A Night at the Staatsoper

I'm quite thrilled that the group which is here now arrived with more or less boundless enthusiasm to explore Vienna. Although it's not really in the job description, I love Vienna so much and want everyone else who comes here to make the most of it so I appointed myself the group's personal tour guide and middleman. I've given some tours of the first district (rather like herding cats, as Dr. Levy put it), taken smaller groups out to dinner at some of my favorite haunts, found a cab company to take someone to the airport with less than seven hour's notice, gotten information about various things, helped people book trains, and generally attempted to disperse my knowledge as much as possible. When they discovered I had plans to go to an opera at the State Opera House

this Saturday past, the majority of them wanted to come, too. Great! I was pretty surprised and excited that I would have company for the event. Except that I didn't know people were interested in attending until Monday night. And they only wanted tickets in the cheapest seated sections. Now, as the Viennese are rather fond of their performing arts, trying to procure tickets a few days before the big night (and a Saturday night at that) was a bit tricky. I woke up early Tuesday morning to go hunt around while they were in class, and lo! After four different ticket offices I was finally in possession of twelve more tickets, all in pairs so no one had to sit alone, and at an even cheaper price than they were expecting. I even discovered roundtrip boat rides down the Danube to Bratislava for €39, a far better deal than the €58 trip that is sold at the departure location for said trip, Schwedenplatz.

I was particularly eager to go to the Staatsoper on Saturday evening both because it was an opera I have long wanted to see live and seeing a performance at that house was one of the things I missed out on last summer, July/August being their off-season. However I had gone on a tour so I was aware of just how much I was missing out on. Interestingly enough, this:

Entrance Hall

 Innocent little pillar hiding off in a corner

Lovely staircase

 Ceiling details

Balcony to catch some fresh air during intermissions

built in the 1860s, was not grand enough for the public! In fact, one of the two head architects, Eduard van der Nüll, committed suicide because he was so upset with his "failure".

But the lack of Saatsoper grandness in the eyes of the Viennese did not deter me from wanting to see:

Ah! How I wish I could describe what a phenomenal performance it was! The orchestra! The voices!! Perhaps my favorite was actually Prince Gremin (Ain Anger) singing bass in Act 3. I was also quite moved by Maija Kovalevska's remarkable performance as Tatyana. Although I was admittedly confused about just which time period they were attempting to portray. Lensky and Onegin remained true to their dueling pistols, yet the ballroom of the Larin household, the set of the party in honor of Tatyana's name day, became a rather hip bar with black lights suspended from the ceiling. And I do believe there were lobsters decorating the bar, though it was a little hard to tell from where I was sitting.

(Yes, I know, that's looking away from the stage)

But all in all it was a wonderful night and spectacular performance! I might just have to go back later this week to see the live broadcast(s) of Eugene Onegin they put on a giant screen outside the Staatsoper for people to enjoy for free!