Berlin City Guide - Culture

In the decade or so since the fall of the Wall, Berlin has emerged as one of Europe's most culturally vibrant cities, infused with a unique blend of Western and Eastern European cultures. There are world-class theatre and opera performances and a comprehensive array of museums and galleries to choose from. Beyond this, there are all the expressions of the counter culture for which Berlin is famous. Although remnants remain in Kreuzberg, the most avant-garde artists have moved to Mitte and increasingly to Prenzlauer Berg.

The tourist information office (see Sightseeing) publishes an online event calendar (website: www.visitberlin.de) as well as the Berlin Events leaflet. Tickets to cultural events are available through Berlin Tourismus Marketing (tel: (030) 250 025, for the ticket hotline) or directly through most venues. Tourist information offices sell tickets for that day's events at up to 50% reduction.

Music: The Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra is renowned worldwide. Its performance space, the Philharmonie, Herbert-von-Karajan-Strasse 1 (tel: (030) 254 880 or ticket hotline 999; website: www.berlin-philharmonic.com), matches their reputation. Within the venue, the Kammermusiksaal der Philharmonie hosts chamber players, soloists and small orchestras. There are guided tours of the Philharmonie daily at 1300 (tel: (030) 2548 8156).

Berlin's most elegant venue for classical music is the Konzerthaus Berlin, Gendarmenmarkt 2 (tel: (030) 2030 92101; website: www.konzerthaus.de). Guided tours are held each Saturday at 1300 (tel: (030) 2030 92343). The KonzerthausOrchester is based here.

The premier venue for opera, ballet and concerts was built between 1741-43, as the Court Opera House. Today, the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Unter den Linden 7 (tel: (030) 2035 4555; website: www.staatsoper-berlin.de), is under the artistic and musical direction of Daniel Barenboim. The Deutsche Oper Berlin, situated in the west of the city, at Bismarckstrasse 35 (tel: (030) 343 8401 or 343 (tickets); website: www.deutscheoperberlin.de), stages classical and modern opera, as well as ballet, operettas and concerts.

Performances at the Komische Oper Berlin, Behrenstrasse 55-57 (tel: (030) 4799 7400 (call centre) or 202 600; website: www.komische-oper-berlin.de), which opened in 1947, include music, dance and concerts.

Theatre: The Deutsches Theater und Kammerspiele, Schumannstrasse 13A (tel: (030) 2844 1225/0; website: www.deutschestheater.de), mounts contemporary productions as well as 19th- and 20th-century plays. The neobaroque Berliner Ensemble, Bertolt-Brecht-Platz 1 (tel: (030) 284 080; website: www.berliner-ensemble.de), was built before the turn of the century, as the Neues Theater. It was taken over by Bertolt Brecht and Helene Weigel and its resident company continues to show performances from Brecht's works, as well as classical and modern pieces. For non-conformist and unconventional theatre and dance, the Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, Linienstrasse 227 (tel: (030) 240 655; website: www.volksbuehne-berlin.de), is one of the top venues.

Dance: The Hebbel-Theater, Stresemannstrasse 29 (tel: (030) 2590 0427; website: www.hebbel-theater.de), is one of the centres for contemporary dance and opera in Europe. Classical ballet is staged at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Bismarckstrasse 35 (tel: (030) 343 8401 or 2035 4438; website: www.deutscheoperberlin.de or www.staatsballett-berlin.de), which has an excellent resident ballet company, Staatsballett Berlin.

Film: In the early 20th century, Berlin was the cradle of German cinema, with seminal films such as Metropolis (1927) and other works of German Expressionism. The 1930 film, Der Blaue Engel (The Blue Angel) starring Marlene Dietrich, was based on Heinrich Mann's novel, Professor Unrath (1905). The movie catapulted Dietrich to stardom, as the sexy cabaret singer, Lola Lola. Berlin earned itself a reputation for decadence in the 1920s and 1930s, which were recaptured to good effect in the 1972 Liza Minnelli film, Cabaret. More recent works have included Wim Wenders' 1987 film, Der Himmel über Berlin (Wings of Desire), in which two angels watch over the divided city from the Siegessäule; Paul Greengrass's 2004 film, The Bourne Supremacy, a thriller starring Matt Damon; and the futurisitic V for Vendetta (2006), directed by James McTeigue. The current fad for Communist-era East German nostalgia has also spawned some excellent German works including the Oscar-winning The Lives of Others (2006), a thriller set in Stasi-oppressed East Berlin and Goodbye Lenin (2003), a charming film centring on a boy's attempts to hide the fall of the CDR from his mother who has awoken from a coma.

Berlin has over a hundred cinemas and new releases are often screened in the English original (OV or OF) or the original language with German subtitles (OmU). The best place for blockbuster fans to catch the latest big releases, often in the original version, are the 19-screen Cinemaxx Berlin Potsdamer Platz, Potsdamer Platz (tel: 01805 2463 6299; website: www.cinemaxx.de), and the nearby eight-screen CineStar im Sony Center, Potsdamer Strasse 4 (tel: (030) 2606 6400 or 01805 118811 (ticket hotline); website: www.cinestar.de). Of the mainstream cinemas in the city's western half, Neue Kant-Kino, Kantstrasse 54 (tel: (030) 319 9866; website: www.neuekantkinos.de), sometimes has Hollywood fare in English with German subtitles. Of the numerous repertory, international and art house screens, Arsenal, Potsdamer Strasse 2 (tel: (030) 2695 5100; website: www.fdk-berlin.de), is a central spot with a lot of English screenings.

The Berlin Film Festival (tel: (030) 259 200; website: www.berlinale.de) is one of the most important on the circuit and the Berlin Bear prize is almost as highly valued as the Palme d'Or at Cannes. The film festival takes place in February and celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2000.

Weekly film listings are printed on posters, which are displayed throughout the city. The magazine Tip (website: www.berlinonline.de/tip) also has listings. During summer, there are popular outdoor film screenings in the Volkspark Hasenheide and at the Waldbühne, near the Olympic Stadium.

Literary Notes: Der Stechlin (1898), Theodor Fontane's late 19th-century novel, has the Stechlinsee in the dark Menzer Forest to the southeast of Berlin as its setting. Berlin Alexanderplatz (1929) is Alfred Döblin's epic tale of the city. Also from the inter-war period is Christopher Isherwood's The Berlin Stories, comprising the novels Mr Norris Changes Trains (1935) and Goodbye to Berlin (1939). They depict Berlin in the pre-Hitler years of the decadent Weimar Republic. Bertolt Brecht moved to Berlin in 1924 and stayed there until 1933, when he fled after the burning of the Reichstag. He directed and wrote many of his early plays here, most successfully Die Dreigroschenoper (The Threepenny Opera), which opened in 1928. Berlin's post-war appearances in English writing have tended to be of the spy novel genre - fitting, as the city was the front line of the Cold War. Robert Harris' Fatherland (1993) is a disturbing speculative fiction of Berlin based on the premise that the Nazis had not lost the war. Peter Schneider's The Wall Jumper (1984) is a mixed genre meditation on the Berlin Wall and Ian McEwan's The Innocent (1995) is set in the surveillance world of post-war Berlin.