Afterwards, I went back home to work on this stupid project I had to do. However, this evening we were able to go see a really remarkable opera. I couldn't take any photos, but there's some from the website below. Our prof paid for coffee beforehand (I guess she was afraid that people would fall asleep during). There's not than many Starbuck's here. Instead they have this place called "Einstein Coffee". The opera here gives you free wine with your ticket if you arrive early. That quelled some people's unhappiness with having to go see an opera. It was also fairly informal-- thank god.
There's a couple of big opera groups in Berlin. The one we went to was the Komischer Oper, which is known for being a little more provocative, and not so rigidly classical as others. The opera we saw was the story of Salomé, was in some New Testament (no clue) time period.
Anyway, this girl, Salomé, was the one who led to John the Baptist's death. The play was written by Oscar Wilde and music by Richard Strauss.
Basically, Salomé was a princess, and she heard about this prophet that everybody was talking about. She wanted very much to see him, and one of the royal guards (or something to that effect), was in love with her. She convinced him to let her see the prisoner. John was condemning her mother for her sins, when Salomé saw him. She immediately fell in love with him (or at least his body) and kept trying to get with him. Something along the lines of this.
"Oh John, I love your body. It's so beautiful, like ivory, I want to kiss it. "
Him refusing and talking shit about women and sin and how he doesn't want to even look at her.
"I hate your body John! You're disgusting and deformed. I love your hair. I want to touch it."
Him refusing and talking shit about Salomé's mom.
"I hate your hair John. It's gross and looks like crap. I love your mouth. I want to kiss it."
Him saying something along the lines of "Get this bitch away from me!"
In essence, John, being a holy guy, refused. When the guards refused to let him go free (her father had forbidden it), she killed the royal guard who loved him.
Then, her step-father came out of his palace, drunk, and petitioned Salomé to dance for her. Her mother spoke out against it, but was powerless. Salomé refused, until he said "I'll give you anything you want. Anything. Even half my kingdom"
So she danced.
This part was really abstract-- the entire stage started to revolve, and you saw these different scenes. None of them really made any sense, but they were about sins and violence and whatnot... All in all it was very sacrilegious and blasphemous, and mildly shocking. we figured it was supposed to represent the fact that she was doing something unholy.
She comes out, and the stage stops revolving. The step-father says "So. What do you want?" She says "I want the head of John." He's very afraid, because he thinks that John has truly seen God, and he fears for his life. He pleads and pleads, offering jewels, land, money, etc. All she wants is John's head. They said "Something terrible is going to happen" about 10.000 times by this point.
John had been saying all this crap about Salomé's mom the entire time, and so obviously she was very pleased with her daughter wanting John's head. Also, she was convinced that he was a charlatan. So, Salomé's mom went and hacked off John's head. But then she did nothing else. You assume that she realized that he was a holy guy, and that she just committed the ultimate sin etc.
Then Salomé starts caressing the head, puts it in her bag and sings a libretto, and then climbs down into his jail cell, kisses his head, and emerges. And then the play ended.
Salomé in the dress, John the Baptist as a prisoner. On the right is the royal guard who Salomé kills. On the left is a royal guard who looks like Lady Gaga. 
Salomé with a megaphone (never really figured out why she has that) Her mother in a banana yellow powersuit and her step-father in the blue.If you haven't realized this by now, this was a very modern opera.
Salomé swinging around John the Baptist's head and singing
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