| Page Views: 2,212 Last Visit to Magdeburg: November, 2005 | Viennese Opera Ball in Magdeburg by Nemorino - last update: Jan 7, 2006 |
| The Magdeburg Opera House |
One of the recurring television events in this part of the world is the live telecast, every year in February, of the Opera Ball from the State Opera House in Vienna, Austria.
I personally find these annual telecasts something of a bore because they consist mainly of celebrity-spotting (and they only show brief glimpses, at most, of the protest demonstrations out on the street), but I have started watching them again since the ex-Frankfurt mezzo-soprano Elina Garanca has joined the Vienna Opera Ensemble and gets to sing some arias and duets every year at the Opera Ball.
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| Lobby of the Magdeburg Opera House |
Evidently just about everyone in the audience at the Magdeburg premiere of Wiener Blut, by Johann Strauss Jr. (1825-1899), had seen these Opera Ball telecasts, because there was lots of laughter and applause when the curtain went up after the intermission to reveal some Magdeburg ballet dancers doing a good imitation of their Viennese counterparts in a stage set that was painted to look just like the Vienna State Opera House as seen every February on television.
Since Magdeburg is in north-eastern Germany (667 kilometers from Vienna) and used to be a Prussian garrison city, which is just about the opposite of anything Viennese, I thought this would be an unlikely place to do a Viennese operetta, but it turned out to be a fine performance, with lots of verve and even quite funny since they had pepped up the text a bit.
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All you loyal readers of the Greiz tips on my Gera page (thanks again to both of you!) may recall that the town of Greiz was immortalized, so to speak, by this operetta. Two of the main (silliest) characters are the ambassador and prime minister, respectively, of the duchy of "Reuß-Schleiz-Greiz", and the plot has to do mainly with these two clods making fools of themselves in sophisticated Vienna. At the end the ambassador's wife and mistress join forces to teach him a lesson, and they all (presumably) live happily ever after.
I've been saying that this operetta was "by" Johann Strauss Jr., but that is only partly true since this is a Pasticcio-Operetta, meaning that the 73-year-old Strauss didn't feel up to writing a whole new operetta, but he did give someone else permission to compile one from some of the waltzes and other music that he had written decades before.
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 Comments for Nemorino about Magdeburg | | | | |
deecat Tue Oct 20, 2009 17:06 UTC
The most fascinating tip is about the "Emergency Entrance"...how sad to have to have one. Did you ever go back to do the walking tour? Another excellent page, Don. | breughel Fri Sep 4, 2009 15:51 UTC
Hi Don, I looked at your comments and updates and must admit I have not enough visited Germany. | lynnehamman Thu Sep 3, 2009 14:59 UTC
I simply love that very pink green citadel building. Very unusual design. And so sad that those emergency signs were needed. Opera House is also lovely. Good page, Don. | tini58de Sun Aug 16, 2009 13:58 UTC
Hi Don - I haven't been around too much! Interesting to re-read your page, since Amelie, Heinz' youngest will start going to University in Magdeburg this October! Interesting local custom - but it is a shame that anything like this has to be initialized! |
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