We use cookies and other technologies to better understand a visitor's experience and to help improve our websites. By continuing to use the website, you consent to Middlebury's use of cookies and other technologies as outlined in our Privacy Policy Middlebury German for Singers hope to cast for a fun opera project based on Mozart’s “Die Zauberflöte” and travel to northern Germany after the 7-week immersion program in Vermont for Summer 2025 German for Singers is a transformative experience—it is the only program of its kind world-wide!  Singer-students will have the opportunity to study the German language intensively in our immersion context, and they will work with world-class musicians to hone their skills as interpreters and experts of the German vocal repertoire. The recommended deadline to apply is February 15 In addition to working on art songs from the German-speaking countries and paying homage to J Bach in this 275th anniversary year of his death our focus will once again be on the production of a German opera project we hope to recruit the right voices to work on an abridged and adapted version of Mozart’s “Die Zauberflöte” We know that this opera and its roles in particular are at the top of many a singer’s “hitlist” for German repertoire The program has been invited again to travel to northern Germany at the end of our program in mid-August to perform this summer’s opera project in the seaside resort of Scharbeutz (Baltic Sea) truly represents the culmination of our work in Middlebury and has been life-changing for so many singers in the past two years We are so grateful to a generous opera-lover in Scharbeutz who has made these experiences possible for singers and for audiences alike Members of Iran's Basij paramilitary force attend a parade in Tehran Yoann Richomme secures a second-place finish in the 10th annual Vendee Globe around-the-world solo sailing race in France Players take part in the first football tournament for war-wounded amputees in Kyiv Princes from the royal family of King Kpodégbé Lanmanfan Toyi Djigla enter the Royal Palace in Allada Children look for their arrows during an archery contest in Surabaya A missile lands on the roof of a home in Mevo Beitar a wild boar she rescued as a piglet in April 2023 A train travels through the Harz mountains in Germany Men and children stand next to a destroyed car on a residential block in Jalaa Street in Gaza City A woman shouts at police officers during an anti-government protest in La Paz A seagull flies over the Baltic Sea in Scharbeutz From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com Anahi Valenzuela, The Week USSocial Links NavigationAnahi Valenzuela has worked as an editorial assistant at The Week since 2022 where she assists with magazine content and covers the week's best photos She started her career as a media producer at The Daily Californian and a writer for College Magazine All cantons are now in the school vacations The vacation season is in full swing and in many places in Europe sun-seekers can hardly find space on the beaches The Baltic Sea in particular is very crowded In Mallorca, people are currently demonstrating against mass tourism. Bays on the popular vacation island have been flooded with tourists for some time now mass tourism has long since become part of everyday life Particularly during the peak summer holiday season beachgoers can hardly find a place to stay This was the case on the German Baltic Sea where there was a mega rush at the weekend Bild cites the start of the vacations in many German states as the reason for the overcrowded beaches With the exception of Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg If you wanted to get a spot in the super summer weather in Binz on the island of Rügen Timmendorf Strand or between Scharbeutz and Haffkrug in Schleswig-Holstein You could hardly see the sand for all the towels and parasols Many Swiss people are also drawn to the seaside Spain and Croatia are popular destinations every year The current rush is also reflected on social media: the ADAC is warning of a large wave of travelers heading to the Baltic Sea "Drivers in the north need a high level of stress resilience as vacation traffic is increasing massively," the daily newspaper quotes ADAC spokesperson Christian Hieff as saying It's no secret that there are also regular traffic jams south of the Gotthard tunnel during vacation periods After travelers already had to wait in front of both portals at the weekend, the new week has also begun with waiting times in front of the Gotthard north portal Industry news and insights from Europe and around the World Keep up-to-date with the latest new products and technology GERMANY: Discount retailer Aldi Nord and refrigeration company Viessmann are rolling out a new cooling and heating system employing propane heat pumps The sustainable energy system ESyCool Green which was developed by Viessmann in close cooperation with the Essen-based discount company is to be employed in a first phase of 10 Aldi Nord stores across Germany The ESyCool Green system employs propane heat pumps in combination with optimised cooling cabinets and cells as well as an integrated ice energy storage unit and a photovoltaic system According to Viessmann this can achieve energy savings of 15% while significantly reducing life cycle costs compared to conventional refrigeration systems Announcing the collaboration at the EuroShop exhibition yesterday said: “Part of our modernisation is to make our branches more energy efficient and sustainable with a focus on environmentally friendly and natural refrigerants.” “Through the comprehensive approach of the ESyCool concept we are shaping our retail food retailers to energy-conscious stores,” said Rayk Mende corporate responsibility director of Aldi Nord While in-depth details of the system are sparse it is believed that self-generated electricity from the photovoltaic systems will supply the cooling points in the market via a cooling circuit and use the waste heat for heating the building extra heat from a connected ice energy storage can be used and in the summer the ice in the store is available for the “natural cooling” of the retail cabinets successfully confirming the operational safety and energy efficiency of the entire plant Two new stores in Schleswig-Holstein were completed using the new system at the end of 2016/beginning of 2017 The cooperation is now being extended to include 10 additional Aldi Nord stores Cooling Post is the leading online resource covering latest news and developments in the cooling industry air conditioning news and the latest heat pump developments Privacy & Cookie Policy © Copyright 2025, Cooling Post Ltd - All Rights Reserved | Website by Capital Web German photographer and artist best known for her pictures of the Beatles whose distinctive image she helped to shape “Black and white means photography to me,” said Astrid Kirchherr in 1995 “It’s much easier to take a good colour photograph but you can get more drama into a black and white one.” It was in black and white that Kirchherr shooting them in leather jackets against industrial Hamburg and helping to form their distinctive image It was her mastery of light and shade in her 1962 portraits of John Lennon and George Harrison that influenced the cover of the 1963 album With the Beatles However her influence went further than photography It was Kirchherr who brushed out the flat-top hairstyle sported by her then Beatle boyfriend Stuart Sutcliffe which led to the rest of the band adopting the famed “moptop” look Astrid Kirchherr in 1995 Photograph: Geoff Wilkinson/Rex/ShutterstockIn 1960 Kirchherr was a 22-year-old art school graduate when her boyfriend to see the Beatles at the Kaiserkeller in Hamburg’s red light district They met the band after the show and Kirchherr who was immediately attracted to Sutcliffe Instead of photographing them on the rides she captured them with their instruments among the trucks and heavy machinery in the words of the Beatles biographer Mark Lewisohn “the definitive image of the group before they attained fame” Kirchherr, who modelled herself on the French singer Juliette Gréco and she passed this look on to the Beatles Sutcliffe’s haircut was based on Marlon Brando in the 1953 film Julius Caesar and after the rest of the band adopted the look Kirchherr immortalised it in her publicity photographs for their first Parlophone single Kirchherr and Sutcliffe began a relationship soon after meeting Kirchherr told me: “They were all a knockout but my little Stuart blew my mind It was fantastic to look at him and see all that beauty Astrid Kirchherr on the set of A Hard Day’s Night Photograph: Max Scheler/K&K/RedfernsSutcliffe was an art student at the Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Hamburg possibly relating to a gang-beating in Liverpool he died in Kirchherr’s arms on the way to a hospital in Hamburg in April 1962 it was she who told the Beatles of his death when they returned to open the Star-Club They shared their large house in the city with several extended family members Astrid was evacuated to Scharbeutz on the Baltic Sea during the second world war while her father delivered supplies of food and munition to troops she studied fashion at the Meisterschule für Mode was so taken with her photography that he asked her to switch courses It is often reported that Lennon acted bravely by impersonating Hitler in German beat clubs “we were horrified by what our parents’ generation had done.” As a result Kirchherr and her friends took their inspiration from the so-called Exis (existentialists) in Paris In 1964 Kirchherr took photographs of the Beatles filming A Hard Day’s Night for the German magazine Stern arranged a group photograph of over 200 local beat musicians outside St George’s Hall she also took some affecting pictures of the effects of poverty in Liverpool around Falkner Street They divorced in 1974 and Kirchherr had a short marriage to a German businessman She stopped taking photographs professionally for a time working as an interior designer and later worked for Kemp in his English restaurant in Hamburg Kirchherr said: “The most important thing I gave the Beatles was my friendship.” The most important thing she gave Beatles fans were those early photographs “They trusted me: there was no fear in being photographed.” I stood outside the front door of a grand house near Hamburg with my father The house had been his home for five years between 1946 and 1951 and the stage for an extraordinary time in his life The owner had agreed to let us see the house and sensitive to the significance of this visit My father paused to take in the scene: the variegated floor of the hall was bathed in coloured light from the Art Deco windows up in the minstrel’s gallery For a moment he was that eight-year old boy again Colonel Walter Brook – had stood in this same hall and made an unusual decision; one that would have powerful implications for more than his immediate family Walter Brook was governor of the Kreis (county) district of Pinneberg, immediately to the west of Hamburg, and responsible for its reconstruction and the feeding, rehousing and de-Nazification of thousands of displaced people. Germany had been divided into four zones and the British zone was by far the most devastated If the Americans got the view and the French the wine More bombs were dropped on Hamburg in a weekend than on London during the entire second world war Walter needed a house for his family – my grandmother Anthony – who were about to arrive by ship at Cuxhaven A shortage of housing led the British to requisition a large number of the buildings that remained standing and the resident Germans were put into billets When my grandfather went to requisition a house on the Elbe River it was occupied by a wealthy merchant family: Herr Ladiges my grandfather turned to Herr Ladiges and said he didn’t have to leave: the house was big enough for the two families to share The house The present owners allowed Anthony to look round and memories of his boyhood flooded back.This was an unusual – possibly unique – arrangement Europe was still raw with a desire for revenge and Germans were seen as guilty and deserving of punishment Some of my grandfather’s Control Commission for Germany (CCG) colleagues thought he was soft-pedalling while my grandmother who had adopted Atlee’s directive to maintain “a cold and dignified aloofness towards Germans at all times” worried about the repercussions of “living with the enemy” things were polite but cool between the two families Everyone stuck to the demarcation lines within the house ate their meals separately and occasionally were allowed to play the piano in the “Brook zone” Meals for both families were prepared in the extensive basement with its large kitchen; the Ladiges’ maid carried their meals up to the upper floor while the Brooks received theirs via the dumb-waiter lift to the splendid dining room on the ground floor While the adults maintained this apartheid especially my father and his German counterpart playing games in the garden and learning each other’s language My father and Heike become friends and during the summer of 1947 Heike accompanied the Brook family on trips to the seaside at Scharbeutz Anthony Brook and Heike Ladige playing in the snow the mood shifted decisively when the two families shared the celebrations and sang carols in German and English around the piano the dynamics in the house changed from that of occupier and occupied to that of equals I was only vaguely aware of this episode in my family history I didn’t live with my father and was consequently less exposed to the Brook side of my background I had also never met my grandfather; he died when my father was 18 So when my father told me in 2001 what had happened in Hamburg I thought: I wish I’d met my grandfather … and what a brilliant story There was my grandmother’s reaction to being asked to share a house with Germans; the awkwardness of being reunited in such strange surroundings with my grandfather (after long periods of not seeing him due to the war) and the children ignoring protocol And there were bigger questions: what happens when former enemies end up living together and how you rebuild family life as well as a country From left: Rhidian’s grandfather I began to interview my father and my uncle Colin encouraging both to set their memories down on paper This motivated my father to re-remember that time for himself and to think again about his own father whom he admitted to not knowing very well because of the war and his premature death in 1956 These memories became part of a bigger journey: my father and I were getting to know Walter but also getting to know each other in the process When I decided to make a trip to see the house and meet its original occupants his memories leapt out of the fittings and fixtures: “There’s the dumb waiter This fireplace is where we played cards in that dreadful winter of 1947 Standing on the back balcony over- looking the Elbe he showed me where he once played in the snow with Heike – we were going to meet up with her later He was uncharacteristically anxious about these coming encounters he wondered if he’d romanticised the memories Perhaps Theo and Heike’s memories of that time wouldn’t be so benign – perhaps they had really resented the Brook presence in their house and been polite because it was in their interests Colonel Walter Brook father of Anthony and grandfather of Rhidian Photograph: PRWe met Theo and his wife for dinner near the Alster Theo was a little older than my father and the two boys had not played together all those years ago He was polite and formal but any fears my father had about long held resentments evaporated in the greeting They were soon reminiscing in German (my father still reasonably fluent thanks to that childhood foundation) and it was clear Theo had an admiration for him and Theo admitted that he and Heike had a nickname for my father: Die Eisbrecher – the Icebreaker – which made my father smile Despite a whole life lived since their last encounter She recalled the day trip to Scharbeutz that my father had described She said that “to be driving with the Brook family to the seaside and be accepted as equal” was a treasured memory Heike then admitted that our visit held a little awkwardness for her and her brother as they were not speaking to each other after falling out ironically over a dispute involving the house she said that perhaps our reunion would effect a rapprochement it’s what my father’s father would have wanted Anthony Brook with Theo Ladige - reunited after more than 60 years and rekindling memories of their postwar boyhood acqaintance.Flying home Theo and Heike remembered that time with gratitude and fondness How curious that my grandfather’s simple act of kindness had led to his son and grandson making this trip together 60 years later I asked what influence Walter’s action had had on Dad’s own life He liked to think he’d inherited his father’s tendency to question “the expected patterns of behaviour” and that he’d continued his “always open door” policy in his own home But the most telling legacy for him was to be found in Theo’s and Heike’s responses He’d always had an idea of what his father was like but their memories made him more real The distance between Hamburg and London is surprisingly small As our plane flew low up the Thames estuary it was hard not to think of bombers flying from Germany to bomb London or British bombers flying to Hamburg At the time it must have seemed impossible to imagine that When the Brook family left Hamburg in 1951 my grandfather was given a book by local officials It pictured all the bombed bridges that had been rebuilt in the British zone Inside the inscription read: “Für die Brücke” A film of the story is in development with Ridley Scott and Scott Free London