The Opera

Everyone said, "You can't go to Vienna and not visit the state opera."

Of course you could, if opera isn't your thing then don't go but it is mine. We hadn't booked any tickets and couldn't decide if we thought it was worth the €68 ticket price the tourist office had with 'interesting seats'

"You would be in this box here. When you sit down you can't see any of the stage but if you stand up you get an excellent view of the orchestra and if you stand up and lean over a bit you can see most of the stage." 

The cheapest €134 from the box office somehow didn't appeal either.

There were young men everywhere, dressed as Mozart trying to sell tickets to 'the concert tonight', as if there was only one in the whole of Vienna. Classical music is everywhere. There are Beethoven, Strauss, Haydn, Mozart concerts and concert 'light' programmes that would be no more challenging than radio 2 on a Friday night. There are harpists, string quartets and amazing trumpeters busking on street corners. The Vienna Boys choir just casually sings mass on a Sunday (and before you ask, I did go and no, I could never get my choir to sing like that)

But to experience the opera seemed the most important to me.

A little known fact is that they sell over 500 standing room tickets, which cost €3-4 and they go on sale about two hours before the show. You can't wear shorts (even to buy the tickets) but jeans, trainers and general scruffiness is allowed for people who are willing to stand. You have to go in the back door to buy tickets from the special box office. At the front of the opera house people are dressed in black tie suits, kilts, evening gowns, fur stoles and drip with diamonds.

The opera was Wagner's Lohengrin. If you know about opera then you will already be chuckling at the challenge we set ourselves. This opera is part of the ring cycle, like Lord of the Rings without the Awk battles, but twice as long lasting, in some cases, up to forty days. Loengrun lasts for four hours (with two short breaks).

It wasn't that difficult, though. The standing area is on steps with leaning rails. The libretto (words, in English or German) appear on a small screen in front of you and although it starts out a bit of a squash people leave as soon as they think they have done enough to say that they've been to the opera. The view is perfect. You can see everything.

The orchestra were perfect apart from one small slip from a French horn at the beginning, which resulted in frantic turning of his instrument to get the water out. We really could see everything. The LSH was particularly impressed with the harp-hole.

Wagner writes wonderful music but struggles to get to the point with the story.

I was worried that I had inadvertently tortured the LSH.

"Oh no," he said, "it was really powerful but if it were a film they'd only be able to make about 20 minutes of it." 

The story reminded me of when I was 11 and saw Grease at the cinema. Everyone wanted to be Sandy and would enviously  say, "Oh Julia, you could so be Sandy," but I preferred Rizzo. What is the point of a virtuous woman in a white dress who doesn't make any decisions for herself? Much better to be the one in the red dress who at least gets to sleep with her husband before he declares that he is a Knights Templar and gets a huge golden horn and ring before getting dragged off by a swan.

Although it could have been shorter the bargain hunter in me can't help but be excited at top-class entertainment at €1 an hour.