Nuremberg wants an opera house on Rally site
NewsThe Nuremberg State Theater is falling to pieces and must close for renovation by 2025.
There’s a plan to build a temporary opera house.
Using an unfinished congress hall that was being built for future Nazi rallies.
It was meant to accommodate 50,000 people. The shell of the building, 38 meters high, is used for educational purposes to demonstrate Hitler’s megalomania.
A suitable venue for opera?
The operas of Wagner, Paul Graener and Hans Pfitzner would go over well there.
As would those of Verdi, Mozart and Britten.
Germania by Franchetti?
I was about to suggest: Mendelssohn, Meyerbeer, and Lorenzo Da Ponte.
Suitable, yes, to demonstrate opera directors’ megalomania and their dark tendencies.
All opera directors?
Google Earth shows there’s already a concert space there. Lots of parking.
Might attract a whole new audience…
Depends on how they “handle” it, but then again for Germany this kind of “glorification” is the norm. And why not, when not a soul rallies against the new monument in Treblinka honoring so called righteous Poles, thus continuing distortion of Holocaust history.
Please Helen point us towards examples of such glorification.
This is a job for Google, which has thousands of examples, but in answer to your question, President Regan’s laying of a flower reef honoring the dead German soldiers at Bitburg comes immediately to mind.
The decision by the then Chancellor Kohl to invite Regan to lay a wreath (sic) at Bitburg was undoubtedly wrong. But to extrapolate from that event the notion that this kind of “glorification” is the “norm” in present day Germany, as you put it, is just as foolish. By the way, you might find out via Google that the two men visited Bergen-Belsen as part of the schedule.
The visit to Bergen-Belsen, to me, does NOT mitigate the visit to Bitburg. Those buried there were members of the SS. They were the most virulent, vehement and rabid supporters of Nazism. They joined enthusiastically into the SS and even many Wehrmacht and other Germans did not like them at all. Some, if not all, of our present-day problems with extreme right-wing anti-social types stems from the ‘glorification’ and normalization of the memory and acts of those types.
I agree entirely, but was not suggesting that the visit to Bergen-Belsen mitigated the one to Bitburg. The Bitburg Controversy, as reported by the German press at the time, was a huge political miscalculation at best, and overtly cynical at worst.
My point is that the “norm” in present-day Germany as propounded by Helen can not directly be linked to that event.
For the record, all military cemeteries in Germany likely contain graves of the Waffen-SS, and all decorations and memorials to members of the SS were removed prior to the Bitburg visit. Amongst the 32 rows of headstones, there were 49 SS graves. Statistics do not make the crimes of the past any less heinous, but I just wanted to present some facts.
One doesn’t “visit” Bergen Belsen
What does one do then Helen? Not visit?
to la plus: one “visits” a friend or relative, shares some stollen and a cup of tea. One makes a pilgrimage to a death camp and drops to their knees and begs forgiveness, or in the case of victims and their relatives, say a prayer for the dead. Hardly a “visit.”
“flower reef”
We call it the Great Flower Reef.
“This is a job for Google”
No, that’s your job. True story, google it.
a flower reef? President Regan? I remember Reagan being present at a wreath-laying ceremony. Regan was his chief of staff.
Maybe Helen meant coral reef?
Helen did not mean a coral reef….she was referring to a “Blumen Kranz” placed in honor of German perpetrators of the greatest crime of many lifetimes.
I don’t think you can blame the Germans for what the Poles do.
The Poles, as well as most of the world certainly do blame Germany, and rightly so.
“The Poles, as well as most of the world certainly do blame Germany, and rightly so.”
So… You speak for the Poles as well as most of the world now? Cool, cool… That’s not presumptuous at all. 😀
Google the Polish Holocaust Jan Grabowski and broaden your horizons. He’s very cool.
Doesn’t the new monument honour one individual? The “righteous Poles” are honoured as a group at Yad Vashem.
The new monument, more importantly is the current Polish government’s attempt to distort and blind side Holocaust History. You might read Goetz Aly’s new book Europe Against the Jews 1800-1945
Yes excellent venue for an Opera House instead of this awful ans useless Nazi temple. Time to move on Nürnberg!
It’s only a building. I don’t think anyone will confuse La boheme with a Nazi party rally.
seen many Leni Riefenstahl movies lately?
“seen many Leni Riefenstahl movies lately?”
Yes, yes, we get it: All Germans are evil. And when in history has the demonization of people ever brought anything bad to the world, right?
I always thought La boheme is about nazis.
Sally
Here is a link showing the current state of the building:
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/the-kongresshalle-nuremberg-nuremberg-germany
It’s just a building. This does not mean there should be no debate.
I wouldn’t touch it with a 10 foot Pole. (Sorry!)
Demolition only for that hideous monstrosity.
It’s more than “just a building”. On my last trip to Bayreuth–just before seeing the Kosky Meistersinger–I spent 5 hours going through the Documentation Center, and felt like I’d been through the wringer. It’s a chillingly thorough and important compendium of information about how the Nazis did what they did. Let the opera build a temporary facility like Brussels did during their renovation.
We must forgive but we can never forget… It’s a tainted, ghastly place which should be steered well clear of.
Or let art triumph?
art only triumphs in the heart and soul of individuals, not in physical structures
Quite. Which is why operas should be staged there.
Stalin used to attend the Bolshoi. Had a disappointing evening at Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. Let’s forbid performances there too.
Or we could perhaps all grow up.
At least Germany (at West’s insistence) have underwent denazification and repudiation of nazi era crimes, while in Russia to this date, Stalin’s era is glorified and none of the perpetrators of millions of regime’s crimes have been officially condemned or even exposed, creating basis of current oppression.
PS: If you steer well clear of it then you consign the building to history, and thus forget it.
The opening show should be The Producers (for one night only)
Maybe they could ask Olga Neuwirth to write a score for it so that it becomes a new opera.
Since she is Jewish, a great idea.
Voilà! Justice done.
More interesting would be and operatic version of the Nuernberg Trials
It sounds like a viable site for a temporary structure. They should just make sure the opening opera is something like Schoenberg’s Moses and Aron, or perhaps Rossini’s Moses in Egypt. Then they should fill out the first season with other operas by Jewish composers or composers banned by the National Socialists, or on Jewish themes, and end with Beethoven’s Fidelio. That should make the point.
At last, someone with constructive suggestions.
Franz Schreker’s operas would be worthwhile musically as well.
There has been a production of “Fidelio” as music-theatre project under the title “Töt erst sein Weib” in 2016. In 2010 the drama section produced Peter Weiss “Die Ermittlung” about the Auschwitz trials right there, which was widely acclaimed. The Nuremberg theatre and the citizens are very aware of the history of this place!
There was a performance of Owen Wingrave there some years back.
What a great message to impart in that place.
Yes, Owen Wingrave was performed in the complex 10 years ago, and Rape of Lucretia 8 years before that, as part of the Internationales Kammermusikfestival Nurnberg (which I organised). The Opera House then used it as a venue for a couple of chamber pieces, I believe. But these were all in the rather small Saulenhalle, which is part of the fantastic Dokuzentrum museum. Part of the complex also houses the rehearsal studio and offices for the Nurnberger Symphoniker. So the building is already well known as an alternative venue for arts in Nuremberg. I guess they are thinking about converting the massive outside space into a temporary theatre. Sounds like a good idea. Whatever repertoire they decide to do there will of course have to refer to, and take resonance from, the surroundings. It’s hard to imagine something light and frothy there. Wagner would be incredible….
Kinda the opposite of what you would want, ya think? I mean, c’mon.
No. Leave it as a memorial but the ‘good’ people of Nuremberg seem devoid of common sense, still.
I find the idea of staging opera there most innapropriate and would leave the unfinished hall exactly as is. To turn it into a venue of entertainment dilutes its power, maybe that is the objective, but in so doing it also dilutes the impact it has for those still willing to learn about this era. The collosal scale of this building and its ominous atmosphere can only be truly appreciated by visiting after the Documentation Centre exhibit. In fact it’s a great shame that other parts of the Rally Grounds were also not better preserved in terms of educating future generations. I found my visit incredibly moving and powerful as did my family.
Does anyone really expect an audience of 50,000 for an opera?
Yes, Gerald, they not only expect such an audience but “toothbrush” mustaches will be required, even for females, unless said female is carrying a flaming torch.
With Taylor Swift as Rosina they’d need a bigger building.
Yes of course you can. Then open up a concentration camp as well to put the illegal refugees if you lack spaces for them too (sarcasm-explanation for the stupid)