Cologne Opera: Kölle, et is jot jejange

The Cologne Opera is reopening eleven years late. The building is magnificent, the catering still needs to practice - and what's going on with the art?

On this Sunday afternoon, a long line of people snaked around the Cologne Opera House and into the building over a decidedly short red carpet. Some women are decorated like Christmas trees, some men have dusted off their tuxedos. The weather couldn't be more wonderful either. There are a lot of local and national celebrities there, only Elke Heidenreich is currently in the Engadine, and Hendrik Wüst and Friedrich Merz have more pressing business. In 1957, when the opera house opened, Konrad Adenauer was sitting in the stalls - but he was not only a co-founder of the CDU and current Chancellor (with 50.2 percent for the Union in the election that year), but also the city's ex-mayor and a real Cologne Jong.