August 4th, 2016

STRANGE SHORE: Vienna (with memories of Prague)

SUNDRY LAND: Austria

WANDERING WAY: Mugging Mozart – A Condemnation of the Wiener Mozart Orchester, and a retrospective appreciation of Don Giovanni (@ the Estates Theatre) and the Prague Music Orchestra (@ The Municipal House)

There’s a stark possibility that I ought not to write a review of the execrable performance of the Wiener Mozart Orchester (http://www.mozart.co.at) immediately after walking out at intermission; however, I haven’t much else to do this evening. I thought about going to my favorite café (Café Sperl) to partake of its singularly delicious plum schnaps, deemed Zwetschke Flüssiges Obst in these parts. A dangerous plan – in my disappointed mood, I could easily see one schnaps turning into two schnapps, and a lone schnaps could kill any number of creatures frolicking around the Vienna Woods. I’d be one dead squirrel. Moreover, I’ve been in Vienna long enough to realize that getting drunk in front of your favorite café waiter is somewhat analogous to getting drunk in front of your favorite aunt. Sure, you’ll have awkward laughs over coffee in the morning, but it’s still pretty embarrassing for everyone involved.

I fully acknowledge that it’s my fault for not doing the requisite research. I would’ve discovered that the Wiener Mozart Orchester is a circus rather than an orchestra, complete with clown costumes. It’s true: everyone in the orchestra dresses up in eighteenth-century garb, wigged out before they even begin playing.  

I probably should have turned on my heel the minute that I spotted these multicolored get-ups, but I was enchanted enough by my surroundings to give the players a shot.

The Weiner Musikverein is a remarkable space, renowned for its excellent acoustics worldwide, and I’d been wanting to attend this hall for ages. (https://www.musikverein.at) Why did the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra have to be all the way across Austria at The Salzburg Festival? Darn it! If I had any sense, I’d be joining my friend Jessamyn in Salzburg rather than hanging out in sizzling, sticky Vienna. Plus, tonight’s stupid ticket cost so much!

These little irritants made the performance a particularly bitter oyster gone bad.

Although the musicians more or less understood how to hold their bows, the conductor was such a buffoon that he didn’t comprehend the concept of sound balance, which resulted in the brass drowning out the entire string section whenever they were called upon to bleat. Blasting away these string players wasn’t a great loss, I suppose, but still… In short snippets from Don Giovanni, the baritone was serviceable, if not inspired. But the soprano – ugh, the soprano; she received such hearty applause that I wondered if the audience had gone momentarily mad… or maybe deaf? Between the baby crying, water spilling down the side balcony, tourists stage-whispering, asthmatics coughing, and shoes tapping, it’s quite possible that these music lovers didn’t even hear the soprano. Perhaps they were applauding themselves for showing such excellent taste?

It must be said that the first violinist did manage to saw her way through the second and third movements of the Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, No. 1 in B flat major, K 207, but she also mugged with cartoonish ferocity, doing a rather second-rate pantomime of Bugs Bunny’s sensitive performance in “What’s Opera, Doc?” (http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1atzuy_what-s-opera-doc_shortfilms). Also, maybe I’m nitpicking, but when did it become de rigueur to applaud between movements?

My savvy readers may ask why I bothered going to a concert off-season in the first place. Fair point. Yes, I understood that it might be folly to attend musical performances designed for hordes of summering tourists eager to re-live scenes from Amadeus.

Unlike in London, New York, and Dublin however, there isn’t any summer theatre in Prague or Vienna. What’s a devoted theatre-goer to do? Sit alone in her AirBnB with Netflix all evening? Broach the gates of some hellish discotheque? Drink away her sorrows in a piss-swilled beer garden? Seek gainful employment at a strip club? Stargaze at city skies?

Left with this gaping hole in my life, I figured that attending off-season concerts and operas couldn’t be much worse than watching the latest Hollywood blockbusters. It is Prague! It is Vienna! How bad could the summertime classical concerts be?

Actually, in Prague, not so bad. After sitting through tonight’s torment, I have new respect for the professionalism of the off-season performances in Prague. At the gorgeous Estates Theatre in Prague, a rotating company performs Don Giovanni (in its entirety) every single summer night to honor the opera’s debut at that very same hall on October 29^th, 1787…you might note that Don Giovanni debuted in the fall season. (http://www.estatestheatre.cz/dongiovanni/)

The citizens of Prague congratulate themselves for recognizing Mozart’s genius first. Now, I’m not saying that attending this performance was like going to the Met, but it was like a stripped-down version of the New York City Opera before it filed for bankruptcy. The singers playing Donna Anna and Donna Elvira were surprisingly good, actually. (See? I’m not anti-soprano or anything.) Before you hop on a plane though, I must admit that Prague’s summertime audiences were still unbelievably rude. I considered throttling the American teenager who kept talking in my opera box, but I’m trying not to become the sort of person who attacks children over matters of decorum. Even when they deserve it.

In making the best of a bad situation, namely the summer season, an eight-piece ensemble called the Prague Music Orchestra (http://praguemusic.cz/?page_id=149) plays mixed repertory -- for me, 'twas Mozart and Dvořák -- in The Municipal House (http://www.obecnidum.cz/en/), which you might recall as the same massive complex that housed the “Vital Art Nouveau 1900” exhibition. The Municipal House, a breathtaking architectural ode to Art Nouveau, boasts a vast concert hall, and the only way tourists may gain admittance to this spectacular 1200-seat space is to attend a performance.

It’s rather peculiar to listen to chamber music in a room that’s approximately half the size of a football field, but that’s precisely what 100 Japanese tourists and I set out to do that evening in Prague. Happily, I had a seat upfront so that I didn’t have to listen to echoes and crickets in the back.

The Prague Music Orchestra’s string players won’t be rivalling the Emerson String Quartet anytime soon, but they did an admirable job considering the cavernous circumstances. Wearing the plain black uniform of most classical musicians (without a wig in sight), they behaved like consummate professionals, and I must say that their interpretation of Dvořák’s “Gypsy melodies, op.55, No.4, ‘Songs My Mother Taught Me’” was rich and moving. (To listen to slightly more famous renditions, see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDGYNFXbKV0&spfreload=5 & https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tc3iicgeMcY).

As the small ensemble played Dvořák, I remembered my first evening in Prague watching the sun set over the Charles Bridge, and it occurred to me that the music accompanies the city beautifully. 

(Tip: If you can’t make it to Prague, listen to Dvořák.) Surely, such reflections wouldn’t have been prompted by cartoonish hacks? No. These were moonlighting musicians who usually play for the “Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Czech Filharmony,” and they gave a perfectly respectable performance even though they were just earning some extra cash over the summer.

Good for them; better for me.