Hänsel und Gretel, Theater Lübeck, 6 December 2025

Gerard Quinn & Aditi Smeets singen heute (bei der jeweiligen Doppelangaben) #OperLübeck #Candide

And all the commercial sponsors.

Fuck me, that is a load of soft-soaping BS. Not hard to guess where the FT stands.

Points deducted from your grade for that glaring early mis-reference to "University of Oklahoma".

If no one before 1871 counted as German, the Brothers Grimm would be Hessian. And on the wider point, the "German imagination" could indeed have a more sinister interpretation, not recognising borders, political sovereignty or cultural differences.

What else would he be? At least he was born and died in present-day Germany.

Making Kafka a "German" reminds me of the old saw about Austrians trying to persuade the world that Beethoven was Austrian and Hitler was German.

"German" obviously used as shorthand for "German-language".

Spyglass for telescope, yes. But not looking-glass. So perhaps not a human translator.

Ariadne auf Naxos, Staatsoper Hamburg, 4 December 2025

Note how neither a government so interested in snooping on us nor its industry-captured regulators will do anything to crack down on these intrusive scamsters.

Teach her some what euphemistically used to be called "Anglo-Saxon".

He's based in London now, but he's a Northerner. Worth noting, even if it dilutes the regional antagonism angle a little. bsky.app/profile/mudl...