BOWIE SAID IT BEST: “BERLIN: THE GREATEST cultural extravaganza one could imagine.” And yet, more than a year into a pandemic that according to the German government’s Centre for Cultural and Creative Industries has cost the sector an estimated €22.4 billion in losses in 2020 alone, Berlin, like so many cultural hubs, exists in a sort of COVID purgatory. The city’s genre-bending mixtape is paused: waiting and hoping as a slow vaccine rollout means no bums in seats quite yet. The German capital boasts three opera houses all consistently ranking among the most important in the world as well as fifteen professional symphonies. FIFTEEN. Allow that to sink in.
But there are signals that live shows will resume before too long and Berlin’s devotion to the performing arts is palpable in a report entitled “Gradual Return of Spectators and Guests” drafted by 20 experts from the scientific
