Signandsight.com: German Culture in English

Here’s a recommended bookmark for German art and culture fans to add to their link lists. Signandsight.com translates German articles into English.  How I found it: I periodically check the Chronicle of Higher Education’s Arts & Literature Daily page, where I followed a link to Signandsight’s Thomas Mann article.

Mann and his musical demons
Thomas Mann was enchanted
by German classical music
but was also wary of its
seductive powers. In his
novels, he anticipates its
instrumentalisation by the
Nazis, who used it as the
gateway to bourgeois German
hearts and minds. 

Once there, I was happy to discover a fine collection of classical music, opera and performing arts reprints.

Recent articles include coverage of Hans Werner Henze’s opera Phaedra, and (of course) Katharina Wagner’s new Meistersinger. There are interviews and profiles featuring the Alban Berg Quartet, soprano Christine Schäfer, pianist Ivo Pogorelich, and composers Pierre Boulez, Wolfgang Rihm, and Volker David Kirchner.

Apropos of our series of blogs on Regietheater and the Bayreuth Meistersinger, I can’t wait to read Opera without angst by Elke Heidenreich (“Why can’t Germans enjoy the exquisite pleasure of opera without feeling obliged to analyse it to death?”)

Comments

[John Cullinan]

Bonnie: Many thanks for the info about the "Sign and

Sight" site. I've printed out the Thomas Mann article and plan to devour more. John Cullinan