Lessons From the Opera (Vienna Day 2)

After an exciting first day in Vienna, we began our second morning a little more slowly.  We went downtown and  bummed around, looking at shops and avoiding the Mozarts.  Then we went inside the Stefansdom, the huge church downtown.  Right now, it's being renovated for acid rain damage on the facade, so the Austrians tastefully put scaffolding that had a picture of the facade on it.  (I just realized I already posted those pictures in the last entry - oops - so just scroll on down to check those out)

The inside of the church was beautiful, albeit packed with tourists.  Usually I would object to being surrounded by so many tourists, but it was freezing outside and I was grateful for the warm generated by hordes of tourists and many burning candles.  We then went shopping around town - I didn't find anything, but Zach found his new European supermodel jacket! (We did a little photoshoot in one the palace gardens, you'll see later.) 

We then decided we'd had too much of church and now we needed some state.  Good thing the Austrian parliament was open to visitors! We waited for our tour in the visitors' lobby and played with all their high-tech games and computer learning centers.  (Yes, I have the high score on the kids' quiz.)  And the tour was pretty cool, although it was kind of short. I'm sure the Austrian parliament does....things...but I think they try and keep a low profile out of the country.  Like Germany, Austria has a multiparty system where a coalition of parties must to reached to be able to "form a government".  Unsurprisingly, Austria has many similar parties as German does - Social Democratic Party, the Greens, Austrian's People's Party, Freedom Party of Austria, Alliance for the Future of Austria.  It's a two chambered parliament and we got to see where everyone meets.

My favorite part of the tour was the fact that it was bi-lingual.  Our guide would first say everything in German and then again in English.  Which was actually a pretty good way to test my knowledge of German.  Hilariously enough, not everything translates perfectly.  Our guide loved to say: "Bitte kommen Sie hinein" (Please, come on in), but she often translated it as "Just, come in" which came out a lot ruder and funnier than I think she meant it to. 

Tada! Parliament!
Done up in a Neo-Greek style to remind
us how awesome the Greeks were.

We got little neckbands and earpieces for the tour.

Emily - Secret spy.

Almost the whole wall in the main lobby was covered in
old Greek myths.

Our tour guide and check out the statues of the gods behind her.

Another big lobby.
Used for receptions and parties.

One of these things is not like other...

The (Old) House of Lords
This room isn't used anymore, but it was amazingly decorated.

They even had a little viewing box for the emperor.
He never came to visit,
 still bitter about not being absolutist anymore.

The exquisitely detailed glass ceiling.  

From the old...

To the new!
They redesigned the chamber post WWII
after a bomb destroyed this side of parliament.

All the big drama happens here now.

CAW!

The little chamber in the middle. Now used for the 2nd house.

They get the nice chairs, apparently.

On the way out, Athena stands guard.

After parliament, Jake, Helina, Emily and I called it nap time and went back to the hostel.  Rachel and Zach, intrepid as always, decided to stay in town and meet us at the opera later.  We went back, took a nap (or in my case, tried to power-read Wives and Daughters for my English class), and somehow, someone (Jake) managed not to account the time of the UBahn into our planning to get to the Opera.  So at 6:55, guess who was running through the UBahn station, past the singing Opera toilet (I wish I was making that up), to get to the Viennese Opera on time?

Lessons Learned From the Opera:

1) Figure out how long it takes the UBahn to get to the Opera

2) We are not late here at the Viennese Opera.

3) We are always well-dressed here at the Viennese Opera

4) We always check our coats here at the Viennese Opera

5) We are not late here at the Viennese Opera

6) We reserve the right to give you dirty looks if you are late here at the Viennese Opera

7) No, you don't get a program, you were late, stupid.

So despite being late, we had a great time seeing "The Magic Flute" by Mozart.  I really love Mozart's music and getting to see the Magic Flute in Vienna was pretty awesome.  But the story of The Magic Flute is weird. Like, really, really, weird.  Even though I'm 98% sure I understood everything that was going on in German, I'm not quite sure I understood what was going on plot-wise.  There's magic, a dragon, a magic flute, a prince, a princess, a dude whose a bird but catches birds as a living (what?!), a magic flute, a creepy cult, slave masters, a Queen of the Night, a magic flute, a giant temple, and Ordeals...it's weird.  Oh yeah, did I tell you the magic flute can summon animals?  Oh and a magic flute.

 "The Magic Flute was the Rocky Horror Picture Show of the 1700s." - Zach
See also, creepy cult and animal people.

Plus, I think all the operas nowadays are trying desperately to get more attendance by making everything ultra-modern and using only one or two set pieces.  This adaptation used a giant cube as the set and they just rotated and lit the pieces differently when they wanted to change setting.  Which was kind of cool, but also baffling.  When is this opera supposed to take place?  In the past? In the future?  I had the same issue with "La Traviata" where the first act was super 1920s America, but the second act was 1800s, and the third act was all modern.  It's confusing. Stop it. 

Now, even though the plot of the magic flute is totally crazy and weird, it does have some gorgeous music (thanks Mozart!).  One of the most amazing arias is the famous "Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen" ("Hell's vengeance boils in my heart") aria sung by the Queen of the Night to her daughter (thanks Mom!).  It's an aria like this one that make you feel utterly talentless. Can you sing a two octave span to a high F₆? That's what I thought.  To give you some perspective on how untalented we mere mortals are, have a video:

Yep.  I feel the need to cultivate some sort of skill to compensate my lack of singing skills right about now.

But all in all, we had a super cultural day and had a great time at the opera.  Even people who don't like opera would like "The Magic Flute", despite the cracked out plot.  I would definitely like to see some more operas, but I don't know if that's in the card for the next couple of months. So I guess I'll just have to settle for this:

The Hills Are Alive With the Sound of... Mozart Impersonators

Our first day in Vienna dawned, cool and crisp, with a free hostel breakfast waiting for us.  Tasty.

Which one of these two isn't a morning person?

Cameras and smiles at the ready

Hey there Zach!

Our intrepid group sets out on our first day!

Behold Vienna!

We set off first to see the Karlsplatz Ubahn station and the Karlskirche.  Karlsplatz is known for its gorgeous gold Jugendstil style.  This Art Nouveau style (which I love, by the way) is a common theme found in art and architecture around Vienna.  I think maybe the whole city was designed to fit my aesthetics. I desperately wanted to see inside the Karlskirche but it was 6 Euros entrance fee, so we decided that we were going to spend our money on the big museum we were going to see.  But at least now I have one (of many) excuse to go back!

At first I was a little underwhelmed.

Then I saw the other side!!

Almost everything was gilded gold or green.

And right behind the Karlsplatz was the Karlskirche!

Breathtaking!

There was an insane amount of detail on every inch of the facade.

Everything is more European with an accordion.

From there, we headed into the city to soak in the splendor of downtown and all it had to offer.  Our first stop was the Viennese Opera House.  We stopped by to get tickets for the next day's performance of Mozart's "Magic Flute".  The entire square was filled with tourists and all these people dressed up as Mozart.

Now before I left, my cousin had written to me and said "Watch our for the Mozart Impersonators!"  Yeah, whatever, I thought.  WRONG. These people (men and women) dress up as Mozart and harass you on the street to buy tickets for concerts and shows in Vienna.  They basically heckle you every second you walk around: "Do you speak English?!  You want to see a play tonight, yes?!  Do you like music?!"  It's even worse if you whip out a camera - they immediately hone in on your location and stalk you around.  Unbelievably annoying.  I practiced the tried and true "don't-make-eye-contact-and-just-keep-walking" approach, while Zach perfected his "I-only-speak-German-and-other-rare-language" approach.  Emily, meanwhile, when asked if she liked music simply said "No." and trotted away.  It was brilliant.

After securing our 10 Euro Opera tickets, Rachel, Zach, Jake, and I bought tickets for a musical in the evening.

The Viennese Opera House plus city tram

Amazing!

Then we just bummed around the downtown area, did some window shopping, drank some coffee/tea/hot chocolate, and tried to make our way to the famed Belvedere museum, home to an amazing collection of art, including Gustav Klimt's "Der Kuss" (The Kiss).

Another shot of the Opera House.
 If you look on the left side you can see a  Mozart.

Love the facade on this building and the window flowers

The first two floors of this elegant building are covered in a marble facade.
Inside is an H&M.
Who knew?

We have fun with a mirrored ceiling while buying tickets for the Opera

We found the French Embassy!

Emily photobombs my picture.
This is not the first time, nor will it be the last, I suspect.

Love the juxtaposition of old and new.

A hotel we thought was the Belvedere. Ooops.

Jake and Emily strike a pose.

More embassies on the way to the Belvedere.
We couldn't find the American one though.

After much wandering around we finally found the Belvedere!  It's an amazingly huge palace, with a upper and lower part, separated by a garden.  The main collection is in the Upper Belvedere and we started there first.

Carriage entrance to the Belvedere

Upper Belvedere!

Oh hey there Emily!

Belvedere and reflecting pool.
Too bad it was cold and gray on the day we went!

I wonder what school we all go to?

Avengers assemble!

The gardens looking down on the downtown and the Lower Belvedere

We bought our tickets and spent a good part of the day in the museum.  I loved the Upper Belvedere. There were so many amazing paintings and sculptures.  Unfortunately, you weren't allowed to take pictures of many of the artworks, so I'm relying on the wonders of the internet to show you a couple of my favorites.

Naturally, I loved "The Kiss" in real life.  It's so much bigger and brighter in real life than you see in photos! It's very moving and romantic.  It was definitely worth the price of admission to see this and other of Klimt's works.

"Der Kuss" - Gustav Klimt

"Die Lautenspielerin" - Friedrich von Amerling

"Twilight" - Carl Moll

There were also a couple of statues that were just breathtaking, but alas, the internet fails me on this score.  But as you can see, the Belvedere has a wide range of art and there is definitely going to be at least one painting you really like.

Then we went down the Lower Belvedere ready to enjoy more art.  Well...some people might call it art.

If you know me, or if you have known me for while, you will eventually get Rant #476 (I HATE MODERN ART), which is related to Rant #698 (People back in the day had talent), which nicely leads into Rant #90293 (I hate pretentious art in all its forms - poetry, literature, art).  

I'm an aesthetics person. I like art for art's sake. I'm not looking for a painting that conveys a message - it's just gotta be pretty.  I want something I can hang on my wall and say to myself "That's pretty", not "Wow, this artist captured the feeling of isolation of women in the post-modernist struggle of country reunification post-war." I really don't care.  I just like to have a pretty piece of art painted with talent and skill.

Nothing - NOTHING - in the world raises my blood pressure more than art that attempts to say something without actually being something.  You can't be thought-y with a red dot on a white canvas just because you gave it the title "Death on the Snowy Sahara, Opus 76".   That's not art and you have no talent.

Anyway, the Lower Belvedere had all this modern "art" from this dude named Curt Stenvert, who the exhibition would have you know is very famous and cool and controversial (He made art about women's rights in the 60s y'all...Oh wait, so did everyone else).  But seriously, after I saw a box painted red with a stopwatch inside of it with a small plaque declaring it was called "Time is Red", I just left the exhibit.  It was such a letdown to come from an entire palace filled with the works of the old masters, like Monet, Van Gogh, Freidrich, Klimt and end up staring a red box, which took, what, all of 10 minutes to make?  We all felt  a little cheated.

We had dinner - I think fast-food Doener Boxes (yummy) - and Rachel, Zach, Jake, and I set out to find the Raimund Theatre and our musical.  We had gotten the ultimate cheap seats for the musical "Ich war noch niemals in New York" (aka I've never been to New York), which you've probably never heard of.  It's basically a little like Mamma Mia, except instead of ABBA, you have Udo Jurgens, a famous German pop-ballad-drinking-song-writer from the 70s.  All of his biggest hits are loosely tied together in a plot whose whole basis is for someone on stage to say the line that leads into the song.

Let me just sum up "Ich war noch niemals in New York" in one word:  Sparkly.

Yep. Sparkles.

It was literally the most sparkly musical I've ever seen.  If they could put sequins on a costume, they did. And in the big finale/curtain call where they sing all the songs' refrains again, they shot off a glitter cannon.  A GLITTER CANNON!!! (Why I don't have one of these in my life is a mystery and a shame.)

Now, I went into this musical with a great deal of skepticism, despite the sparkles (I'm a girly-girl, bring on the sparkles), simply because I knew, deep in my bones, that the plot was going to be terrible.  And it was stupid.  But it was fun.  Everyone left the theater smiling and humming the tunes.  Would I see it again? Eh.  But I had a great time being there. 

And yes, I bought the Cast Recording, so if you hear me at home humming some infectious German ballad, it's probably Udo's fault.