| Page Views: 3,584 Last Visit to Karlsruhe: June, 2008 I Visit Here Frequently | Opera and cycling in Karlsruhe by Nemorino - last update: Jun 7, 2008 |
. . . and VirtualTourist meetings | The Margrave's Palace in Karlsruhe |
If you look at a map of Karlsruhe you will see that there are streets radiating out from the Palace in all directions. Actually the back ones radiate out through the woods and the front ones through the city.
It was all planned this way by the Margrave Karl Wilhelm of Baden-Durlach (1679 - 1738), who claimed to have had a vision in a dream that showed him how his new palace and city should be laid out. Originally his palace was smaller and was mainly intended as a weekend and holiday retreat for the Margrave (to get away from his virtuous wife), hence the name Karlsruhe, which means roughly Charlie's rest and relaxation place. |
| Hoepfner Brewery in Karlsruhe |
The big European VirtualTourist meeting EuroMeet 2008 was held in Karlsruhe from May 30th to June 1st, 2008. I have posted a General Tip and a Travelogue about this event, and if you click here you can find a list of links leading to hundreds of photos by other VT members who attended the meeting.
While I was at EuroMeet 2008 I traveled around Karlsruhe on the new CallBikes provided for spontaneous short-term rentals by the German Railways (DB). These bikes are a great addition to the Karlsruhe transit system, even though you have to have a cell phone to use them. See my new transportation tip for details of how it works and how the Karlsruhe "flex" system of bike rentals differs from the "fix" system found in Stuttgart, Paris and a number of other European cities. |
| Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe (click on photo) |
The most recent opera performance I've seen here at the State Theater in Karlsruhe was their new production of Mefistofele by Arrigo Boito (1842-1918).
Mefistofele is an opera that is rarely performed in Germany, but it happens that both Frankfurt and Karlsruhe mounted new productions of it in the same season, and it was really interesting to see them both within a few days of each other.
Boito is best known as the librettist (text writer) of Giuseppe Verdi's last two operas, Otello and Falstaff. These are widely regarded as the greatest opera libretti ever written.
During this period of the 1880s and early 90s, Boito deliberately put his own career as a composer on hold to write these texts and persuade the over-seventy-year-old Verdi to come out of retirement just two more times to compose these two magnificent operas.
Boito wrote both the words and the music to Mefistofele, which is based on parts of Goethe's Faust. It's a huge opera, and it's the only one he ever really finished as a composer. Many musicians have their reservations about it, but as a naive audience member I consider it Grand Opera and well worth a trip to Karlsruhe or Frankfurt or wherever.
(The Amsterdam Opera did a production of Mefistofele in October 2004, and it has also been performed in Chicago and San Francisco in recent years. Two new productions took place in Kaiserslautern and Liège in June 2007. I have found a really good recording of it, by the way.)
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 Comments for Nemorino about Karlsruhe | | | | |
freddie18 Sun Aug 23, 2009 05:09 UTC
Very informative and full of history is your Karlsruhe page. Well written tips Don. I enjoyed reading. Will be back. | scottishvisitor Fri Jul 24, 2009 10:32 UTC
Enjoyed your updated page Don :) Nice to see VT meets in all seasons! | alancollins Fri Jun 26, 2009 07:19 UTC
I have been looking at Karlsruhe and Baden-Baden for a future trip, as recent airfares have been very low recently. | nicolaitan Thu Sep 25, 2008 17:51 UTC
such an interesting page - see why all you guys have regular VT meetings here. And any museum with 400 cat pictures is certainly my type of museum. Seems every city in Europe has so many museums and cultural sites, enviable. N. |
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