| Page Views: 1,684 Last Visit to Kaiserslautern: February, 2008 | Opera in K-Town by Nemorino - last update: Mar 22, 2008 |
Kaiserslautern, better known to my fellow Americans as K-Town, is a city of nearly a hundred thousand people -- not counting the fifty thousand American and other NATO military personnel who are stationed nearby.
Thanks to the new InterCityExpress rail connection, Kaiserslautern is now less than two and a half hours from Paris. In the other direction it is thirty-nine minutes from Mannheim and eighty-one minutes from Frankfurt am Main. |
Since Kaiserslautern is in the Pfalz region of Germany, a region which in English is officially referred to as "the Palatinate", the theater is called the Pfalztheater or "Palatinate Theatre".
It was inaugurated in 1995 and is currently the second newest theater building in Germany -- the newest being the new opera house in Erfurt from the year 2003. |
The opera I saw recently in Kaiserslautern was Jonny spielt auf by Ernst Krenek (1900-1991). This is a comic opera from the year 1926 that was hugely popular in Europe in the late 1920s and early 1930s.
When the Nazis came into power in 1933 they immediately banned all of Krenek's music on the grounds that it was "decadent". The Nazis particularly disliked Jonny spielt auf because the hero was an Afro-American and the music included some jazz influences.
In 1938 Krenek went into exile in the United States, where he continued composing and also taught at various universities. He became an American citizen in 1945. |
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 Comments for Nemorino about Kaiserslautern | | | | |
Kakapo2 Thu Apr 16, 2009 22:25 UTC
I love your research about cycling everywhere :-) Was also interested to find out how an opera lover sees a city I have visited for football games about 25 times ;-))) Sissi | evaanna Sat Jan 3, 2009 08:26 UTC
Interesting page, promoting the 'green' ideas of the town council. Liked the one of solar panels and the way they are brought closer to the public. Wish we had some here. Never seen so many bikes in one place.:) | LoriPori Tue Dec 16, 2008 11:59 UTC
I too enjoyed the African King and Fallen Angel sculptures, though it does look like they were accidentally dropped, broke into a thousand pieces and the sculpture tried drastically to put the pieces back together again. hehe! | MikeDarcy Thu Aug 28, 2008 03:16 UTC
Germany is an exceptional country filled with such delightful people. I can see why you chose to live and there. Do you plan on living in Europe for long? |
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