Sunday, July 25, 2010

Friday 1

Kate is currently impressing everyone with her German, as we take a internet break from our Sunday travels. More on that later, though, as the blogging deficit is to be made up...

On Friday we did some window shopping after class at the Kaufhof ("buying hub", a department store) and had a Mozart-Kugel (chocolate marzipan confection) of which there will doubtless be copious numbers later at Salzburg and Wien. We proceeded to the Muenchner Stadtmuseum (City Museum) where they had an amazing exhibition of antique and bizarre musical instruments. First, the "Orchestrion", a street music-playing contraption by some nineteenth century Viennese:


Here is Kate with a rather threatening Thai drum.

I also got to revisit my horn playing youth with the various crooked models on show (technical term---a "crook" is the removable tube from the centre of a non-valved French horn which allows you to change the natural key by substituting a longer one).

We had dinner at a charming little Trattoria whose owners switched idly between Italian, German and English (even while speaking to the same people). Serving wine out of a carafe added considerably to the cool factor. I had an eggplant pizza and Kate had a vegetable calzone which was unfortunately more cheesy than desired.

On Thursday afternoon on a whim we had bought tickets to the Bayerische Staatsoper, one of the best opera companies in Germany. They were playing Così fan tutte on Friday night, but the only tickets left were ones either with no view or no seat. Naturally we picked the no seat option... more on which later. We arrived at the Nationaltheater at about 6.10, but after some toing and froing to find the Abendkasse (evening box office) we were told by one of the ushers that it was 7.10 (ten minutes late!). After frantically rushing to the door and being puzzled by how few people there were, it transpired we were in fact fifty minutes early, so the usher had been either a jerk or incompetent for some reason. It was good though that we got a chance to walk through the almost obscenely grand front halls of the opera house. Kate and I felt quite underdressed in our sneakers and T-shirts compared to the other attendees---much more formal than in Sydney. I found the busts of opera composers and conductors that they chose to include in the main hall quite puzzling. Of the composers, half were Italian (Puccini, Verdi, and ... Bellini (?!)) and the other half were German. Not only was there no Mozart (maybe no Austrians wanted, but then why the Italians?) but Beethoven was sat next to none other than Carl Maria von Weber (at which I think he would be quite offended) and the German side was rounded out by Carl Orff (ok, but...) and Werner Egk (?) (who?!). Not a great show. Anyway, the opera itself was better (although with unfortunate asynchronisation between orchestra and singers on occasion---surely this is not rocket science) and very funny, especially to someone like me who had not really concentrated when hearing it before. The German surtitles were much easier to make out than the Italian singing, which I guess shows that we have not learnt absolutely nothing. We were particularly proud, though, to spot two empty spots a level below and opposite our standing spots, which had got quite hot during the first half, so we went and took them after interval and enjoyed a great view for a fraction of the price. The only problem was the very low floor which caused pins and needles of my legs until I realised you could pull out a stool for this very purpose. Overall an excellent evening---no photos by the theater's request but I'm sure you can find some online!

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