Terrific city with marvellous and huge new waterside precinct in old docklands area on the Elbe. Absolutely amazing new concert hall nearing completion on the river bank called the Elbphilharmonie. Looks like a giant ship and features all the most up to date acoustic technology. Saw very strange production of Simon Boccanegra where most of the action takes place through a huge apparent painting on the back wall, which then becomes a false proscenium into a secondary world. None of us could quite make head or tail of it. Also an interesting piano recital at the Laeiszhalle by Helene Grimaud, a rather eccentric pianist who likes to play in the dark with only a light for the piano and who keeps a farm for wolves back in Canada.
TOURS and BOOKS
