"Opera and cycling in Zürich" Zürich by Nemorino

Zürich Travel Guide: 2,393 reviews and 5,421 photos

The Opera House on Lake Zürich

Zürich is the largest city in Switzerland ("Downtown Switzerland" they call it in their advertising), and is always an invigorating place to visit. I used to come over sometimes when I was a student in Bern, which was quite a long time ago.

I started this Zürich page in 2005. After my two most recent visits in February and June 2010 I have added a number of new tips, plus various updates.

On my next visit to Zürich I want to take a bicycle tour of the city with an organization called Zürich by Bike, whose website was the source of one of my previous mottos on VirtualTourist.

On the Zürich by Bike website they say:

"Mobility on bicycles instead of motorised vehicles contributes to keeping a high standard of living in a city, as it helps to lower unhealthy air-pollution. Apart from the immediate environment, the climate is also being protected, because there are no greenhouse gases emitted as with motorised traffic. Additionally, the bicycle is a space-saving means of transport. From the perspective of cyclists, there is hardly any need for asphalt pavements covering the urban area.

Last but not least, cycling contributes to individual fitness: regular physical activity lowers the risk of coronary problems, the major cause of death in our society.

A cycling society is healthier and lives in a more intact environment than a highly motorised one -- we find this worth supporting and promoting."

Thanks to VT member Marmotte1 for providing the link to Zürich by Bike.

The Zürich Opera House

I have seen four operas in Zürich thus far. The first was Maria Stuarda, by Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848), a lovely opera which I have already described on my Wiesbaden page.

The Zürich production that I saw was in the news for weeks beforehand because the intended star, Edita Gruberova, refused to perform and in fact held a news conference in which she said she would never again perform at the Zürich Opera. This was because her daughter, a dancer, had been injured in a stage accident in Zürich, and she blamed the Zürich Opera for negligence.

Gruberova really is the greatest (I once saw her in Bellini's I puritani in Munich, and I'm listening to her sing Maria Stuarda on the CD-player as I write this), but I was also quite satisfied with her replacement, the young Spanish soprano AngeIes Blancas, who gave her own touch to the role and was warmly applauded by the Zürich audience.

In the Zürich Opera House

The second opera I saw in Zürich was Fierrabras by Franz Schubert (1797-1828), in a brilliant production by stage director Claus Guth.

This is an opera which is very seldom performed -- up to now there have been only four productions of it altogether, two of which I have seen. The Frankfurt production was musically excellent but did not succeed in making much sense of the muddled storyline. But since I had seen it several times in Frankfurt I was already acquainted with it and was well prepared to appreciate the brilliance of Claus Guth's staging in Zürich.

He set it not in the 9th but in the 19th century in Schubert's living room, with an actor playing Schubert and a huge piano hanging in the middle of the stage. Schubert was writing the opera as it went along, and each time a new character appeared, he or she was blindfolded. Schubert removed the blindfolds and set the characters in motion, and they soon got out of his control, especially the two rival kings, who scornfully rejected Schubert just as the composer's father had done in real life.

In February 2010 I went to Zürich again to see a third opera, Elektra by Richard Strauss (1864-1949). This is a short opera (no intermission) with a huge orchestra and huge violent emotions requiring three strong women with huge voices to bring them across. I have seen Elektra numerous times in Frankfurt (two different productions in different decades), Saarbrücken, Nürnberg and Stuttgart, and now in Zürich with Eva Johansson as the vengeful Elektra and Emily Magee as her infuriatingly normal sister Chrysothemis. (And Agnes Baltsa as their mother Klytämnestra, who gets what's coming to her at the end.)

On my most recent visit to Zürich In June 2010 I saw the opera Der ferne Klang (The distant sound) by Franz Schreker (1878-1934). I have written a General Tip about Schreker and some of his contemporaries, entitled The lost generation of opera composers.

The composer Richard Wagner lived in Zürich from 1849 to 1858. This was not exactly voluntary, since he was facing prosecution in Germany for his part in trying to organize the short-lived Dresden Rebellion of 1849. But when he and his wife got to Zürich they were taken in and befriended by a wealthy couple named Otto and Mathilde Wesendonck, who fed and housed them and gave Wagner the leisure he needed to go on composing.

Wagner, true to form, fell in love with Mathilde Wesendonck. To get an idea of how he felt about her, listen to the opera Tristan und Isolde, which he wrote with her in mind. In a letter to her when he finished it, he said that he thought it would banned, and that a good performance of it would drive people crazy.

Well, I've seen several good performances of it lately (in Frankfurt am Main and Copenhagen), and I don't think it has driven me crazy (no crazier than I was before, in any case), but I must admit the music keeps going around in my head at odd times, such as when I am cycling home at night after seeing some other opera entirely. Tristan und Isolde is said to be the most advanced music Wagner ever wrote, advanced meaning atonal, foreshadowing the "modern" music of the 20th and 21st centuries.

The Wesendoncks' lovely hilltop villa is now a museum, but not about Wagner -- I've made a Zürich Things to Do tip about it.

Last visit to Zürich: Jun 2010
Intro Updated Jul 30, 2011
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Comments (68)

Regina1965 May 16, 2012 at 2:46 PM Report Abuse

I don´t know why I haven´t seen this page before. 45 museums, my kind of city :)
BruceDunning Dec 13, 2011 at 10:10 AM Report Abuse

This is a place I have not been to for 25 years and remember little, but your tips brought back some memory. You did a nice job of describing museums, and of course opera
balhannah Nov 7, 2011 at 10:11 PM Report Abuse

From your tips, there sounds to be plenty to see and do in Zurich.
There are plenty of interesting museums that I wouldn't mind seeing!
I enjoyed reading about all the different forms of transport in one city!
Nice page!
breughel Oct 28, 2011 at 12:58 PM Report Abuse

I continue my visit. (remember my mail of 9/10 on that bad Monday effect).

Hello Don, fortunately we can find good époisses cheese here at supermarket Colruyt. I have just been eating some but carefully washed hands after that. Bourgogne wines even ordinary are overpriced.
I came back on your Zürich page. That hotel must have been funny (afterwards). My only trip to Zurich was in 1968 to give a conference for some coating chemists. Difficult to imagine that there is now a red district. My best souvenir was their "Sahne" the best crème fraîche I ever tasted.
picek Dec 20, 2010 at 8:41 AM Report Abuse

Great page with most helpful (and updated) tips on public transport so diverse. Well, I hope it will be a lot of snow out on the streets when we're planning to visit (but not when we'll be driving there).
kris-t Nov 26, 2010 at 4:14 AM Report Abuse

Thank you! I still have so many ideas about Moscow and Russia pages upgrades... And Paris page is not done yet... Zurich, another place I hope to see...
unaS Oct 17, 2010 at 2:34 PM Report Abuse

I don't know where these glass houses are appropriate! Here there are one or two and they are impossible to cool off in the long summers. the Panorama-Weg does look nice! Banking secrecy isn't going to effect me LOL but cheese! Ahhhh
greekcypriot Sep 5, 2010 at 5:36 AM Report Abuse

An excellent guide and beautiful photos. Good work Don.
slothtraveller Sep 4, 2010 at 9:03 AM Report Abuse

A very comprehensive view of the city's museums. What a lot of choice! I wouldn't know where to start.
alza Jul 26, 2010 at 10:22 AM Report Abuse

Hi Don, Excellent page, very useful. Thanks and happy cycling!