At age 52, Quasthoff recently announced his retirement from the stage.
"After almost forty years of concert life, I've decided to withdraw because my health no longer permits me to meet the expectations I place in myself and my art," the singer said in a short press release.

The statement leaves room for speculation. Was the larynx infection he struggled with in the past year the health reason? Or was it his severe thalidomide handicap?

“He’s always [injured and unable to play] because we have sex seven to ten times a week,” model and TV presenter Melissa Satta (photo) told the Italian edition of Vanity Fair Magazine. “I'm afraid that's the reason for the strain.”

"While we have enjoyed seven very loving, loyal and happy years of marriage, after much soul-searching we have decided to separate," the statement said.  

The couple are parents to Leni, 7, Henry, 6, Johan, 5, and Lou, 2.

The model, 38, and singer, 48, began dating in 2003, got engaged in 2004 and wed in 2005. Despite reports that the split was not a done deal, it is.

What triggered the seemingly perfect couple's breakup?

The risque garment, which looks like a bra and barely-there thong joined together with a central slip, is covered in a translucent veil.

The Berlin design team, consisting of Alexandra Fischer-Roehler and Johanna Kuhl, are known for pushing the boundaries and for their headline-grabbing shows since they founded the label in 2003.

There are just four women who have managed to take the podium at the front of professional German orchestras.

German Romely Pfund conducts the State Theater Orchestra in Mecklenburg, Catherine Rückwardt from Los Angeles has been conducting the Mainz State Theater Orchestra since 2006, Australian Simone Young is the musical director of Hamburg's State Opera and American Karen Kamensek was recently appointed music director of the Hanover Opera.

The new galleries are part of a $100 million renovation of the museum. "Today we celebrate 10 years since the beginning of the project to reimagine, reinvent and rebuild the American Wing," said Morrison Heckscher, chairman on the "American Wing," during a presentation to the news media. "This is a big moment for the Met and for the American Wing."

“My health no longer allows me to live up to the high standard that I have always set for my art and myself,” he said in a statement on his Web site. “I owe a lot to this wonderful profession and leave without a trace of bitterness. On the contrary, I am looking forward to the new challenges that will now enter my life.”  

Quasthoff suffers complications from the effects of thalidomide poisoning, which left him 4 feet 3 inches tall and with vestigial legs, hands and feet, but a normal head and torso.

Though Germany is not as protective of its language as some countries – such as France, where laws prescribe its use in culture and everyday life – there are those charging that German is being improperly diluted by foreign influence.

Verein Deutsche Sprache, which has previously slammed Deutsche Telekom for using English words and this week took aim at dictionary-maker Langenscheidt for picking the word Swag as Youth Word of the Year.

Other popular destinations this year will be the 7th Berlin Biennale and the Manifesta in the Belgian city of Genk. As five years ago when Made in Germany Two got started, the show will be partnering with Hannover's Sprengel Museum, the Kestnergesellschaft, and the Kunstverein, Zechlin said. „Berlin has become the the center of contemporary art, That’s what our focus will be,“ Zechlin said.

Seligmann's goal is to overcome "entrenched stereotypes" of the kind that prevail in the United States, where Jewish life in Germany is reduced to Nazis, anti-semitism and the Holocaust, he told the Berlin-based newspaper Der Tagesspiegel.

On the cover, a child's legs protrude from a pair of clunky, brown men's shoes. The image bears a question: "Why do we have kids?"

Philosophie Magazin (Philosophy Magazine) is among the latest efforts at thrusting philosophy into the public eye. "It's a magazine that takes its questions to the marketplace, letting the public help feel them out," editor-in-chief Wolfram Eilenberger wrote in an editorial in the magazine.

The portrait of the man known as the “fearsome pope” is said to have been painted between 1511 and 1512. Two other versions have been authenticated as Raphael’s work - one which hangs today in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence and another in the National Gallery in London.

This third version was long thought to have been the work of an imitator and was auctioned to a private collector in 2007. The Städel museum bought it for less than market value in 2010 and authenticated it as Raphael’s following extensive research and a thorough restoration.

When Samuel Beckett made his directorial debut in Berlin in 1965, few knew about the Irish playwright's early connections to the country.

But a series of trips to Germany in his 20s had had a tremendous influence on the budding artist, as his posthumously discovered letters, currently being collected and published in the four-volume collection "The Letters of Samuel Beckett," reveal.

The first two volumes, which cover the years 1929 to 1956, give great insight into the effect German culture had on the future Nobel Prize winner.

The Austrian International Sex School in Vienna offers 'hands on' lessons in seduction for 1,400 euros a term, condoms included. The 'headmistress' says anyone over the age of 16 can enrol at 'the world's first college of applied sexuality'.

Students of the course are expected to stay in a co-ed dormitory block where they're expected to practice their 'homework.' By the end of their course, they are awarded a qualification.

“A wonderful performance,” enthused Johann Fink as he waited at the coat check at the end of a recent performance at the ornate Salzburg State Theater.

Such a reception in Salzburg is hardly a given despite the global popularity of the musical that was based on a true story and immortalized by the 1965 multiple Academy Award winning movie.

Their songs are usually in German, but they have also performed songs entirely or partially in other languages such as English, Spanish, French and Russian. As of 2009, they have sold an estimated 15 million records worldwide.

Rammstein's live shows are famous for their pyrotechnic performance and theatrics, earning them awards from many countries, including The United States. The band's entire catalogue is published by Universal Music Group.

The experimental film about the late German choreographer Pina Bausch – largely told through performances of her work by her dance troupe, was put up for best foreign language film earlier this year. Now it is also in the running for a documentary Oscar.

The film, which hit German cinemas in February, is a mix of dance, interview and performance on the streets of Wupperthal, home to Bausch’s troupe.

She had been involved in planning the film with Wenders, to take advantage of new 3D technology to create something new with dance and film.

The stone paintings, thought to be 15,000 years old, are being displayed at a special exhibition at the University of Tübingen’s museum.
The spots don’t seem particularly artistic at first glance.

But they are important because they represent the first time such old paintings have been found in Central Europe, although similar work has been seen in France and Spain.

In songs by Franz Liszt, Gustav Mahler, Henri Duparc and, best of all, Richard Strauss, the German tenor displayed a rare musical sensitivity combined with keen interpretive skills.

His outstanding piano accompanist was Helmut Deutsch, more of a partner than merely someone to play the notes.

"DoDeutsch!" events, held at various locations around Grounds, will include a soccer tournament; a German food cooking class; German language classes open to everyone and lectures on philosophy and pop culture.

Since 2002, Concordia has sought to recover more than 400 paintings lost at the hands of the Nazis through a forced sale in 1937. Stern himself shuttered his Düsseldorf gallery in December of that year, and fled to London before settling in Canada.

The bulk of his estate following his 1987 death was bequeathed to Concordia, McGill University in Montreal, and Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Fabio Luisi is so much in demand worldwide that he finds little time to conduct in Vienna. When the new season began this month, management promised that a new chief conductor would lead the orchestra in three years. His name is Philippe Jordan.

Anyone wishing to experience a Luisi evening in Vienna during the next two seasons better watch out: Fabio Luisi’s only appearances in Vienna during the current season are scheduled for December and the second half of May – eleven altogether.

The 57-year-old was honored for his bringing together of 'the experiences of four generations over 50 years in a dramatic, astute composition,' the jury said.

The book is set in former communist East Germany, beginning in the 1950s, and continuing until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the beginning of the 21st century.

German microbiologist and fashion designer Anke Domaske has introduced a whole new chapter in high-end fashion with her garments made from high concentration of the milk protein casein.

Domaske fashion label Mademoiselle Chi Chi is very popular among the likes of Ashlee Simpson and Mischa Barton. Contrary to what most people believe, milk garments have been around for quite some time.

However, due to their unecological modes of production, they have failed to garner attention from the masses.

It's the first time in more than three decades the award has been given to a native of Sweden. The award also comes some 20 years after a stroke severely impaired the Tranströmer's speech and left him partially paralyzed.

Born in Stockholm in 1931 to a journalist and teacher, Tranströmer began penning works in his teenage years. He celebrated his literary debut in 1954, at age 23, with a collection of poems.

Many of the images by the Norwegian have not been seen in France before and the exhibition is being hailed as one of the most original of his work to date.

Its believed he was the first photographer in the 20th century who held the camera himself and took photos of himself like people do today with their mobile phones.

Please read the story in The New York Times

For the first time around 800 historical and contemporary exhibits will illustrate the thousand-year history of the complex relations between Poland and Germany. The arrangement of the exhibition in thematic areas serves to enhance understanding of the different aspects of German-Polish neighborhood.

The Museum of Military History will open in October in Dresden, the city whose firebombing in 1945 continues to provoke feelings of victimhood and outrage among Germans.

The new institution will show two narratives: one chronological, covering German wars, and the other thematic, including subjects such as “fashion and the military” and “war and remembrance” (with a set from the Tom Cruise movie Valkyrie).