today's burning based painterly not control whose colorful mysterious images are inspired by renaissance masterpieces. and in this week's edition of one hundred german must reads we look at a mystery set in the heady days following the full of the burnin war. we begin in hamburg where the opening night of the verde opera in a book oh began with its director two thousand kilometers away and the house arrest in moscow carol sort of branded coffee is a harsh critic of the government so unable to travel he's relied on friends to carry out his vision for the production and his updated take on bertie's classic puts the plight of refugees in europe into the mix. a modern rendition a very nice classic nabucco set in the u.n. security council teeming with six intrigue and spots.

the slave chorus laments their lost home but in this update the original hebrew slaves have been replaced by actual refugees from syria and afghanistan. director kiro serb branded coffee is not able to take the final curtain he's under house arrest in moscow and can only send a video message. great opening thank you so much for all these extraordinary moment in my. life. it's all shit curiouser brenna cuff is considered a punk among russian directors he's received international accolades but the outspoken kremlin critic was arrested in august of two thousand and seventeen charged with embezzling public funds he now has to work remotely from his moscow apartment. and for me it felt like we had

a real director here i've often worked with directors who seemed much more absent even though they were physically present the. rehearsal recordings for the director each scene from every phase of rehearsals was filmed and sent via a u.s.b. stick to moscow it was up to system director of guinea could log in to communicate serve brenna cuffs return video instructions to the team in hamburg. with everyone has their own opinion of the message. they see different meanings questions and answers. that there are certainly no clear message. but it certainly shines a light at outcast from our modern society putting actual refugees center stage and letting them voice an operatic call for freedom. ah i'm joined now by a fellow officer i should say a bit of pain tough they're not corral just before we talk about your paintings

which we can see in glorious technicolor one of them behind it if you are in a similar situation to sarah brown a cough that. and somebody said you can do those paintings anymore what would you do while i don't know i hope i don't get into this situation i have a. list let's just hope for it and i just i just wonder what you think of seeing this must be the biggest you've ever seen a part of your painting yeah yeah quite good resolution yeah yeah does it worry you you sort of don't see so oh no no no it is like a closer look i like that. ok. but. let's find out more about. lives and works in berlin where he initially studied architecture then he decided to dedicate himself to his true and studied art he finished the college of fine

arts as a master student and stayed on in the german capital. he has his studio in the north of. this is where he creates his colorful pictures generally painting with acrylics. his paintings he takes inspiration from the old masters. the fact that my subjects are often so similar probably has to do with this whole universe of iraq and rococo my fascination with it i like to let myself be seduced by it. portraits of heroes and leaders he pays tribute to the pathos and decadence of past heiress through his intensive use of color. how has developed

a technique. as the paints right down to the canvas to create fic layers that merge into one another. it takes him an average of one month to complete a painting unless he's fighting a deadline he'll take the time to work out. and he's grateful he's able to live from his. diaries for the artist's works come from all over the world some are prominent art lovers his works of also appeared in national and international exhibitions such as the berlin me collector's room. has no intention of letting circumstance. it's like these put him under any pressure. so no pressure but you've actually achieved what thousands of volunteers dream about of making a living from your odds. so have you achieved your wildest dreams i mean what's

what's what's the best of that that well i don't know what could be better for me i'm i'm very happy about this and very thankful. that it worked out so far. i mean it wasn't always like that i always had had time soon the studies we had to do stupid jobs. just to make a living and. yeah luckily those times have changed now your influence by the barack and the run is souls as we heard and you talked about why but it's not always the case not all of your paintings. inspired by them i mean that's quite clear did i want to always want to go off do you have a eureka moment do you sometimes see something in your mind's eye the completed work or is it always a process. no it's most of the times the way that i make studies i make sketches and i try to create. my vision

first on paper and then it goes steps and steps through and slowly it develops we have here you see this one that looks to me like you had it well then is that a football is that a football motif no no i don't think it's from football. well more like random people yeah yeah yeah but f'rinstance how did that one come a bath you know it was more that i was trying to search for. like some decadent images from from nowadays and not from the bar called coco it was like a translation into i want times maybe. ok now one thing i've noticed in a lot of your paintings a blank faces i notice this happens quite a lot in your work out now why is that you most of the time as we can see here maybe it's not so much about the personality of the character it's more like the

senate around it all of the things they are wearing the polls and. they have it all fits so. i think like a painting a face there would lead them to different direction. but i mean it's always a very noticeable to me when i look at it oh there's no faces and trying to find a great significance but that's you don't want to take away. from the no no no no it's more like the smell of it you know is that. you know not the personalities so . ok now you take approximately a month on a kid said in the report that i always wanted to easy to put the pain rush do you know. that's done and you go to bed and you don't get up in the morning and go.

that's what it is thank you yeah it's tricky because sometimes you know you have pain things that way you confuse something is missing and you don't know what it is so you maybe put it away for weeks or months then i just turn it around again and look at it as if it would be a painting from a from another artist maybe and then i have a fresh view and sometimes it's just need one stroke and suddenly it's everything you need it you know. thank you very much for being with us i should say to you that before this weekend i didn't know if your work i'm absolutely blown away by i think you're wonderful. and you can give me the fifty euro is not. all success to you thank you very much for being with us here they are for having me here. literature series one hundred must reads today's novel is set here in berlin around the time the burning wall came down thirty years ago in fact itself

it's kind of the main protagonist my colleague david levitt will explain more about . the shadow boxing when. have you ever been a victim felt like one what if you could fight back what if you could take out anyone you wanted to what do you. think. novel the shadow boxing woman is about a young woman living in berlin when the wall comes down after she survives a rape her whole world changes she finds a martial arts teacher who transforms her into a fighting machine. the woman's name is hell not because she's a total bad ass because head is the german word for bright her neighbors neighbors don't get meaning dark when they don't who goes missing and heather decides to do

something about it i'm going to break into dog because flat after years of hard training with the way opening the walk should be no problem calling the police is out of the question it's not as if i were running. way doesn't just teach students punches and kicks but also the thirty six chinese survival stratagems wang has taught me how to wait calling it a feeling for the right moment tells mission to find her neighbor takes her down a twisted path to the stranger who attacked her now if it sounds like a crime story don't expect a classic whodunit in. the shadow boxing woman brings together past and present as well as to berlin's east and west that are just getting to know each other again but mostly it's about confront. fear and shadows of an era.

and this unique list of one hundred german books you should read is available on our website at www dot com slash culture and indeed lots about the project and about the books and more about lit up there all on the website as well that's all we've got time full on this edition of culture. thanks to all the crew for keeping this all together full may join us at the same times of our if you die. the funny. thing.

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with. a group of jews political investigation starting march eighteenth column d. w. . i'm not going to think that. i just sometimes am but i'm standing up in that. thanks to you consider german culture of looking at the stereotypes the crap that anyone thinks he's a country that the time. needed to be taken as drama. to me it's all about who. i might show joins me from the german sunday. post. what's the connection between bread. and the european you. know motus. correspondent and the baker. and let's go about

recipes for success and strategies that make a difference. baking bread. on g.w. . this is data of the news life from the investigators recover the black boxes from the crushed ethiopian airlines flight they could reveal. all one hundred fifty seven people the weather was clear the plane was new so what went wrong also on the program. on people dying in hospitals as.