A Night at the Opera...The Hamburger Kunsthalle and Die Dreigroschenoper - by Jack Hadley

On Thursday July 1st, the American students, accompanied by a few of the German students, headed into Hamburg for the evening. The plan was to go to the Hamburger Kunsthalle, the art museum in Hamburg, and then see Die Dreigroschenoper (The Threepenny Opera) (Known for the song Mack the Knife).

We headed into Hamburg via train in the afternoon and headed over to the Kunsthalle, which was very close to the Central Station. We were given a tour of some of the museum, by a guide that personally reminded me of the crazy scientist from Independence Day. We were shown religious works (some by the painter Lucas Cranach, who was a friend of Martin Luther, whose house we visited during our time in Berlin), very realistic works by Dutch painters, works by Vincent van Gogh and Caspar David Friedrich, and finally, modern art, which portrayed many works created after 1945.

After dinner, we headed off to the opera house to see Die Dreigroschenoper. The premise of the opera was hard to understand, but it was about a criminal named Mackie Messer and his gang in London, who is in danger of being hanged. The opera was styled much differently from regular operas: there was actual dialogue in it instead of just singing, giving it the feeling of a musical instead of an opera. Another strange thing was that the band that played music for the opera was sitting on stage, walking around and interacting with the performers. The interactions included performers carry the bassist's bass to him to the saxophonist tickling a performer with his saxophone. The opera was very enjoyable and intriguing. After the opera, we all took the train back to Bargteheide to get a good night's rest.