"Opera and cycling in Giessen" Gießen by Nemorino

Gießen Travel Guide: 38 reviews and 68 photos

Fountain and City Theater, Giessen - Gießen

Hello and welcome to VT's first (but no longer only) Giessen page!

It's actually spelled Gie?en, but VT has trouble with that, replacing the letter ? with a question mark most of the time. So I'll write it the second best way, because all those question marks are getting on my nerves.

Giessen is a city with 73000 inhabitants, located on the Lahn River in the center of Germany, about 60 kilometers north of Frankfurt. Besides being the home of the Justus Liebig University, Giessen has a City Theater with 600 seats and a full program of opera, drama and dance.

City Theater, Giessen

The Giessen City Theater has just been voted Best Theater in the category Abseits der Zentren (away from the centers, or off the beaten track) by the critics of the magazine Die Deutsche Buehne (The German Stage).

By the way, the winner in the category Gesamtleistung (overall performance) was the Frankfurt Opera.

I have only been to one opera performance in Giessen thus far, but it was one of my favorite operas, L'Elisir d'amore by Gaetano Donizetti.

This opera was the source of my VT member name (see my homepage) and is one I have seen many times in Frankfurt, but also in Darmstadt, Halle, Paris and Vienna.

The unusual thing about the Giessen production was that they sang it mostly in German translation, not in the original Italian. This can be a problem especially for the singer of the quack doctor Dulcamara, who has a devilishly fast patter aria to sing in the first act, to introduce himself and the all-purpose remedy he is trying to sell, and in German it's much harder to sing so fast.

Another danger of doing it in German is that the arias might sound a bit cloddish in German translation. There's no way around it, a line in German like "O wie anmutig" just doesn't sound as good as "Quanto e bella, quanto e cara" in Italian (so you young fellows coming to Germany, take my advice and don't try using "O wie anmutig" as a pick-up line in the disco, it won't work).

I was wondering how they were going to handle the most famous aria, "Una furtiva lagrima" towards the end of the second act, since this is one that just about everybody knows from Pavarotti in the Three Tenors concerts, if no where else. Well, to my relief, the singer in Giessen simply switched from German to Italian at this point, and everyone was happy. He was from Central Asia or someplace, so both German and Italian were foreign languages to him, and he did fine in both.

The Lahn River in Giessen

For 31 months from January 1977 to the end of July 1979 Giessen did not exist as an independent city, because it had been forcibly merged with the neighboring city of Wetzlar to form the new city of "Lahn" -- their automobile license plates even started with L, which now means Leipzig.

Neither the Giessonians nor the Wetzlarians (if I may coin two terms) were at all pleased with this merger, and after numerous public protests and a lost election for the party that did it, the merger was revoked as of August 1, 1979.

For more about Wetzlar, have a look at VT's first (but no longer only) Wetzlar page, by pepples46.

While cycling around Giessen (or Wetzlar) you will notice that most pubs and restaurants serve Licher beer, which is brewed in a nice little town called Lich just off to the southeast. To find out all about Lich and vicinity, have a look at VT's first and only Lich page, by Weissdorn.

For a general introduction to Giessen in English, click on this link to the page Why Giessen, which was developed by the Faculty of Medicine of the Justus Liebig University as an orientation page for prospective medical students.

Last visit to Gießen: Aug 2004
Intro Updated Jan 7, 2013
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Reviews (14)

Adult Education Center, Friedberg - Gießen

Friedberg (Hessen) Off The Beaten Path (9)

Friedberg is a town on the railroad line between Giessen and Frankfurt. The regional express trains all stop there, and... more travel advice

Marburg Off The Beaten Path (9)

Marburg is a picturesque university town on the Lahn River, 35 kilometers upstream from Giessen. Their motto is:... more travel advice

The Lahn River Off The Beaten Path (9)

The Lahn River flows through Giessen, but not through the city center, so you won't see the river here unless you go... more travel advice

Johanneskirche (St. John's Church) Off The Beaten Path (9)

Organ, choir and chamber music concerts are held in this church throughout the year. It was built from 1891 to 1893 and... more travel advice

Restaurants (2)
See All Restaurant behind the theater

Things to Do (3)
See All Liebig Museum

Comments (36)

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mindcrime Apr 15, 2013 at 9:53 AM

interesting page about an unknown town, thanks for the virtual tour!
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  Nemorino Apr 15, 2013 at 2:24 PM
  
  Thanks for your visit to my Gießen page.
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Regina1965 Jan 7, 2013 at 6:18 AM

Lovely, I love university towns. I like your photo with the tip Mathematikum :) And you are right, the German language and the Italian language just don´t have the same ring to it.
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lmkluque Dec 7, 2012 at 7:57 AM

Thanks for the tour of Giessen Don! University towns are so nice to explore. At the Mathematikum are the interactive displays, kid friendly too? I liked your mirrored photo as well!
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  Nemorino Dec 7, 2012 at 8:08 AM
  
  Thanks, Linda. Yes, the interactive displays at the Mathematikum are very kid-friendly, I would say. More so even than at the Arithmeum in Bonn.
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  lmkluque Dec 7, 2012 at 9:29 AM
  
  That's great! My boys loved ours, here at the Science Center and now both are professional Engineers.
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MD2nd Oct 26, 2011 at 8:57 AM

Yes, Steiger Forest must be lovely, haven't been there yet. Very nice photo of you at Giessen's Mathematikum.
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bijo69 Oct 25, 2011 at 11:50 AM

Nice page Don! I can't really remember if I've been to Giessen. I do recall being in Marburg, but Giessen....
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XenoHumph May 10, 2011 at 11:09 AM

Lovely page!
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Kuznetsov_Sergey Apr 22, 2011 at 10:30 AM

Great updates since 2007, when I read this page for the first time. Very nice little page about such an interesting town and its surroundings. The Mathematikum is really worth visiting. I liked the Marburg's Univercity motto.
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Jefie Apr 18, 2011 at 5:13 AM

Really nice to take a tour around Giessen thanks to your tips, I especially enjoyed reading about the campus. Marburg sounds like an interesting place to visit too!
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MalenaN Mar 30, 2011 at 9:33 PM

The Lahn River looks beautiful and I can imagine that canoeing or cycling along it would be pleasant. And the Mathematicum sounds to be an interesting place to visit!
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Yaqui Mar 29, 2011 at 8:42 PM

The Mathematikum looks like a lot of fun! Gieben looks very charming. Lovely page!