Europe Adventure part 1 - Vienna

Buon anno, amici! (Happy New Year, friends - your new Italian phrase of the week)
I'm sorry I haven't posted anything on here in months, and I guess I have no excuse...
Anyway, I promised that I would keep you informed about our grand opera adventure in Europe this fall, and I'll start now. It was just my mom, her parents and me - no brothers or sisters this time.
   The first place we visited was Vienna, Austria, the city of music. We toured the treasury of the Hofburg palace, home to the Hapsburg royal family; and traipsed around the Schönbrunn Palace, their summer home. Marie Antoinette grew up at the Schönbrunn. Just looking at the extensive grounds and extravagant palace, it's easy to see why she created Versailles after she married Louis XVI.

Overlooking the Schönbrunn Palace

    We also took a boat tour of some random river outside of Vienna. There is a piece of classical music named after it... what was its name? (I'm teasing you, aren't I?) Oh right - the Beautiful Green Danube! Wait... what do you mean, it isn't green! Of course it's green! No matter what Johann Strauss called his famous waltz, the Danube river is actually green.

A neat castle on the banks of the "Beautiful Green Danube"

   This is a photo I took on the boat. It was incredibly hot that day, and the boat was packed full of people.We had to stand up the whole way, but the Danube was nice. Some of these castles are older than you'd think - at one point, we saw the ruins of a castle where Richard the Lionhearted was imprisoned in the year 1192
   We also toured the Vienna Staatsoper, and even though we did not get to see an actual performance, we did get to see some of the rooms that are normally closed off. The German word Staatsoper pretty much means "state opera". The picture below shows the opera house from the side, with a fountain in the center. The arched walkway to the far right runs past the front entrance and the box office.

Vienna Staatsoper

Although we did not get to see an opera at the Staatsoper, we did get to see one at the Vienna Volksoper! (Literally "the people's opera".) This was my first opera in a real theater, not the school auditorium from Die Zauberflöte rehearsals. Well, okay, Franz Lehar's Die Lustige Witwe is an operetta, not a true opera.
   The difference is that an operetta is shorter, often in German, and an opera is longer, mainly in Italian, French or German. The main difference is the dialogue - in an opera, the performers speak in a sort of musical tone, with the orchestra or a harpsichord accompanying them. In an operetta, the singers just talk, with no background accompaniment. Operas are mostly about the music, and operettas are mostly about the dialogue, with hit tunes in between spoken lines.
   Okay, you don't want to hear me blather on all day about operas and operettas, so back to Die Lustige Witwe. All the singers were local, and they did a fantastic job. The soprano playing the character of Hanna Glawari (GLAH-vah-ree) had a powerful voice with a metallic quality. When she sang her show-stopping aria, the Vilja Lied, it took my breath away; she did such a wonderful job.

   Above is a link to my favorite recording of this aria, with Kathleen Battle singing. It has quite a beautiful melody to it, about one minute through the piece. The aria itself is about a woodmaiden, in other words, a fairy, named Vilja. One day a young hunter sees her and falls head-over-heels in love. They end up kissing passionately. However, Vilja is not an earthly being, so she disappears immediately after the kiss. The hunter is left begging her to come back and be his true love.
   This is not part of the operetta's plot; Hanna Glawari sings it at a party as a folk song.
 
   Well, this concludes part 1 of my Europe Adventure posts. Next up is Prague, one of my favorite cities we visited. We saw an opera there as well. A last thing I want to mention is that all of the photos I am posting from Europe are my own.
   One piece of opera news - the Metropolitan Opera's new production of L'Elisir D'Amore is going to be on TV tomorrow night at 9 pm. Anna Netrebko and Matthew Polenzani are starring as the two lovers. I will certainly be watching, and I promise to write about it!