Die Tageszeitung 08.11.2006

Emel Abidin-Algan (more here), daughter of the founder of the German Milli-Görüs group, has taken off her headscarf at the age of 44 and given it to the Haus der Geschichte in Bonn. She explains her reasons: "What is our understanding of a creator who demands uniforms only of women, so they may openly demonstrate their Islamic faith? What about a visible sign of devotion for men? The belief that religion is comprised of supposedly divine laws and indisputable religious duties – and not divine wisdom and recommendations – prevents open communication with dissenters, and reflection on the meaning of our actions."


Süddeutsche Zeitung 08.11.2006

Lothar Müller praises the exhibition "Picasso and the Theatre" at Frankfurt's Schirn Kunsthalle: "Picasso, lover of bullfights and the circus, was open to the theatre of his time because in the early 20th century European theatre - whether with Max Reinhardt (more here) in Berlin or Diaghilev in Paris - was inspired by the circus... The avant-garde was bored by the declaimed word, and used ever-new experiments with novel and inventive sets, props and costumes. Often it verged on theatre without words, and avant-garde ballet was one of its spearheads. Picasso not only helped Cocteau with his Ballet Russes project, he took things right out of Cocteau's hands. He invented two figures, American and French managers contrived as sandwich men, living advertisements for Cocteau's circus. Then he got an even better idea and made them into advertisements for himself. Anyone who takes a look at the face of the Franch manager cannot help thinking the costume designer Picasso put him onstage to popularise Cubism."

Composer and Deleuze-fan Bernhard Lang talks with Gerhard Persche about his first opera "I Hate Mozart," which premieres tonight in Vienna's Theater an der Wien: "The title might strike people as a bit funny, but it was the director Michael Sturminger, who also wrote the libretto, who told me that people in the theatre often say the exact opposite of what they think. So of course the title contradicts what it says, establishing a negative theology of what it signifies. The piece is very finely wrought, psychologically chiselled. It focusses on theatre as a reproduction machine, and takes place roughly between the productions of "The Magic Flute" and "Don Giovanni." But you don't hear that, everything takes place so to speak in the next room. We see things after the fact, from behind the curtain. Mozart wafts along behind, under or beside the play, in a sort of musical shimmering. There are also moments where he shines through on his own, but in an ironic way, I couldn't hold myself back. The bits I cite are sometimes consciously false and distorted. Often the text is spoken backwards, something Mozart liked to do himself."


Der Tagesspiegel 08.11.2006

Michael Schindhelm, head of the Berlin Opera Foundation which is responsible for Berlin's three opera houses, tells Christine Lemke-Matwey and Rüdiger Schaper that he feels like a "pawn in the game" of Berlin's mayor Klaus Wowereit who has taken it upon himself to do the work of cultural senator as well (more here). "Berlin is in the midst of a full-blown political conflict, in which the Opera Foundation has at most a metaphorical role. Last year, even, leading SPD politicians were saying that the disastrous state of the Staatsoper building was not so much a problem as a welcome symbol for the poverty of the city of Berlin. People (like Wowereit - ed.) who make appeals to the Federal government have a vested interest in such symbols. The decision of the Federal Court in Karlsruhe not to give money to Berlin to pay off its debt has not exactly relaxed the situation. This is about the big picture and the federal government, but the conflict is being fought over the Staatsoper."


Die Welt 08.11.2006

"Some see him as a bit of a stray dog, but in an affectionate sense. Shrewd, quick, robust, feet on the ground, but with his nose always sniffing the air." Manuel Brug analyses the newly re-elected mayor Klaus Wowereit's take on culture: "Would someone like him support an unknown choreographer the way the former CDU Cultural Senator Peter Radunski once supported Sasha Waltz? Today she dances at the Staatsoper on Unter den Linden, she is in worldwide demand, and has even set up her own performance space. Grass-roots culture, uncomfortable and question posing is something Wowereit has long since lost sight of. The Opera Foundation is for him nothing but an instrument of power and torture, he doesn't seem to give a damn about content."

Thomas Kielinger is full of praise for the Velazquez exhibition at the London National Gallery. "The secret of Velazquez and his artistry is instantly revealed in the succession and unfolding of the various stages of the exhibition. Hired as a court painter to his absolutist Catholic Majesty Philipp IV, Velazquez remains immune to the allure of pomp and pageantry. Velazquez is always the distanced observer of human nature, whether it's the Spanish royal family or the scoundrels in the 'bodegones', his genre paintings set in the city taverns.