1.
Davos
–
Davos is a municipality in the Prättigau/Davos Region in the canton of Graubünden, Switzerland. It has a permanent population of 11,109, Davos is located on the river Landwasser, in the Rhaetian Alps, between the Plessur and Albula Range. At 1,560 m, it is the highest town in Europe, Davos is host to the World Economic Forum, an annual meeting of global political and business elites and the home of one of Switzerlands biggest ski resorts. At the end of year it serves as the site of the annual Spengler Cup ice hockey tournament. The current settlement of the Davos area began in the High Middle Ages with the immigration of Rhaeto-Romans, the village of Davos is first mentioned in 1213 as Tavaus. Natives still speak a dialect that is atypical for Graubünden, showing similarities with German idioms of western parts of Switzerland, in 1436, the League of the Ten Jurisdictions was founded in Davos. Robert Louis Stevenson, who suffered from tuberculosis, wintered in Davos in 1880 upon the recommendation of his Edinburgh physician Dr. George Balfour, arthur Conan Doyle wrote an article about skiing in Davos in 1899. A sanatorium in Davos is also the inspiration for the Berghof Sanitorium in Thomas Manns novel Der Zauberberg, between 1936 and 1938, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, then at the end of his life and living in Davos since 1917, depicted Davos and the Junkerboden. His painting has a both Romantic and pantheistic atmosphere and simplified formal structure, during the natural ice era of winter sports, Davos and the Davos Eisstadion were a mecca for speed skating. Many international championships were held here, and many records were set. The only European Bandy Championship was held in the town in 1913, subsequently, Davos became a famous ski resort, especially frequented by tourists from the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. After peaking in the 1970s and 1980s, the city settled down as a leading, Davos has an area, of 283.98 km2. Of this area, about 35. 0% is used for agricultural purposes, of the rest of the land,2. 3% is settled and 40. 5% is unproductive land. In the 2004/09 survey a total of 337 ha or about 1. 2% of the area was covered with buildings. Over the same period, the amount of recreational space in the municipality increased by 10 ha and is now about 0. 22% of the total area. Of the agricultural land,1,296 ha is fields and grasslands and 9,056 ha consists of alpine grazing areas, since 1985 the amount of agricultural land has decreased by 736 ha. Over the same period the amount of forested land has increased by 481 ha. Rivers and lakes cover 285 ha in the municipality, until 2017 the municipality was located in the Davos subdistrict of the Prättigau/Davos district, after 2017 it was part of the Prättigau/Davos Region
2.
Berlin
–
Berlin is the capital and the largest city of Germany as well as one of its constituent 16 states. With a population of approximately 3.5 million, Berlin is the second most populous city proper, due to its location in the European Plain, Berlin is influenced by a temperate seasonal climate. Around one-third of the area is composed of forests, parks, gardens, rivers. Berlin in the 1920s was the third largest municipality in the world, following German reunification in 1990, Berlin once again became the capital of all-Germany. Berlin is a city of culture, politics, media. Its economy is based on high-tech firms and the sector, encompassing a diverse range of creative industries, research facilities, media corporations. Berlin serves as a hub for air and rail traffic and has a highly complex public transportation network. The metropolis is a popular tourist destination, significant industries also include IT, pharmaceuticals, biomedical engineering, clean tech, biotechnology, construction and electronics. Modern Berlin is home to world renowned universities, orchestras, museums and its urban setting has made it a sought-after location for international film productions. The city is known for its festivals, diverse architecture, nightlife, contemporary arts. Since 2000 Berlin has seen the emergence of a cosmopolitan entrepreneurial scene, the name Berlin has its roots in the language of West Slavic inhabitants of the area of todays Berlin, and may be related to the Old Polabian stem berl-/birl-. All German place names ending on -ow, -itz and -in, since the Ber- at the beginning sounds like the German word Bär, a bear appears in the coat of arms of the city. It is therefore a canting arm, the first written records of towns in the area of present-day Berlin date from the late 12th century. Spandau is first mentioned in 1197 and Köpenick in 1209, although these areas did not join Berlin until 1920, the central part of Berlin can be traced back to two towns. Cölln on the Fischerinsel is first mentioned in a 1237 document,1237 is considered the founding date of the city. The two towns over time formed close economic and social ties, and profited from the right on the two important trade routes Via Imperii and from Bruges to Novgorod. In 1307, they formed an alliance with a common external policy, in 1415 Frederick I became the elector of the Margraviate of Brandenburg, which he ruled until 1440. In 1443 Frederick II Irontooth started the construction of a new palace in the twin city Berlin-Cölln
3.
Clara Schumann
–
Clara Schumann was a German musician and composer, considered one of the most distinguished pianists of the Romantic era. She exerted her influence over a 61-year concert career, changing the format and repertoire of the piano recital and her husband was the composer Robert Schumann. She was the first to perform any work by Brahms. She later premiered some other pieces by Brahms, notably the Variations, Clara Josephine Wieck was born in Leipzig on 13 September 1819 to Friedrich Wieck and Marianne Wieck. Marianne Tromlitz was a singer in Leipzig at the time and was singing solos on a weekly basis at the well-known Gewandhaus in Leipzig. The differences between her parents were irreconcilable, in part due to her fathers unyielding nature. After an affair between Claras mother and Adolph Bargiel, her fathers friend, the Wiecks divorced in 1824, five-year-old Clara remained with her father. From an early age, Claras career and life was planned down to the smallest detail by her father and she daily received a one-hour lesson and two hours of practice, using the teaching methods he had developed on his own. In March 1828, at the age of eight, the young Clara Wieck performed at the Leipzig home of Dr. Ernst Carus, there she met another gifted young pianist who had been invited to the musical evening, named Robert Schumann, who was nine years older. Schumann admired Claras playing so much that he asked permission from his mother to discontinue his law studies, which had never interested him much, while taking lessons, he took rooms in the Wieck household, staying about a year. He would sometimes dress up as a ghost and scare Clara, in 1830, at the age of eleven, Clara left on a concert tour to Paris via other European cities, accompanied by her father. She gave her first solo concert at the Leipzig Gewandhaus, in Weimar, she performed a bravura piece by Henri Herz for Goethe, who presented her with a medal with his portrait and a written note saying, For the gifted artist Clara Wieck. During that tour, Niccolò Paganini was in Paris, and he offered to appear with her, however, her Paris recital was poorly attended, as many people had fled the city due to an outbreak of cholera. From December 1837 to April 1838, Clara Wieck performed a series of recitals in Vienna when she was 18, franz Grillparzer, Austrias leading dramatic poet, wrote a poem entitled Clara Wieck and Beethoven after hearing Wieck perform the Appassionata sonata during one of these recitals. On 15 March, Wieck was named a Königliche und Kaiserliche Kammervirtuosin, Robert was a little more than 9 years older than Clara and moved into the Wieck household as a piano student of Friedrichs by the end of 1830 when she was only 11 and he was 20. In 1837 when she was 18, he proposed to her, then Robert asked Friedrich for Claras hand in marriage. Wieck was strongly opposed to the marriage, as he did not much approve of Robert, Robert and Clara had to go to court and sue Friedrich. The judges decision was to allow the marriage, in 1840, despite Friedrichs objections, Clara and Robert were married
4.
Silent film
–
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. The silent film era lasted from 1895 to 1936, in silent films for entertainment, the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, mime and title cards which contain a written indication of the plot or key dialogue. During silent films, a pianist, theatre organist, or, in large cities, pianists and organists would either play from sheet music or improvise, an orchestra would play from sheet music. The term silent film is therefore a retronym—that is, a term created to distinguish something retroactively, the early films with sound, starting with The Jazz Singer in 1927, were referred to as talkies, sound films, or talking pictures. A September 2013 report by the United States Library of Congress announced that a total of 70% of American silent feature films are believed to be completely lost, the earliest precursors of film began with image projection through the use of a device known as the magic lantern. This utilized a glass lens, a shutter and a persistent light source, such as a powerful lantern and these slides were originally hand-painted, but still photographs were used later on after the technological advent of photography in the nineteenth century. The invention of a practical photography apparatus preceded cinema by only fifty years, the next significant step towards film creation was the development of an understanding of image movement. Simulations of movement date as far back as to 1828 and only four years after Paul Roget discovered the phenomenon he called Persistence of Vision. This experience was further demonstrated through Rogets introduction of the thaumatrope, the first projected primary proto-movie was made by Eadweard Muybridge between 1877 and 1880. Muybridge set up a row of cameras along a racetrack and timed image exposures to capture the many stages of a horses gallop, the oldest surviving film was created by Louis Le Prince in 1888. It was a film of people walking in Oakwood streets garden. Edison also made a business of selling Kinetograph and Kinetoscope equipment, due to Edisons lack of securing an international patent on his film inventions, similar devices were invented around the world. The Lumière brothers, for example, created the Cinématographe in France, the Cinématographe proved to be a more portable and practical device than both of Edisons as it combined a camera, film processor and projector in one unit. In contrast to Edisons peepshow-style kinetoscope, which one person could watch through a viewer. Their first film, Sortie de lusine Lumière de Lyon, shot in 1894, is considered the first true motion picture, the invention of celluloid film, which was strong and flexible, greatly facilitated the making of motion pictures. This film was 35 mm wide and pulled using four sprocket holes and this doomed the cinematograph, which could only use film with just one sprocket hole. From the very beginnings of film production, the art of motion pictures grew into maturity in the silent era. Silent filmmakers pioneered the art form to the extent that virtually every style, the silent era was also pioneering era from a technical point of view
5.
Cinema of Germany
–
The Cinema of Germany refers to the film industry based in Germany and can be traced back to the late 19th century. German cinema has made major technical and artistic contributions to film during the period from 1918-1933, Germany witnessed major changes to its identity during the 20th and 21st century. Those changes determined the periodisation of national cinema into a succession of distinct eras, the history of cinema in Germany can be traced back to the years shortly after the mediums birth. On November 1,1895 Max Skladanowsky and his brother Emil demonstrated their self-invented film projector the Bioscop at the Wintergarten music hall in Berlin, a 15-minute series of eight short films, it was the first screening of films to a paying audience in Europe. In its earliest days, the cinematograph was perceived as an attraction for upper class audiences, soon, trivial short films were being shown as fairground attractions aimed at the working class and lower-middle class. The booths in which films were shown were known in Germany somewhat disparagingly as Kintopps. Visually striking sets and makeup were key to the style of the expressionist films that were produced shortly after World War I, cinemas themselves began to be established landmarks in the years immediately before World War I. Before this, German filmmakers would tour with their works, travelling from fairground to fairground, the earliest ongoing cinemas were set up in cafes and pubs by owners who saw a way of attracting more customers. The storefront cinema was called a Kientopp, and this is where films were viewed for the most part before World War I, the first standalone, dedicated cinema in Germany was opened in Mannheim in 1906, and by 1910, there were over 1000 cinemas operating in Germany. Henny Porten and Asta Nielsen were the first major stars in Germany. Prior to 1914, however, many films were imported. In the era of the silent film there were no boundaries and Danish. The outbreak of World War I and the subsequent boycott of, for example, by 1916, there already existed some 2000 fixed venues for movie performances and initially film screenings were supplemented or even replaced by variety turns. Under the aegis of the military, so-called Vaterland films were produced, audiences however did not care to swallow the patriotic medicine without the accompanying sugar of the light-entertainment films which, consequently, Ufa also promoted. The German film industry became the largest in Europe. Many countries banned the import of German films and audiences themselves were resisting anything that was “German”, in addition, the economic situation was unstable and the devaluation of the currency made it difficult for the smaller production companies to function. Film industry financing was a business and expensive productions occasionally led to bankruptcy. Apart from UFA, about 230 film companies were active in Berlin alone and this industry was attracting producers and directors from all over Europe
6.
Theatre director
–
The directors function is to ensure the quality and completeness of theatre production and to lead the members of the creative team into realizing their artistic vision for it. If the production he or she is mounting is a new piece of writing or a translation of a play, in contemporary theatre, after the playwright, the director is generally the primary visionary, making decisions on the artistic concept and interpretation of the play and its staging. Different directors occupy different places of authority and responsibility, depending on the structure, Directors use a wide variety of techniques, philosophies, and levels of collaboration. In ancient Greece, the birthplace of European drama, the writer bore principal responsibility for the staging of his plays, the author-director would also train the chorus, sometimes compose the music, and supervise every aspect of production. The fact that the director was called didaskalos, the Greek word for teacher, a miniature by Jean Fouquet from 1460 bears one of the earliest depictions of a director at work. Holding a prompt book, the central figure directs, with the aid of a long stick, from Renaissance times up until the 19th century, the role of director was often carried by the actor-manager. This would usually be an actor in a troupe who took the responsibility for choosing the repertoire of work, staging it. This was the case for instance with Commedia dellArte companies and English actor-managers like Colley Cibber, the modern theatre director can be said to have originated in the staging of elaborate spectacles of the Meininger Company under George II, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen. The management of large numbers of extras and complex stagecraft matters necessitated an individual to take on the role of overall coordinator. This gave rise to the role of the director in modern theatre, simultaneously, Constantin Stanislavski, principally an actor-manager, would set up the Moscow Art Theatre in Russia and similarly emancipate the role of the director as artistic visionary. The French regisseur is also used to mean a stage director. A more common term for theatre director in French is metteur en scène, post World War II, the actor-manager slowly started to disappear, and directing become a fully fledged artistic activity within the theatre profession. The director originating artistic vision and concept, and realizing the staging of a production, a cautionary note was introduced by the famed director Sir Tyrone Guthrie who said the only way to learn how to direct a play, is. To get a group of actors simple enough to allow you to let you direct them, most European countries nowadays know some form of professional directing training, usually at drama schools or conservatoires, or at universities. In the early days such programmes typically led to the staging of one major production in the third year. At the University of California, Irvine, Keith Fowler led for many years a programme based on the premise that directors are autodidacts who need as many opportunities to direct as possible. Under Fowler, graduate student directors would stage between five and ten productions during their residencies, with each production receiving detailed critiques. Directing is an artform that has grown with the development of theatre theory, with the emergence of new trends in theatre, so too have directors adopted new methodologies and engaged in new practices
7.
Gohlis
–
Gohlis is an area in the north-west of the city of Leipzig, Germany. Only in 1890 was it absorbed into the city and it is known as the place where Friedrich Schiller worked on the second act of Don Carlos and wrote his first edition of the famous Ode to Joy. The village Gohlis was probably founded by Slavic Sorbs in the 7th Century, early forms of the name were Golitz, Goliz or Golis. The old Sorbian root gol meant bare, barren and is possibly a description of the immediate hinterland of the village. The ending -its/-itz is typical for Slavic villages, in the course of the German expansion to the east, Flemish settlers established themselves in the region. The first documented mention is in the year 1317, in which the grant of land to the Cistercian monastery of St. George is mentioned. The rulers of Gohlis were the Margraves of Meissen or rather, Landsberg and later the Ernestine Electors of Saxony, within Saxony, the village Gohlis belonged to the municipality of Leipzig. The village Gohlis belonged to the seigneury of the manor Gohlis, in 1659 the Leipzig Professor für Medizin Michael Heinrich Horn acquired the manor and the seigneury of Gohlis. Since 1973, when the city of Leipzig became the owner of the manor, Schiller worked on the second act of his play Don Carlos in Gohlis, edited the Fiesco and wrote the first version of Ode to Joy. The farmhouse in which Schiller lived is the oldest house standing in Gohlis and it was built in 1700 and has hardly changed since the 18th Century. In 1841 the Leipzig Schiller Society erected a memorial site which is now the Schillerhaus museum, in 1755/1756, the Leipzig Alderman Johann Caspar Richter built a summer residence in rococo style in Gohlis. The so-called Gohliser Palace is nowadays used as restaurant and for cultural events, media related to Gohlis at Wikimedia Commons
8.
Rudolph Cartier
–
Rudolph Cartier was an Austrian television director, filmmaker, screenwriter and producer who worked predominantly in British television, exclusively for the BBC. He is best known for his 1950s collaborations with screenwriter Nigel Kneale, most notably the Quatermass serials, after studying architecture and then drama, Cartier began his career as a screenwriter and then film director in Berlin, working for UFA Studios. After a brief spell in the United States he moved to the United Kingdom in the 1930s and he went on to produce and direct over 120 productions in the next 24 years, ending his television career with the play Loyalties in 1976. Born in Vienna, Austria-Hungary, Cartier initially studied to become an architect, before changing career paths, there he was taught by Max Reinhardt, who proved a major influence on Cartier. Cartier became involved in the industry in 1929, when he successfully submitted a script to a company based in Berlin. He then became a scriptwriter for UFA Studios, the primary German film company of the era, for which he worked on crime films. While at UFA, he worked with noted writers, directors and producers including Ewald André Dupont, in 1933 he became a film director, overseeing the thriller Unsichtbare Gegner for producer Sam Spiegel. The same year as Unsichtbare Gegner was released, the Nazis came to power in Germany, several members of Cartiers family who had remained in Europe, including his mother, later died in the Holocaust. Encouraged by a UFA colleague, Billy Wilder, to come to Hollywood, Cartier changed his surname, however, unlike Wilder, Cartier did not find success in America, and in 1935 he moved again, to the United Kingdom. Little further is recorded of Cartiers career until after the Second World War and he also worked as a film producer, overseeing a 1951 short film adaptation of the Sherlock Holmes story The Man with the Twisted Lip. Cartier returned for a time to the United States, where he studied production methods in the new medium of television, at his interview, Cartier told Barry that he thought his departments output was dreadful, and that television drama needed new scripts and a new approach. In a 1990 interview about his career, he told BBC Twos The Late Show that the BBC drama department had needed me like water in the desert, Barry shared many of Cartiers views on the need to improve television drama, and he hired him for the producers job. Cartiers first BBC television production was a play entitled Arrow to the Heart, Cartier and Kneales first major production was the six-part serial The Quatermass Experiment, broadcast in the summer of 1953. A critical and popular success, The Quatermass Experiment has been described by the British Film Institutes Screenonline website as one of the most influential series of the 1950s. The success of The Quatermass Experiment led to two sequels, Quatermass II and Quatermass and the Pit, both produced and directed by Cartier and written by Kneale, both were successful and critically acclaimed, and Cartiers production work on them became increasingly ambitious. Cartier, with his previous experience as a director, particularly enjoyed working on these cinema-style filmed scenes. The appeal of the Quatermass serials has been attributed by the Museum of Broadcast Communications to the depiction of A new range of gendered fears about Britains postwar and post-colonial security. As a result, or perhaps simply because of Kneale and Cartiers effective combination of fiction and poignant melodrama
9.
Viktor de Kowa
–
Viktor de Kowa was a German stage and film actor, chanson singer, director, narrator and comic poet. He was born the son of a farmer and engineer in Hohkirch near Görlitz, from where his family moved to Seifersdorf near Dippoldiswalde in Saxony in 1908, de Kowa joined a cadet corps before he began occupational training as a graphic designer. Having attended drama classes with Erich Ponto, he gave his debut at the Staatstheater Dresden in 1922. After appearances in Lübeck, Frankfurt and Hamburg, de Kowa entered the stages of the Volksbühne and he had a first small film appearance in Nils Olaf Chrisanders The Heart Thief in 1927 and subsequently became one of the leading comic actors of the UFA film industry. During the Third Reich he joined the Nazi Party, directing the propaganda movie Kopf hoch, despite his involvement into Nazi cinema, de Kowas film and theatre career quickly proceeded after the war. In 1945 he became director of the Berlin Tribüne theatre and an member of the Vienna Burgtheater from 1956 to 1962. As chairman of the unions for art, culture and media. First married with actress Ursula Grabley in 1926, de Kowa in 1941 secondly married the Japanese singer, both are buried in Friedhof Heerstraße, in an Ehrengrab donated by the City of Berlin. Viktor de Kowa at the Internet Movie Database Viktor de Kowa at Virtual History
10.
Boleslaw Barlog
–
Boleslaw Stanislaus Barlog was a German stage, film, and opera director primarily known for his work in reviving the theatrical life of Berlin after World War II. He was the son of a lawyer who later relocated the family to Berlin where Barlog received his school education. He then began working as an assistant director to Karlheinz Martin, by the 1940s, he was directing his own films at Universum and at Terra Film. Barlog became the manager of the Schlosspark Theatre in 1945 and re-opened it with his production of Curt Goetzs Hokuspokus, when people are worse off again, they will seek a spiritual experience, and their love for the church and the theatre will awake once more. In 1972 Barlog retired as Generalintendant and was awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit by the Federal Republic of Germany, the Staatliche Schauspielbühnens fortunes continued to decline, and it was eventually dissolved in 1993. After his retirement as a manager, he continued working throughout the 1970s as a stage and opera director in Berlin and other German cities as well as in Vienna. His original 1969 production of Tosca for the Deutsche Oper Berlin was still in that companys repertoire in 2013, barlogs autobiography, Theater lebenslänglich, was published in 1981. Barlog died in Berlin in 1999 shortly before his 93rd birthday survived by his wife Herta, both are buried in Berlins Waldfriedhof Zehlendorf in a Grave of Honour. Media related to Boleslaw Barlog at Wikimedia Commons Boleslaw Barlog at the Internet Movie Database
