Tag der deutschen Einheit is tomorrow, October. 3. What’s that, you say? First, its a big holiday and a relatively new one. It celebrates the fall of the Berlin Wall-Der Mauer as it’s usually known here and the reunification that followed. We were there and watched in amazement: I was in Bern, singing Trovatore and my wife was home in Wuppertal. It really was momentous, and even after 36 years it still rocks me.
I did a lot of singing in the ehemalige DDR-the former East Germany-Leipzig, Magdeburg, Meiningen, Weimar, Chemnitz, Halberstadt, distant Görlitz, where I discovered wonderful dark Köstrizer beer. and many others.
Back then there were a lot of houses and buildings in dire need of renovation, many coal bins and some basements that hadn’t been cleaned out since before the World War, many cobblestoned streets with mud side walks and some 14th century gems of houses, not to mention the Silbermann organs with their untempered 3rds!
The theaters had Kantines-cafeterias-for all the theater people. The food was cheap and the social spirit which permeated the socialist East was still strong. Social solidarity was a positive, and the memories of socialist snitches also lingered. Newly independent cab drivers were proud to run their own business and not to be under the foot of the bureaucracy. Incongruous shopping centers were popping up all over the place financed by over eager West German money. The costumes were made from scratch, often gorgeous and sewn by hand. Shows were rehearsed for 12 weeks and ran like clockwork. There was some very good opera and some very useless make-work. In many ways the theaters retained important and positive elements of the old ensemble theater traditions. Institutional memories are a powerful thing, and in the early 2000’s I sang Tannhäuser to a Wolfram who had begun in 1982 as Masetto and remembered meeting the Soufleuse – Prompter – at her “Stammtisch” where she held court in the Canteen who had prompted for Richard Strauss in 1927! I certainly benefitted from them. (Plus I made a living!) The hotels and Pensions were a decidedly mixed bag and the food was very good and reasonably priced.
Some things have changed in the East, and some haven’t but celebrations and rememberances are in order. They were The Best of Times, They Were the Worst of Times, and I’m glad I had the chance to sing there.