Vienna

Vienna is a beautiful, elegant city, especially the centre with its royal palaces and cathedrals. We stayed in a hotel that was not in one of the more elegant areas of town, around the corner from an erotic sex shop and peep show. And it didn’t have air conditioning. And it’s hot here. But it was close to the metro line and very easy to get into town by subway. That made it much more fun to get around and gave us independence. And besides, I did notice, particularly in the less elegant areas of town, that buildings are looking tired and grungy there too. Not unlike those in Budapest.

We had quite a bit of free time in Vienna to explore. Many of us decided to skip the organized bus tour of Vienna and walked through it on foot. That is for me a much more valuable way of discovering a city. You get to take in the sounds and sights and people in a much more realistic way. We walked and looked and sat in cafés and ate Sachertorte and drank fancy coffees. A little group of us had a lovely, relaxing lunch at a Hungarian restaurant after our rehearsal.

The evening of the Germany Spain soccer game, Larry and I sat in a little courtyard at a beergarten and had beer and Weißwürste while watching some of the game on the screen that was set up. We realized that Austrians were not necessarily rooting for the Germanic team! Like Canadians not wanting to be put into the same category as Americans so the Austrians are very much aware of their own identity, culture and history. We finished watching that game at the hotel.

What convinced me to go on this choir trip this time, was the concert we’d be singing in the Stefansdom. It’s the big, old cathedral in the centre of Vienna. Mozart was married here we found out, as well as many others I am sure. Vienna’s streets radiate out from it and it is a beautiful, imposing building. How could I give up an opportunity to sing in the Stefansdom? When would I ever get such an opportunity again? So here we are. Rehearsal in the early afternoon, concert in the evening and what happens to me? I have a migraine. The rehearsal was very difficult to sing. I pumped myself up with ibuprofen and Tylenol, and after a nice relaxing lunch a little group of us had, and a nap, I was feeling better for the concert. Thankfully. Unfortunately it was not one of our better concerts. A lot of people came to see it. Paid money for it. But it was not a stellar performance. It was a little strange that we were placed at the side corner. It made sense since the organ was there. It would have been difficult if we’d been far away from the organ, but it seemed hard for us singers to get the sound out past the big pillars. These also blocked the view for many in the audience. And we just didn’t sing very well. The tenors were terrible. And right behind me. One of the tenors, a choir misfit, who had been having difficulties fitting in socially and found himself in conflict with Howard Dyck, was particularly off vocally that night. To me it felt as if he was railroading the performance and at one point I thought we were headed for complete disaster and that Howard would actually have to stop us. It was really quite embarrassing. Others thought perhaps he’d been drunk. What the actual cause or intentions were I don’t know. I tried to stay out of the drama as much as I could since it mostly wasn’t ever any of my business.


So that was my debut at the Stefansdom. I still took in the atmosphere and magic of the place and appreciated being there. And I can still say that I sang there. Actually, it was cool on the first evening when we were wandering about the Stefansplatz, Mozart-clad ticket-sales-people kept trying to sell us tickets for concerts in the city. It was very cool to be telling them that we didn’t need tickets because we were singing ourselves and in the Stefansdom. They were duly impressed too.