One goes to the Berlin Film Festival to see, well, films — but it’s hard to pass up the musical nightlife in a city that boasts arguably the world’s best orchestra (and a couple more good ones) plus three major opera companies with full schedules. The week I was there (February 6 through 13), we got Mozart and Ravel from the Berlin Philharmonic; Mahler from the Berliner Sinfonie-Orchester; Beethoven and Ives from the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin; Il barbiere di Siviglia, Swan Lake, Der fliegende Holländer, Macbeth, and Le nozze di Figaro at the Staatsoper; Tannhäuser, Les contes d’Hoffmann, and Die Zauberflöte at the Deutsche Oper; Carmen and Die lustige Witwe at the Komische.

The Berlin Philharmonic program was not the most enticing: Isabel Mundry’s Panorama ciego, for piano and orchestra, and Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23, both with conductor Daniel Barenboim as soloist, and Ravel’s Rapsodie espagnole, Alborada del gracioso, Pavane pour une infante défunte, and Boléro. But Barenboim divided the violins antiphonally, so that you could hear them converse; and in fact when the BPO performs in Hans Scharoun’s in-the-round Philharmonie, you can hear everything — it’s like listening to the world’s best chamber orchestra. In the Mozart, Barenboim played beautifully and at times even thoughtfully, but on the whole his passagework was more pearly than probing. The Ravel, on the other hand, was more passionate than probing, and after the first few times the orchestra’s virtuosic whisper-to-thunder swell began to sound calculated. Still, it’ll be a while before I forget the clarity and confidence with which Boléro built, with the two snare drummers seated front and center. For one two-minute stretch Barenboim simply leaned back against the podium rail and listened.

Swan Lake at the Staatsoper was a reminder that Berlin is not really a dance town. In this version by Patrice Bart, Prince Siegfried is dominated by his mother; he sees Odette as his key to freedom, but his best friend, Benno, who wants Siegfried for himself, spies and then rats on him. Rothbart, meanwhile, isn’t just the evil magician who’s enchanted Odette and the rest of the swans, he’s also the queen’s prime minister. Freudian considerations aside, this Swan Lake didn’t compare to Boston Ballet’s: the principals were undistinguished and the corps ensemble was spotty. Der fliegende Holländer the following night was another matter: in Harry Kupfer’s version the entire opera (which ran 135 minutes without intermission) is presented as Senta’s dream, so that she’s on stage throughout, and going up and down her spiral staircase Anne Schwanewilms racked up more frequent-flyer miles than the entire Berlinale press corps. Maintaining the Freudian theme, the Dutchman’s ship penetrated both her consciousness and the set. This idiosyncratic but intelligent staging benefitted from good singing and the presence of Australian conductor Simone Young (yes, a woman doing Wagner) in the pit.

Sunday afternoon Eliahu Inbal led the Berliner Sinfonie-Orchester in Mahler’s Seventh Symphony at about the same time Franz Welser-Möst and the Cleveland Orchestra were doing it in Boston. The balcony of the Konzerthaus offered a great view of the tenor horn, but the magical B-flat section of the opening movement was mundane, and the first climax of the Rondo-Finale went by so fast, the Meistersinger allusion disappeared. After a quick dinner at Lutter & Wegner, E.T.A. Hoffmann’s old hangout in the Gendarmenmarkt, it was off to Die lustige Witwe, whose famous "Lippen schweigen" waltz Mahler appears to parody in that same Rondo-Finale. This one was set on a fabulous black-marble staircase inlaid with neon rods that would go flashing up and down in a riot of color. Johannes Martin Kränzle was a commanding Danilo who doesn’t want to grow up (during the "Weiber" number, copies of Playboy come out); Ingeborg Schöpf’s Hanna was Joan Collins–gorgeous, and she kept the men scrambling by tossing Pontevedran bills in the air. The imaginative touches included the ladies removing their knickers from under their ’50s party dresses and attaching them to a clothesline; a steamy Valencienne running off with Camille at the end; and a Komische chandelier that rained more Pontevedran money on the audience during the curtain calls. It put to shame the Wendy Wasserstein production that PBS aired this past Christmas — but not the excellent semi-staged version we got from New England Light Opera the week before last.