EVENTS

Municipal Events

During the Goethe anniversary year a wide range of cultural events, from exhibitions to theatrical performances and concerts, will be on offer.

However, an attempt will be made to raise interest in the poet among people whose relationship with Goethe is normally rather distanced. For that reason the city of Frankfurt organizes major events in cooperation with a numbr of municipal departments. These happenings are subdivided and carry the following themes: ´Goethe - the citizen of Frankfurt`, ´Goethe - the European`, ´Goethe - the world citizen`.

An Easter stroll

Goethe the citizen of Frankfurt

The Goethe anniversary year will be opened on Easter Monday 1999 with an "Easter stroll" along the banks of the river Main and in the inner city area. Along the route of "Goethe's walk" the personality of this "citizen of the world", his perception and experience of the world around him, and his personal quest will be illustrated in music, literature and art, in a series of presentations arranged by the Mousonturm Artistic Centre. There are two routes starting from the house where Goehte was born an running through the streets of the Old City, over the Römerberg and crossing the Eisernen Steg bridge to the south bank of the Main.

One "walk" illutrates the years Goethe spent in Frankfurt, in his "Sturm und Drang" period. Extracts from "poetry and Truth" will bie placed in the context of the architecture of the Old City along the way, with text plaques, sculptures and installations. Readings an musical perfomances will be given in cafés, bookshops and other venues. The second "walk"fills out the presentation of the stroy of Goethe's life with"Faustian images", evoking the "Sturm und Drang" stage in his development. This walk along the banks of the Main is divided into sections highlighting specific themes, with presentations from a rage of artistic groups an ensembles infvolving draba, dance and music, painting, sculpture, video and art "happenings", in a series fo varied and colourful spectacles along the river bank to illustrate Goethe as a person an a creatve artist.

A writer on his travels

Goethe the European

A European cooperation project creted by the cities of Frankfurt, Strsbourg, Zurich and Verona -20 to 23 August 1999

Arailway journey in August will retrace the route followed by Goethe on his travels to Strasbourg, Zurich and on to Verona. The train will be transformed into a unique cultural venue and theatrical stage, under the creative control of producer Wolfram Lenssen and Forum InterArt.

Euach of these destinations played an important part in Goethe's life an work, and will present the travellers with different facets of his personality. With the assistance of the municipal authorities, the railway station in each of the three cities will bexome a focal point for cultural ebents, and the day the train arrives will be marked in each location as a "goethe day" for citizens and visitors alike.

In Strasbourg the travellers will be able to walk in the grat mainis footsteps an at nicht will attend amusical and thetrical Soiree in dht Church of St. Pierre le Jeune. In Zirich they will be invites to join a "literary cruis" on Zrick Lake, and will also attend an exhibiton on "Goethe and the Sciences". Finally ain Verona a prdution awaits the guests at the Piazze dei Signori. The journy will then be roundet off with a visit to the Natural History Museum and the Opera Festival in the Aren.

Goethe`s birthday

Goethe the cosmopolitan

28 August 1999 is the 250th anniversary of Goethe's birth, whick will be celebrated in Frankfurt under the auspices of UNESCO. The Goethe Prize will be awarded by the City of Frankfurt on this same day at the Paulskirche.

The events of the day will be organises around presentations of Goethe and his woks, complemented at many different venues around the city by a kaleidoscope of scenes and items specifically creates and rehearsed for this day, and which will be repeated at regular interwals. Examplets of saome of the ideas developed by Armin Brunner as artistic director for the ebent include: "reinecke the Fox", presented as a mini-ballet on Liebfrauenberg, a presentation entitled "Goethe's waxwork cabine-2 in the Römerhallen, the "Goethe Readers'Park" on Hauptwache, "Goethe ballads" presented by a chorus of voices, anda spectacular production of "The Sorcerer's Appretice", as set to music by Dukas and Prokofiev, staged at the fountain in front of the old Opera House. The day's events are specifically designed to honour Goethe's memory in a way which will both "delight the passers-by" (as Goethe once said to the author Heinrich von Kleist) an highlight the special importance of this anniversary with a more demanding cultural programme in the romms of the Old Opera House.