Hackescher Markt, tram M4, M5, M6 to Hackescher Markt, Bus 100, 200 to Lustgarten.

The museum is free to the public this Saturday and Sunday ( expect very long lines). From Monday on, the museum is open every day: from 10:00 to 18:00 on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Sunday; from 10:.00 to 20:.00 on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Tickets cost 10 EUR (5 EUR reduced). Tickets are valid for entry within a specific half-hour window of time to minimize long waits. You can order tickets for your preferred window of time online at www.neues-museum.de
There is no restriction on the amount of time you can spend inside.


More information is at www.neues-museum.de

Berlin's Konzerthaus Turns 25

Why does a 1980s concert hall look like a nineteenth-century theater?
Berlin's Konzerthaus at Gendarmenmarkt, which turns 25 this year, was originally built as a royal theater by nineteenth-century star architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel. From 1821 to 1945, it hosted the city's top stage productions.

Devastating fires in the last days of the Second World War completely destroyed the beautiful theater. For four decades it lay in ruins, a blot on the landscape of East Berlin's historic district.

A second chance came in 1985, when Erich Honecker ordered the renewal and reconstruction of the Gendarmenmarkt for Berlin's 750th anniversary celebrations. The GDR's cultural elite decided that East Berlin theater did not need yet another venue for stage productions, so Schinkel's royal theater was to reappear as a concert hall, built in a contemporary architectural style.

The architects chosen for the project, however, begged to differ. They proposed designing the new building in a style as true to Schinkel's original concept as possible and restoring the site to its former glory.

The Konzerthaus was home to the Berlin Symphony Orchestra (BSO), but it was also intended to host artists of international repute who would add to the cultural prestige of the GDR. One of them was Leonard Bernstein, who conducted here six times between 1984 and 1989.

On Christmas Day, 1989, Bernstein returned to the concert hall to conduct Beethoven's Ninth Symphony -- a performance that many will remember for its historical piquancy.

And so, here it is - Berlin's Konzerthaus, resplendent in its nineteenth-century gilt and ornamental style, celebrating a young twenty-five years.

The celebrations this weekend, which opened with a performance by the Konzerthaus Orchestra (formerly the BSO) of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, include a program of concerts, guided tours, colloquiums and films.

The special program celebrating the 25th anniversary runs till October 4. The Konzerthaus is at the Gendarmenmarkt (U2 Stadtmitte). A complete program with ticket information for the various events is at www.konzerthaus.de