Adam Joachim Goldmann
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ajgoldmann.bsky.social
Adam Joachim Goldmann
@ajgoldmann.bsky.social
American arts journalist and critic based in Munich and Berlin
Pinned
In today’s @wsj, I write about the restored Notre-Dame de Paris, which just flung open its portals five and a half years after the cathedral was ravaged by a fire. www.wsj.com/arts-culture...
Notre-Dame Cathedral’s Brilliant Rebirth
Following an enormous, expensive restoration effort after the devastating 2019 fire, the Paris cathedral has reopened to the world, at once recognizably itself and possessed of a startling new vibranc...
www.wsj.com
Intermezzo, Die Liebe der Danae, Die Schweigsame Frau: Richard Strauss‘ lesser-known operas are cropping up around Germany this season, in productions by leading directors such as Claus Guth & Tobias Kratzer. I offer some reflections on the phenomenon. t.co/HtbZrxRxsM
https://operawire.com/strauss-in-the-shadows-germany-spearheads-a-revival-of-the-composers-lesser-known-operas/
t.co
June 14, 2025 at 12:21 PM
Coming soon to a country near you.
March 28, 2025 at 3:46 PM
Reposted by Adam Joachim Goldmann
A meaningful powerful speech a most needed speech.
March 3, 2025 at 2:22 AM
I wrote about Maastricht's underground worlds for @nytimes. The Dutch city once boasted the largest subterranean complex on earth. You can still visit several of these remarkable sites, which include limestone quarries & a former secret NATO HQ.

www.nytimes.com/2025/03/03/a...
Vast Underground Spaces and a Hidden History Lie Beneath Maastricht
Deep beneath the Dutch city lie vast subterranean spaces that have served as art canvases, air raid shelters and a strategic command center.
www.nytimes.com
March 3, 2025 at 5:46 PM
"Many people who want to write about my stuff write about what it looks like. But what it looks like is everything else in the world. It’s a distraction...[Y]ou’re meant to look inside it and beyond it." Peter Sellars speaking with me for
@vanmusicmag.bsky.social

van-magazine.com/mag/peter-se...
Human Tension
The director Peter Sellars speaks to A.J. Goldmann about "Castor et Pollux," working with Teodor Currentzis, and the links between nostalgia and fascism.
van-magazine.com
March 3, 2025 at 5:40 PM
It’s hard to exaggerate the sheer awfulness of Tom Tykwer’s “Das Licht,” the opening film of #Berlinale2025. open.substack.com/pub/unrealc/...
February 15, 2025 at 6:02 PM
Tom Tykwer’s “Das Licht,” which opens #Berlinale2025 tonight is a bloated, inchoate & breathtakingly bad film about a dysfunctional German family that employs a Syrian refugee as a housekeeper. It feels like 30 different films rolled into one-all of them terrible! Did I mention it’s also a musical?
February 13, 2025 at 11:23 PM
From the absurd to the sublime. My week began with the fiasco of seeing Calixto Bieito’s dreary Rheingold @operadeparis without a viable Wotan (Iain Paterson was sick and there was no cover). 2 days later, Pierre Audi‘s spellbinding Götterdämmerung @lamonnaiedemunt exceeded my wildest expectations!
February 5, 2025 at 5:20 PM
In my #lithub debut, I consider l'affaire Nan Goldin at the Neue Nationalgalerie and how it relates to Germany's controversial "Never Again Is Now" resolution. #Berlin #ThisWillNotEndWell #NanGoldin #kulturSPK

lithub.com/on-the-coura...
On the Courage of Nan Goldin and the Truth About Germany’s “Never Again Is Now” Resolution
“Were you uncomfortable?” the photographer Nan Goldin asked from a lectern in Berlin’s Neue Nationalgalerie on a chilly Saturday in late November. “I hope so. We need to feel uncomfortable,” Goldin…
lithub.com
January 15, 2025 at 3:59 PM
Reposted by Adam Joachim Goldmann
Facebook’s new rules:

These are OK:
—“Immigrants are grubby, filthy pieces of shit.”
—“Trans people are mentally ill.”
— “Italians are dickheads.”

This is banned:
—“Christian men are totally useless.”

Helluva scoop via @sambiddle.com

theintercept.com/2025/01/09/f...
Leaked Meta Rules: Users Are Free to Post “Mexican Immigrants Are Trash!” or “Trans People Are Immoral”
Facebook now allows attacks on immigrants and trans people, and posts like “Mexican immigrants are trash!” and “I’m a proud racist.”
theintercept.com
January 10, 2025 at 2:04 AM
Opera legend Otto Schenk has died at 94. When I visited him at home in Vienna’s 1st district in 2021, his caretaker told me to kindly send them my piece. Herr Schenk waved her away and said, “Don’t you understand anything? This article will only appear once I’m dead!”
www.nytimes.com/2025/01/09/a...
Otto Schenk, Opera Director and Bulwark of Tradition, Dies at 94 (Gift Article)
A prominent practitioner of the historically grand productions that were once fashionable at the Met, he was especially well known for his stagings of Wagner.
www.nytimes.com
January 10, 2025 at 9:28 AM
RIP to the avant-garde American theater legend, Richard Foreman. When I was 16, I went to see "Now That Communism Is Dead, My Life Feels Empty!" at the Ontological-Hysteric. 24 years later, it remains the most invigoratingly bonkers thing I've ever seen on a New York stage.
January 6, 2025 at 10:23 PM
Over the past year, I got to write about Alasdair Gray, Pedro Almodóvar, Sasha Waltz, Constanza Macras, Rubens, Brancusi, Soutine, Notre-Dame, the Apollo Belvedere, Nazi-looted art, antisemitism in medieval Spanish painting and Bach's St. John Passion. Here are 10 of my favorite articles from 2024:
December 26, 2024 at 4:12 PM
Reposted by Adam Joachim Goldmann
December 26, 2024 at 1:28 PM
Reposted by Adam Joachim Goldmann
NYT: Israel Loosened Its Rules to Bomb Hamas Fighters. One of the deadliest bombardments of the 21st century followed. www.nytimes.com/2024/12/26/w...
Israel Loosened Its Rules to Bomb Hamas Fighters, Killing Many More Civilians
Surprised by Oct. 7 and fearful of another attack, Israel weakened safeguards meant to protect noncombatants, allowing officers to endanger up to 20 people in each airstrike. One of the deadliest bomb...
www.nytimes.com
December 26, 2024 at 3:36 PM
Grateful for the opportunity to write this "36 Hours" guide to Innsbruck @nytimes, which is particularly magical in winter, with its snow-capped peaks a quick cable-car ride away and especially pleased that I could plug one of my favorite dishes, Kaiserschmarrn! www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
36 Hours in Innsbruck, Austria: Things to Do and See (Gift Article)
Futuristic architecture rubs shoulders with centuries-old opera houses in this picture-perfect Austrian ski town.
www.nytimes.com
December 19, 2024 at 12:57 PM
‘tis the season
December 18, 2024 at 10:32 AM
SIGNA is seeking 20 participants for a new 6-hour-long immersive installation /performance at the Wiener Festwochen 2025, that explores themes of power, fate, and identity. Application deadline: Dec. 29.

www.festwochen.at/wfw-2025-cas...
WFW 2025 Casting Call Signa - Wiener Festwochen
Die Wiener Festwochen | Freie Republik Wien suchen für das Musikband- und Theaterprojekt „LUV“ von Elia Rediger / Int Int Irrit talentierte Musiker:innen, Sänger:innen, Darsteller:innen und/oder Perfo...
www.festwochen.at
December 16, 2024 at 11:41 AM
Tonight: the fourth & final performance of Herbert Wernicke’s stunning staging of Pfitzner’s “Palestrina,” back at Wiener Staatsoper after 17 years. It’s one of the genius director‘s few productions still in rep. Let’s pray it returns, along with his Met “Frau ohne Schatten,” which wraps up Thurs.
December 15, 2024 at 11:32 PM
I finally saw Klaus Mäkelä conduct, after years of only hearing about the Wunderkind. This weekend, the 28-year-old Finn made his Wiener Philharmoniker debut with an incisive & insightful performance of Mahler’s sprawling 6th symphony, a fiendishly difficult work that has bested many a maestro.
December 15, 2024 at 11:21 AM
Reposted by Adam Joachim Goldmann
A cartoon by Barbara Smaller. #NewYorkerCartoons
December 14, 2024 at 11:00 PM
In my latest for @nytimes, I consider the long and uneven history of continental European auteurs who have made films in English, apropos of Pedro Almodóvar’s Golden Lion-winning “The Room Next Door,” which opens Fri. In New York and LA.

www.nytimes.com/2024/12/13/m...
European Directors Sometimes Get Lost in Translation When Going Hollywood (Gift Article)
The history of European directors “going Hollywood” and making the leap to English-language filmmaking is long and uneven.
www.nytimes.com
December 14, 2024 at 8:16 AM
In today’s @wsj, I write about the restored Notre-Dame de Paris, which just flung open its portals five and a half years after the cathedral was ravaged by a fire. www.wsj.com/arts-culture...
Notre-Dame Cathedral’s Brilliant Rebirth
Following an enormous, expensive restoration effort after the devastating 2019 fire, the Paris cathedral has reopened to the world, at once recognizably itself and possessed of a startling new vibranc...
www.wsj.com
December 12, 2024 at 3:10 PM
Mass at the stunningly restored Nôtre Dame de Paris.

LUNDI 9 DÉCEMBRE 2024
17h45

Vêpres de l'Immaculée Conception de la bienheureuse Vierge Marie.

Maîtrise Nôtre-Dame de Paris
Chœur d'adultes
Direction: Henri Chalet
Orgue de chœur: Yves Castagnet
Grand orgue: Olivier Latry

#paris #notredame
December 9, 2024 at 5:53 PM
In my first @wsj Masterpiece, I consider the painstaking and minimally invasive restoration of the Apollo Belvedere, back on view at the Vatican Museums after an absence of five
years. #Rome #antiquity #vatican #winckelmann

t.co/Qur7wSnHzY
https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/fine-art/the-apollo-belvedere-new-life-for-a-marble-god-0df4a43c?st=4RcAmV&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
t.co
December 7, 2024 at 2:50 PM