A Week And Two Days

Fasting grumpiness is in full force, but I will write this blog.

My Fair Lady auf Deutsch

I saw My Fair Lady at the Volksoper. All the performances there are in German without subtitles. It is a white and red clean pristine house with a fusion traditional and modern exterior with VOLKSOPER graphically inscribed in large cropped letters across the modern section of the outside. The standing tickets, stehplatz karten, are only 1.50 Euros and we were able to sit down on the benchlike standing rows - as no one was in the second row - up in the very center back of this lovely welcoming theatre. I was sitting next to this lovely Austrian lady from Graz who explained to me that the accents were all Austrian, but very diverse in their origin - I asked her about the opening scene, which of course features "poor" accents from all over England. She had seen My Fair Lady in Germany and the accents were all German, Berlin accents etc. - very interesting. I asked her if Eliza indeed sounded bad in this production, because it wasn't very obvious to me. She said: "Oh yes!" Henry Higgins was great; Eliza was good, lovely, and lithe; and the direction was traditional and pleasant. A fine Viennese orchestra brought out the European-ness of this 1950s era American Musical - and put My Fair Lady in a new more iridescent light. They "copped" out and had Eliza attack Henry Higgins with kisses at the very end of the show - not quite as subtle as the film's ending - but the audience was filled with grade school children in for the opera and so it may have worked better for them. I had to laugh, however, during this last most serious moment. She really jumped on him.





The Volksoper.

People go to the opera here! There is a fat fat program available each month at the Tourist center downtown by the Staatsoper filled with schedules for operas at the many opera houses (from grand to chamber to experimental to everyday); plays; clubs; musicals; comedy; all sorts of exhibitions; museums; cabaret; balls - that people really go to in palaces dressed up, and on and on. It really is a magical city in this way. People honor the city and thus it fills with magic. The magic fills the opera houses and concert halls that I have been to. I can sense that people here in Vienna feel a very real honor and responsibility to live up to the traditions and beauties gifted them by their predecessors. I can almost hear their souls saying one could do nothing more than live in Vienna enjoying and honoring and teaching their children to enjoy and honor these institutions and live a worthwhile life.

We went to Verdi's Un Ballo in Maschera last night at the Staatsoper. Yet again, I magically found myself front and center of the stehplatz listening to world class singers (Ramon Vargas, the famous tenor was debuting the role of the King last night) and musicians - the conductor is fantastic, very sensitive and athletic at the same time.

On Thursday night we went to the Musikverein to hear the Wiener Symphoniker (there is also the Wiener Philharmoniker) play Brahm's 3rd Symphony; a Beethoven Concerto for Piano, Cello, and Violin; and a beautiful beautiful beautiful spiraling butterfly wing unfurling Passacaglia by Webern. The Musikverein is a temple. Gold busts hold up a frescoed ceiling in this romanesque box of beautiful noise.





The Musikverein.

I've walked so much. My right knee hurts, which is concerning. I've eaten pastries and pizza, cream puffs, streudels, pumpkin soup, potatoes and pork with zucchini sauce, bread, yogurt, lots of corn flakes (this seems to be the breakfast cereal of choice here), an avacado, cakes, little things, big things, and now spaghetti with the whole BYU class is waiting. I love you all.