She’s regarded as the great hope of Bayreuth and marks the beginning of a new era in the history of the famous Wagner Festival: Katharina Wagner. At just 32 she jointly heads the world-renowned Richard Wagner Festival in Bayreuth together with Eva Wagner-Pasquier. The festival, which opened on Sunday (25.7.) for the 99th time, rolled out the red carpet in customary fashion for its many prominent guests. 
This year, on 3 October, Germany will be celebrating the 20th anniversary of reunification and two moving decades of eastern and western Germany growing closer together. From the peaceful revolution that brought down the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989 to German reunification on 3 October 1990, political events came thick and fast in the years 1989 and 1990, eventually leading to a historic turning point – in Germany, Europe and the world. 
What avariety of fates this creature has been promised: featuring as the main ingredient in a number of painful recipes, a stint as a guest mascot in Spain or a job as the predictor of winning lottery numbers. On 13 July, the city council of Carballiño in north-western Spain named the octopus an honorary citizen of the Galician town.
For years now, a fierce and emotional debateon the subject of “reconstruction” has raged among both the general public and experts. But reconstruction is a phenomenon dating back to antiquity, something that was done for a variety of reasons and with a changing understanding of what “reconstruction” means. A look at history might help to put the problems and arguments in a wider historical context, thus “de-emotionalizing” the debate somewhat. 
Passion, zest for life and a breath of Summertime – it is that very special magically spiritual power of Afro-American culture that bursts from a wretched alley of crooked fishermen’s huts in the harbour quarter of Charleston into the outside world, making this modest setting centre stage of one of the world’s most successful musical dramas in theatre history: Catfish Row in George Gershwin’s moving masterpiece Porgy and Bess. 
