Dazzling German concert hall takes its bow

HAMBURG: Germany late Wednesday premiered a spectacular new concert house in Hamburg to the strains of Beethoven and Wagner that has been touted as a global attraction, albeit after a cost explosion.

Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Joachim Gauck joined 2,100 guests at the inaugural concert under tight security in the grand hall of the Elbphilharmonie, which has electrified critics with its audacious design and world-class acoustics.

The three-hour-long programme met with a lengthy standing ovation.

Billed as a cultural monument ready to rival the Sydney Opera House, the building came in more than six years overdue and at 10 times the initial budget, with a cost to the venerable northern port city of 789 million euros ($829 million).

Gauck said he was "awed" by the "incredibly beautiful" architecture and its "wonderful sound" but acknowledged its turbulent beginnings.
"The Elbphilharmonie has been called a dream and a nightmare, a global star and a joke, an embarrassment and a wonder," he said.

But the enormous project´s success would come from "the magic of its contrasts".

"The Elbphilharmonie can become what many people in Hamburg hope for: the symbol of a cosmopolitan metropolis that is open to the world, and a jewel in the crown of Germany as a nation of culture."

Merkel later told NDR public television the night had been historic.

"One day we will all be very proud that something was built in our time that people will still refer to in 50 or 100 years, saying ´look, that was what happened on January 11, 2017´."

Jutting out from the city at the end of a pier on the Elbe River, the Elbphilharmonie has a boxy brick former cocoa warehouse as its base, with a breathtaking glass structure recalling frozen waves perched on top.

Sandwiched between the two levels, a public plaza protected by giant curved glass windows offers stunning views of the harbour, the spires of the charming old trade centre and Hamburg´s temperamental skies.