The steeper the mountain, the harder the climb, the better the view, people say. What they don’t tell you is that it’s not only the view, but also the sound that can be worth the climb. The moment we stepped into the Vienna State Opera after our heroic climb up the mountain of riddles erected by the Vienna State Theaters, we heard the most beautiful music I’ve heard in a long time. No, it was not the angels in heaven celebrating our arrival, but the brass section of the stage orchestra of the Vienna State Opera, very apparently celebrating our arrival. And man, was that loud. But it was good noise. It was the way noise should be. And as it was decidedly too loud to talk to my friend, I looked around only to find out that opera characters none of which I could name were walking around us ordinary mortals. This was like Disney world for opera lovers and I began to wonder if I was in heaven after all.
First on our list of things we absolutely had to see were the costumes. Best of all, you could even try on some of the costumes, wigs and hats that were on display. While I am not particularly fond of putting on other people’s clothes, I would have loved to try on one of the hats. However, ever since our kindergarten teacher made us swap hats three decades ago and my whole kindergarten group came down with lice, I have steered clear of other people’s headgear. In fact, when I so much as thought of trying on one of the hats I expected my mother to rush into the opera with an exasperated look on her face, force me to undress and put my clothes in the freezer. Thus, I had to resign myself to looking at the costumes, or rather, to running my fingers over them with a longing look on my face. Neither my friend nor I have any knowledge about costume making or fashion (we just buy whatever the fashion industry wants us to buy that year), but that did not keep us from pretending to be all knowledgeable about the quality of the costumes. Our unanimous verdict was that while they were beautiful and of superior making, it must be impossible to sing in them and difficult to move around because they were exceedingly heavy. Add to that the heat from the stage lights and it was a miracle that dehydration was not the leading cause of death among opera singers.
Next on the agenda was a rehearsal of the stage orchestra of the Vienna State Opera. Unfortunately, this turned out to be a lie, and what we got to see instead was the least likable conductor I’ve ever met and the emotional torture of two teenagers. If you want to know why I found the conductor so horrible, I’ll just say that if arrogance hurt, he’d have to spend most of his life on painkillers. Add to that the fact that he’s a person who makes jokes so unfunny that my body has the exact same reaction to them as it does to fingernails on a blackboard. Every time I cringed with embarrassment, he pointed out that this was an inside joke and then smugly laughed about his own hilariousness. If he was also responsible for the choice of repertoire, he’s beyond help. The repertoire we got to hear was all taken from a series of children’s concerts and among other pieces included ‘Peter and the Wolf’. Needless to say, our group of adults was less than enthusiastic when he wanted us to engage in a guessing game that included questions as difficult as ‘Can you name the protagonists of Peter and the Wolf?’ When conductor guy saw that the adults found him somewhat less than funny and there were no children, he chose a different approach and repeatedly asked two teenagers who were unlucky enough to stand in the first row to match the animals in the story with the instruments in the orchestra. I know that teenagers can be difficult, but no teenager deserves this kind of punishment. I would not be surprised if those two never set foot in the opera again. And just when I believed it could not get any worse, crappy conductor addressed the audience with a heartwarming speech. ‘As you might have noticed, we are not really rehearsing here’, he said, ‘because who would need to practice that stuff?’ He got his answer a second later, when the orchestra started playing and completely fell apart a second later because different musicians started playing different pieces. ‘Of course, this worked perfectly the other time’, conductor guy said. I decided I’d had enough, nodded to my friend and off we went.
I must still have seemed pretty aggressive when I went to check out one of the box seats and scared a whole family. Honestly, I don’t know why they got so very upset when we ventured into the box they occupied to see if those box seats were really worth their money. After the family had understood that we were not going to throw them out and that I did not pose any physical threat to them, they invited us to sit with them, which my friend and I had to decline. We are Austrians. We don’t sit with strangers. Afterwards, we looked at some sheet music from the music archive, not because I find sheet music you are not allowed to touch because it might fall apart in your hands so interesting, but because the archive guy is a real piece of work. For reasons unknown, certain people are tremendously fascinated by their work and can talk about it endlessly, and archive guy is one of those. I really wanted to ask him a question but had to admit to myself that there was absolutely nothing I wanted to know about the sheet music, but my friend stepped in and asked him about what a particular word meant. And instead of just telling us that the word meant that a certain part would be skipped, he took us on a philosophical journey that started with the Big Bang and ended with his soul coming to terms with the fact that sheet music had to be adapted every now and then. Never have I been more fascinated by a person fretting about absolutely nothing.
By the time we went down to the main stage, I must have become a bid delusional because I could have sworn I saw Ildikó Raimondi in a corner taking a selfie. ‘Was that Ildikó Raimondy taking a selfie?’, my friend asked. If this was Disney World, we had just witnessed the equivalent of Mickey Mouse taking its giant head off and revealing that it was nothing but an ordinary human. A few seconds later, the stage restored all my illusions because each and every special effect (apart from the fire, that would come later) was on. There was a skeleton that periodically rose from the dead only to sink back to its grave after it had had a good laugh at the spectators. There was a hole in the ground that emitted foam and a smoke machine that I tried to avoid at all costs because I was wearing a new set of pants and did not want them to get smelly. Also, there was an array of props, which included a big brain (Parsifal), an oversized chunk of cheese (Falstaff) and some plastic food on a plastic plate (Manon). The stage was also the place where all the opera characters hung out, but mainly among themselves. They did pose for the occasional picture with selected visitors, but on the whole, socializing with ordinary mortals was not their strongest suit. However, I do have to point out that I only needed to find something to complain about because it was getting late and the plastic food had reminded me that I was getting hungry. But apart from getting tired and hungry, I was also getting extremely cheeky.
When it became time to take our seats for the final show, I persuaded my friend to just take one of the expensive seats and to pretend that we had not noticed that the seats were pre-assigned and that we were supposed to be at the very back. And while I sat down and put on my innocent face, my friend fell in love with the new subtitle system, which was, as we would be told a few minutes later, the newest and best in the world. The show started with a man whose name I didn’t remember but who my friend believed to be called Thomas floating down in a huge bird cage, saying a few kind words, and then being swallowed by the ground. This made me extremely jealous because it’s how I wish to leave this world when my time comes. I just want to stand there and be swallowed by the ground. Next came the answer to my question as to why I had seen so many firemen behind the stage (fire and pyrotechnics), a light show that caused my field of vision to be afloat with bright dots for minutes afterwards and some very embarrassed looking technicians who showed the audience how to piece and glue together the floor for the ballet dancers using duct tape and a giant felt slipper. There was also some singing and I was disappointed because the programme did not tell us what we were going to hear. ‘Maybe we need to guess again, just like before’, my friend said helpfully. She’s not only one of those people who believe that the glass is half full, but she will also convince you that the fact that the glass is only half full adds to the flavor of the liquid. I am going to miss her very much in the coming year.
I once had a group of friends in hysterics when I told them that I thought mountains were completely useless (and yes, I do know that I live in a country 70% of which is covered in mountains). However, I am now ready to admit every now and then it I might be a good idea to at least climb a metaphorical mountain so that you can enjoy the view from the top. And as for the view I got that day at the Vienna State Opera: it was just spectacular and worth every moment of the climb.
