Red Cowboy Suits and Undying Curses - at the Opera

So, as you may have surmised, the opera was gorgeous.

This place is like the throne room of classical music and opera. And it looks accordingly palatial. If you take public transport, there is even a rather dramatic build up to the Oper itself. All the way down the U-bahn tunnel you hear a rousing rendition of Strauss's Danube Waltz. There are Hollywood-style stars in the ground marked with the names and signatures of classical music greats - Bartok, Callas, Mahler, Mozart. Then you come around the corner, expecting some sort of stately musical group, and you realize the music is coming from the Opera Toilet Experience!

I haven't paid for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity yet.

The building was constructed in 1869, and there is a picture of it up on another post, so I'll just show you a peek inside. People stand around before the show drinking champagne and eating dainty hors-d'oeurves and tiny Sacher tortes. Not a single Austrian had come up to talk to me (on the bus or anywhere) until this night, when 2 ladies commented on my lovely dress. One was over 90 and told me she went to the opera as often as she could. Would such surroundings become routine over time?

So we took our seats in the fabulous hall. The show began. Act 1 seems to be consistent with most operatic plots. Guy [Don Alvaro] falls in love with girl [Leonora] and tries to get her to run away with him. Girl prevaricates because of his low social status. Her father is accidentally shot when he catches them before they elope. Her brother swears eternal curses on both of them, and the two are tragically separated.

Act 2 is one of the most bizarre things I've ever seen. Maybe someone can explain. I think it took place at a monastery; however, it involved people dressed up in RED cowboy outfits (chaps and hats included) holding a bible in one hand and slinging a pistol in the other. And they danced a cheesy, amateurish dance. How can the Viennese Philharmonic stand for this? And is this supposed to be a parody of Americans, specifically those from the south? And apparently by the end of the dance, war had been declared, and Don Alvaro had saved the brother (unaware of Alvaro's identity) from death. Curtain falls. Intermission.

Oh yeah a tiny screen in front of you translates the lyrics. It really helps because it takes forever to sing every word. Each of the subsequent war scenes moved up in time, from cannons to WW2 jets. I was hoping there would be another in which tanks ripped through the desert. After Leonora commits her life to worshiping God in a cave, we find out that Alvaro is really an Incan prince. He almost dies, and the brother finds out who he is and vows to kill Alvaro despite the earlier rescue. Alvaro ends up at the same monastery in Spain as Leonora (unbeknownst to either of them). Five years later, her brother tracks down Alvaro and challenges him to a duel that results in the brother's death. Leonora happens upon them, and her brother kills her right before he dies. Surprisingly, Alvaro does NOT then kill himself (he walked around looking like he was about to fall on his sword, but did not). Curtain falls. The end.

I loved getting to watch the orchestra pit, specifically all the cello players. By the end, I was getting a bit antsy. But maybe that's just because I'd been sitting in meetings all day. It would be great to go back, but it will be tricky because the musicians all go on vacation in July and August. Many questions remain though: Why do so many tragic love stories take place in relation to monasteries? Why did the singers take 8 curtain calls? And again, what do red-bible-totin'-gun-slingin'-cowboys have to do with any of this?