Daniel Barenboim In Berlin’s Waldbühne – Review

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Divan Symphony Orchestra concert, with world famous conductor Daniel Barenboim, August 19, 2018 at 19:00 pm.

Daniel Barenboim was born in 1942 in the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina. His parents both were talented pianists and piano teachers, and his grandparents were Jewish immigrants who ran away from the Pogroms of Russia in the early 1900s.

Daniel received his piano education of his father and his mother since early ages and the family migrated to Israel in 1952. Daniel later continued his piano education in Salzburg and Paris, becoming a concert pianist known worldwide. Afterwards, he studied to be orchestra conductor and directed a large number of orchestras, including at Milan’s The La Scala opera.
 Currently, he is the orchestra conductor of the Berlin Stadt opera house and also the Berlin Stadtscapella orchestra.

Daniel Barenboim has Argentina, Israel, Palestine and Spanish citizenship.
 He is a polyglot, and can speak Spanish, Hebrew, French, German, English and Italian.
 Together with Palestinian American scholar Edward Sait, David Barenboim formed the West Eastern Divan Symphony Orchestra with young musicians from Spain, Israel, Palestine, Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Iranian in 1999 in the city of Seville in Spain.

The Divan Symphony Orchestra gives concerts in various parts of the world. The orchestra aims for the common cooperation of mankind and world peace. We do not know why there is not a Turkish orchestra member in the orchestra.
 Waldbühne means “forest stage”. It was built in 1935 by Nazi Germany administrators for large demonstrations for political purposes. It was bombed and damaged during WWII. After the war, the theater was repaired, renovated, and first used for rock concerts.
 It has a design of 22,000 seat capacity Greek-Roman amphitheater.
 Rain and sun protection are added to the stage. The audience seating areas are open air. The location is right in the forest, next to the Berlin Olympic stadium, and very easy to reach by both public transportation and car. You get down at the Pichelsberg station, and walk for 10 minutes to reach the venue.
Tickets can be purchased from the internet.
 Tickets for this concert went on sale in price range of € 25-75.

The gates opened at 18:00, with the concert starting at 19:00 — as such the audience is listening to the concert and watching the sunset.

In the concert program, Lisa Batiashvili, born in 1979, played a viola concerto from Tchaikovsky, followed by Debussy’s two orchestral pieces. The beautiful soloist Lisa Batiashvili came out with a light green long dress, she started with low tempo and from time to time kept on a harsh interpretation, while the conductor and his orchestra followed her. When her concert was over, she played with the concertmaster a bis violin duet.

During a half hour intermission, there were food and beverage sales in the back kiosks, the audience consumed plenty of local draft beer and cold white wine.

In the second half, Debussy works were performed. In this part, the orchestra was unified. Finally, the Carmen opera was played as three separate pieces of bis.

At the end of the concert, conductor Daniel Barennoim thanked the audience. Next year, it is going to be the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the 20th anniversary of the Divan Orchestra Foundation, and 10th anniversary on the Waldbühne stage, and all are invited to the July 2019 concert.

It should be noted that the space for 22,000 people fills up. It is recommended to have blankets, coats, a hat and cushion to stay two hours in summer breeze that flows during the concert. As the music plays, it was noticed that all the small children fell asleep to later be carried out by their parents.

In the second half of August the nights are getting cooler in Berlin, still it is very nice to listen to classical music in the open air atmosphere with the sweet coolness of summer nights. 
Especially listening to the concert of an orchestra conductor like Daniel Barenboim is a great pleasure, a great privilege. A concert recording will be released in YouTube, and there are YouTube recordings available from earlier years.

There is Italian world famous tenor Andrea Bochelli concert in the same place next week.
 The concerts continue until the end of September 2018. The 2019 concerts start in June.

Our concert was completed by 22:00 hours. Other than car owners and bikers, all others walked to the nearest Sbahn station and left for home.

Haluk Direskeneli

Haluk Direskeneli, is a graduate of METU Mechanical Engineering department (1973). He worked in public, private enterprises, USA Turkish JV companies (B&W, CSWI, AEP, Entergy), in fabrication, basic and detail design, marketing, sales and project management of thermal power plants. He is currently working as freelance consultant/ energy analyst with thermal power plants basic/ detail design software expertise for private engineering companies, investors, universities and research institutions. He is a member of Chamber of Turkish Mechanical Engineers Energy Working Group.

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