A night at the opera

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I awoke this morning to something totally unexpected. Some of my roommates were staring out the window and, with childlike joy, exclaiming “It’s snowing!” You’re full of shit. They weren’t. It was really coming down.

None of it laid as the temperature bordered on freezing. But when it’s snowing and it’s supposed to be in the 50s, that’s a bit frustrating.

I got cleaned up and met a few of my roommates down at breakfast. One girl, Elise from Sydney, was joking how all the Aussies were staring out the window downstairs in amazement.

In no hurry to race out into the snow, I lounged around as I still tried to figure out what it is I wanted to do here. It’s a very big museum and music town. I’ve seen enough museums. But Elise and I talked about getting standing room tickets for the opera tonight.

Until then, I decided to walk around parts of the town inside the Ring Road. I took the metro out to Stephens Dom, a large cathedral in the center of town, and walked by the opera house where I would be going tonight as I approached the Hofburg palace.

The Hofburg palace is a large palace which has housed some of the most powerful Austrian rulers, including the Habsburgs. The palace is enormous, with residences, a chapel, museums, libraries, a treasury, a theater, a horse riding school and stables. I was most interested in the chapel and the riding school.

I walked around the palace grounds for a bit and eventually found the chapel. The chapel, known as the Hofkapelle or Burgkapelle, is where the famous Vienna Boys Choir performs on Sundays. There really wasn’t much to see inside but taking in a performance would be worthwhile.

Afterwards, I continued to walk around and found the horse riding school. I looked at tickets to tour the facilities but it really didn’t seem worthwhile. It would be really exciting to see a performance, though. I watched a video outside from a prior performance and was in awe as the pure white horses walked on their rear legs, with and without a rider.

After the Hofburg palace, I continued to walk around, eventually coming upon the Burg Theater and city hall. Having enough of the cold and not really excited to see anything else, I headed back on the metro for another laid back afternoon.

Tonight, Elise and I went to the opera to see La Boheme. The opera house has standing room tickets on a first come first served basis. We headed there an hour early to try and take advantage of this, as the seating was sold out (and probably expensive anyway).

When we arrived, we found a section of doors with people waiting outside. This had to be it. It wasn’t. But at least there were others in jeans. That was the best I could do. Not many backpackers pack suits.

The doors opened shortly thereafter and we found where we needed to be. There was a bit of a line but it moved quickly. The best standing room tickets (€4 each) sold out quickly but we were able to get €3 seats.

We made our way up to the nosebleed section along the right side of the stage to our standing area. When we arrived we found a couple spots right along a railing more towards the center of the theater. Two women then yelled at us for standing there. Apparently spots are marked with a scarf so people can roam around. Oops.

We found another couple spots nearby but closer to the stage. The view of the right half of the stage was blocked but for €3 at a world class opera house that’s not too bad. She marked our spots with her scarf and we roamed around.

We came back for the performance and were delighted to see they had electronic subtitles even in the standing room section so we were able to follow along. Neither of us had any clue what La Boheme was about.

The show started and after one scene change (an hour in), the lights came on, the doors opened and people started to leave. This must be intermission. But why does the screen say thanks for coming, the next performance is October 16?”. We were baffled. Not wanting to lose our spots, we hung around with a handful of others.

After about 10 minutes I walked out to see if the coat racks were empty. They were packed and so was the lobby. The show reconvened shortly thereafter.

The whole experience was really enjoyable. The music was excellent, although I didn’t recognize any of it, and the performers were world class. They received several ovations and shouts of “Bravo” throughout the show.

Our evening of hobnobbing over, we returned by public transportation to the hostel and proceeded to the bar downstairs. There we dined on goulash (nothing but the finest for Mrs. Hurst’s baby boy) and kicked back a couple drinks before heading off to bed.

I head to Budapest tomorrow.

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