Blogging
From Abroad

Tonight was quite a spontaneous evening! I finished with orientation at BOKU in the late afternoon and a brief reading session at the library I headed to my friend Danielle’s place to have a word with her about our Budapest trip this weekend. Well, I encountered her at the entrance of her complex and she said she was going to the opera!

I should say that there is an opera house right in our neighborhood, called the Volksoper. Tonight was a showing of the “Fiddler on the Roof”. For those who don’t know of this famous play, the time period is set in Russia in early 1900’s. It was essentially a satire about a fiddler, which is a sign for survival as the Jews were evicted by the “Tsar”. The story is centralized around a man with 5 daughters who is trying to maintain his beliefs as each daughter progressively gets a more different husband than is custom.

I got a cheap seat from a couple who was “scalping” a ticket in the entrance for 10 EUR. I was situated on the top balcony and near the stage, proving to be a somewhat undesirable location. But the price was right and I got to sit near Danielle. This photo turned out ok, I just wanted to help you visualize my position to the stage.

In the first half of the play, there was a scary part, and some pretty neat visual effects, shown here:

As my first opera since high school, I was totally blown away. It has been too long since I had seen a well-orchestrated and satisfying performance by a group of very talented individuals. It was especially nice to look down upon the orchestra, sometimes it was hard to pay attention to what was on the stage! This play was certainly better than when I last saw it high school. The harshness of the German language seemed to go better with acting (an observation from a novice opera watcher!). I look forward to seeing more operas in Vienna, if you have seen one here, or can relate, don’t be afraid to leave a friendly comment!

Bye!