Germany Year in Vietnam is proving to be a special experience for everyone involved. The opening event with the performance of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony at the Hanoi Opera House was a spectacular success, even though things became quite hectic behind the scenes. “The pianist withdrew and a new platform had to be built for the choir the night before the performance because the old one had become too unstable. The programmes were delivered half an hour before the concert started, and it was unclear up to the last minute whether the Vietnamese guest of honour, Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Tien Nhan, would be coming,” explains Almuth Meyer-Zollitsch, Goethe-Institut director in Vietnam and head of the Germany Year project. “But he did come, the platform was finished, we found a new pianist, the programmes were still warm when they arrived from the printers, the tenor was on top form, and we realized that everything eventually works out fine in Vietnam.”
For one whole year Germany is celebrating in Vietnam to mark the 35th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries. Another reason is that Germany’s relations with Vietnam are more intense than with any other Southeast Asian country. In the 1960s and 1970s a whole generation of young Vietnamese people were educated in the GDR. They now hold leading positions. And the current young generation is showing interest in Germany, because it is an attractive place to study. At the moment 4,000 young Vietnamese people are learning German at Goethe-Institut. The special year’s programme, which can be found at www.deutschland-in-vietnam.de, reflects the whole spectrum of relations between the countries. Altogether there are more than 60 major events, ranging from music performances to symposiums, nationwide film festivals and exhibitions of contemporary art.
The resonance is excellent. “What really surprised me was the response of young people. They fill the opera house to capacity whenever a German conductor performs Beethoven or Mendelssohn. That would be a dream come true for concert organizers in Germany,” says Almuth Meyer-Zollitsch. “We already have several files full of press reviews. And even at the smaller events there are two or three television crews.” The organizer says she was particularly moved on one occasion. “There was a power failure that lasted the whole day just before the opening of the German Film Festival in Haiphong. The lights only came back on about half an hour before the performance was due to begin. But then the visitors poured into the cinema hall along with their whole families, everyone from three-year-olds to grannies.”
The highlights also included an event for alumni from Germany which was opened by Germany’s Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development, Dirk Niebel. The organizers were expecting about 200 participants, but more than 900 arrived. One of them was Nguyen Thien Nhan. As he often points out, the Vietnamese Minister of Education and Deputy Prime Minister has strong ties with Germany. He gained his doctorate in cybernetics in Magdeburg in 1979 and speaks fluent German. His ministerial colleagues are also regular guests at the events.
The programme has some more highlights in store for the autumn. In October, the German authors Ingo Schulze and Juli Zeh will be reading from their works in Vietnam. Afterwards, the writer Juli Zeh will travel the country from north to south and convey her impressions in a blog that can be read in Vietnamese and English in the online newspaper vietnamnet.vn and on the website of the Goethe-Institut in Vietnam. Then, in November, rehearsals will start for the project that will conclude Germany Year. Probably the most well-known contemporary German dramatist, Tankred Dorst, has written a libretto about the young Parsifal which has been set to music by Pierre Oser. It will be staged as a multilayered music, dance and theatre piece with Vietnamese actors, singers and dancers. “The piece is called Der durch das Tal geht (He who walks through the valley),” says Almuth Meyer-Zollitsch. “I already sense that the time we have left before the premiere on 14 January 2011 will seem far too short.”////
