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The Berlin Kroll Opera House: The Middle of Germany Moser-Metius Jörg , director. EuroArts 2001738, released in 1990 and distributed in 2013 (1 DVD: 59 minutes).
DVD Reviews
This documentary about Berlin's legendary Kroll Opera House was first released in 1990 at the height of the euphoria about Berlin's - and Germany's - sudden and dramatic transformation. For those who experienced that moment, the fall of the Berlin Wall had the effect of making the cityscape and its long history with its waves of growth, destruction and re-building seem extraordinarily present, as though it were just yesterday when the Brandenburg Gate had been built or trees planted on Unter den Linden or the torchlit parade of SA men had marched past the presidential palace on the endless night of 30 January 1933 or the city was bombed to near oblivion or the Wall went up. Anything seemed possible in 1990, even that the lost pleasures of the past would magically rise up out of the layers of history, which had buried them deep beneath the surface for decades. Divided Berlin had never been a comfortable or beautiful place, despite restoration efforts on both sides of the wall; it had always seemed in some way suspended in time. Now spring had come, and in the way of things, the blossoms that had fallen would maybe appear again.
Hovering over this documentary is something of that giddy spirit, tempered by a too-heavy solemnity. It is not, however, a documentary about the musical or even theatrical history of the Kroll Opera House. Viewers expecting such will have to be satisfied with several wonderful interviews with two singers who worked with Otto Klemperer at its heyday, Moje Forbach and Else Ruziczka, and with Friedrich Luft, one of the most important theatre critics in twentieth-century Germany. These interviews are worth the cost...