GERMAN WORLD MAGAZINE » CULTURE

Volkswagen and the Force

GW Editorial Staff — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 11:13:52 +0000

After the brilliant Superbowl Commercial Volkswagen does it again. This time with a canine chorus that barks a familiar tune.

Their Superbowl Commercial has 50 Million Youtube Views on Youtube

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Viennas New Years Concert 2012

GW Editorial Staff — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 12:03:17 +0000

Stage and screen legend Julie Andrews returns for the third time to host the merry annual New Year’s celebration with the Vienna Philharmonic, under the direction of Mariss Jansons from Vienna’s Musikverein. This is Jansons’ second time at the podium of this much cherished event. The famed Vienna Boys’ Choir will add their celestial voices to the gala.

From Vienna: The New Year’s Celebration 2012, featuring the infectious melodies of the Strauss Family and contemporaries, will air live Sunday, January 1 at 2:30 p.m. ET on PBS (check local listings) with an encore performance that evening at 7:30 p.m. (In New York, THIRTEEN will air the broadcast at 9 p.m.)

Watch From Vienna: The New Year’s Celebration 2012 on PBS. See more from Great Performances.

A Highlight from the 2011 concert:

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Legend Johannes Heesters dead at 108

GW Editorial Staff — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 22:30:53 +0000

Johannes Heesters, the world’s oldest actor who performed with over 108 years, has died early Saturday in a hospital in Starnberg, Bavaria.

The tenor Heesters made his debut on the big stage at the Volksoper in Vienna, Austria in 1934. Subsequently his career took off in Berlin where, starting in 1935, he became a crowd favorite at the Komische Oper and Admiralspalast. He also had roles in popular movies, most notably he played the lead in “Bel Ami”.
Despite his popularity in the Third Reich, Heesters was never accused of being a propagandist or anything other than an artist willing to perform for the Nazis and during their regime. His popularity as an artist and the interest by the regime in him haunted him his whole life.

After the war he said, that he is a Dutch boy, who is “apolitical” and not interested in politics, just wanted to perform. “What did I do wrong? Sure, I acted in films in the Third Reich, entertainment films, which distracted countless people inside and outside Germany from daily life during war. Through no fault of my own, Adolf Hitler was one of the fans of my art.” The Allies allowed him to continue his career after the war, when he took Austrian citizenship.

Johannes “Jopi” Heesters continued to be a popular performer in Germany well into his old age, making regular appearances on television and on stage. His best-known role, as Count Danilo in Franz Lehar’s operetta “The Merry Widow,” he played 1,600 times the Honore in the musical “Gigi.” 750 times.
At age 98, he put health problems such as knee and appendix operations behind him to perform in Chekhov’s “The Cherry Orchard.” At 105 he played in a musical comedy in Hamburg.

Heesters entered the Guinness Book of Records in 1997 as the world’s oldest stage actor. The same year he received Germany’s Bambi Television Prize.
He collected countless prizes and his latest film “Ten” premiered in Munich end of November 2011. He missed the premiere due to a hospital stay, but sent a text from his cell phone to the film team that read:
“Dear Ten Team, I wish you a great evening and very good luck. It’s a shame that I can’t be there with you. Maybe next time. Yours, ‘Jopie’.” He already had another film based on Chekov in the works.

On stage he played the eternal dandy, in private he was married for 53 years until his first wife’s death and married to his second wife until his death.

“To have nothing to do, to sit there waiting for little aches and pains, is fundamentally wrong. Life has to be lived.”

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Nina Franoszek is starring in Easy To Assemble

GW Editorial Staff — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 23:29:38 +0000

German actress Nina Franoszek is starring opposite Ray Wise as Gala, a modern Good Witch of the North in the third season of Easy to Assemble -Finding North.

Easy to Assemble is an award winning web series created by and starring Emmy-Award-Winner Illeana Douglas. A Hollywood actress trying to quit acting and working for IKEA. The online sitcom earned multiple awards and was featured in the NY Times for it’s massive following of 1,5 million viewers each month.

The show, and it’s spin-off Sparhusen, features such Hollywood talent as Keanu Reeves, Jeff Goldblum, Kevin Pollock, Robert Patrick, Glee’s Jane Lynch and in this season the comedy stylings of Craig Bierko and Corey Feldman, amongst many others.
Easy to Assemble, written and produced by Illeana Douglas (pictured on the left with Nina Franoszek by German photographer Volker Corell), directed by Michael Kang, starring Illeana Douglas, Corey Feldman, Craig Bierko, Justine Bateman,Patricia Heaton, Jason Butler Harner, Michael Hitchcock, Michael Irpino, Eric Lange, Wallace Langham, Robert Mailhouse, Mia Riverton, Fred Willard, Torsten Voges, Ray Wise and Nina Franoszek.

Watch Nina Franoszek online in Episode 4: Road to Uppsala & Episode 5: Almost Happy in the 3 season of EASY TO ASSEMBLE – FINDING NORTH:

Nina Franoszek is a German/ American actor of film, television and theater. She is a member of Deutsche Filmakademie, Germany’s Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences and served as a juror for the international Emmy Awards in 2007 – 2011. She has won an Adolf Grimme Prize (Germany’s Emmy Award) and played a wide range of roles from tragedy to comedy in 19 feature films, and over 45 television movies & series. She is best known for her role in Buster’s Bedroom starring opposite Donald Sutherland & Geraldine Chaplin, The Pianist by Roman Polanski, and her guest star role Greta in the TV series Mad Men. Nina Franozek recently starred in “Scharfe Hunde” a German TV Comedy and is currently playing psychologist Ute Dannowski in the outstanding German Mini Series Weissensee in Berlin. Watch a clip of “Weissensee”

Weissensee is a cold war ‘Romeo and Juliet’ drama that grips Germany today. The tale of a Stasi officer who falls in love with a dissident in 1980s East Germany is hailed as the first TV show to truly reflect life in the GDR.

Trailer “Scharfe Hunde”

Nina Franoszek lives in Berlin and Los Angeles.

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Tip: How to make an Advent Wreath

GW Editorial Staff — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 23:29:18 +0000

Der Adventkranz – The Advent Wreath

The Advent wreath, is a Christian tradition that symbolizes the passage of the four weeks of Advent in the liturgical calendar of the Western church. The ring or wheel of the Advent wreath of evergreens decorated with candles was a symbol in northern Europe long before the arrival of Christianity. The circle symbolized the eternal cycle of the seasons while the evergreens and lighted candles signified the persistence of life in the midst of winter.

In family practice, the Advent wreath is lit at dinner time after the blessing of the food.

Candle Colors:
In Catholic churches, the most popular colors for the Advent candles are purple and rose. In the Western church, purple is the historic liturgical color for three of the four Sundays of Advent: once the color associated with royalty, it symbolizes Christ as the “Prince of Peace.” Rose is the color for the Third Sunday of Advent, known as Gaudete Sunday from the Latin word “rejoice”. Gaudete Sunday anticipates the joy of the Christmas celebration, so its color is a mixture of Advent purple and Christmas white. It may also symbolize the color of early dawn.

In Protestant churches it is more common to use four red candles (reflecting their traditional use in Christmas decorations) because rose vestments and decorations are not commonly used in Protestant churches.

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Austrian Musician Ludwig Hirsch is Dead

GW Editorial Staff — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 00:22:48 +0000

Austrian singer Ludwig Hirsch, (February 28th 1946 – November 24th 2011) famed for his morose, laconic, critical, macabre, reflective songs has taken his own life at age 65. He was reportedly being treated for lung cancer and jumped from the hospital window of Vienna’s “Wilheminen Spittal”.
The beloved singer appeared to sold-out audiences of over 200,000 and his studio album Perlen (pearls) achieved gold status in Austria and he was Awarded the Amadeus Music Award.
In 1993 the Austrian Post honored him with a stamp and in 2001 he was awarded the silver medal for service to the City of Vienna.

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Swiss Composer Kurt Oldman scoring in Hollywood

GW Editorial Staff — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 23:54:51 +0000

German speaking composers have a long tradition in Hollywood with Max Steiner, Erick Korngold and Hans Zimmer to name just a few. Now add multifaceted Swiss born composer Kurt Oldman to that list. Kurt has already received critical acclaim for a number of his film scores. He recently signed on to score the upcoming horror thriller, “Killer Holiday”, starring Michael Copon (”One Tree Hill”). “With horror films I can really go wild. I always like to see how far I can push it musically”, says Kurt. He is also working on a new HBO pilot called “Elwood” and has another feature film in the wings, “0000″, a terrific SciFi film directed by Eddie Alcazar.

Kurt enjoys living in Southern California, he says: “It’s nice to not have to dig my car out of snow every winter, although I miss skiing in the Swiss Alps.” We totally agree!
If you like to follow Kurt check out www.kurtoldman.com

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Beyonce has Austrian genes

GW Editorial Staff — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 18:04:28 +0000

Who would have thought that Beyoncé is related to Austrian renowned composer and conductor Gustav Mahler (1860-1911). Besides his own compositions he was director of the Vienna Court Opera and later director of New York’s Metropolitan Opera and New York Philharmonic.
The British Author and BBC-Journalist Norman Lebrecht researched this for his new book “Why Maler?”. Beyoncé ist the Great-Great-Grandniece to the 9th degree. Mahler’s relatives emigrated to the US and crossed paths with Beyoncé’s African and Caribbean ancestors.

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Classic Friends Episode “Überweiß”

GW Editorial Staff — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 01:33:52 +0000

The one with Rachel and Ross using “Überweiss” in the hit TV Series “Friends”.
Ross: “ÜBERWEISS, it’s new, it’s German, it’s extra tough!”

Überweiß is not an actual German detergent. But the prefix Über- definitely is and it’s even more fun to make fun of Germans and Germany, a country where things actually work and do what they are supposed to do.

Classic German TV Series Following our successful list of classic German children’s series, here...

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Pentecost – Pfingsten

GW Editorial Staff — Sat, 11 Jun 2011 20:10:44 +0000

Pfingsten or Pentecost from ancient Greek: Πεντηκοστή is the the Fiftieth day after Easter Sunday. It is one of the prominent feasts in the Christian liturgical year commemorating the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples of Christ after the Resurrection.

A nowadays seldomly observed pagan custom is the “Pfingsochse”. Pfingsten marks the first day the cattle was driven to the range. Usually this would be celebrated with a procession though the town where the strongest bull was decorated with flowers. Hence the saying “decorated like Pentecost Bull” – “geschmückt wie ein Pfingsochse”.
This bull or another animal was slaughtered for the following Pfingstcelebrations.
Jokingly one also refers to the one who sleeps the longest on Pfingssunday as “Pfingstochse”.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)
(aus: Reineke Fuchs)
Pfingsten, das liebliche Fest…
Pfingsten, das liebliche Fest, war gekommen; es
grünten und blühten
Feld und Wald; auf Hügeln und Höhn, in Büschen
und Hecken
Übten ein fröhliches Lied die neuermunterten Vögel;
Jede Wiese sprosste von Blumen in duftenden
Gründen,
Festlich heiter glänzte der Himmel und farbig die
Erde.

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