To Float on the Wayward Wind

My review of the Wiener Staatsoper's production of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin  has been posted at:  http://passionofopera.blogspot.com/2011/09/wiener-staatsoper-review-eugene-onegin.html Reviews and other information regarding opera regularly at:   http://passionofopera.blogspot.com/

My review of the Wiener Staatsoper's production of Mozart's  Don Giovanni  has been posted at:  http://passionofopera.blogspot.com/2011/09/wiener-staatsoper-review-don-giovanni.html Reviews and other information regarding opera regularly at:   http://passionofopera.blogspot.com/

This weekend I had thought to travel to Venice, but I've decided to put that off and get done some of the prime sightseeing in Vienna. This will give me more time to organize trips abroad and make sure I have all the information I need. It will also give me confidence that I am not going to run out of time to see the magnificence of Vienna as I am touring around other parts of Europe. Not quite as impressive as the one in Krakow, but still amazing Not quite Mariazell's organ, but still big and relatively pretty Today I caught up on my sleep from the week and prepared to go out. I had thought to go to Schönbrunn today, but realizing I ought to go into town to get some lunch, I instead decided to actually, truly go through the Stephansdom and give it my time. I may still go back to take a tour up into the tower or down into the trips, but I feel like I've experienced the inside properly, now. It was quite impressive, though honestly perhaps not the most i...

This week has been a return to reality, in a way, and yet a continued dream in others. I have enjoyed being back in Vienna. I know what food I like, where to go, how to get around, and I am at least basically proficient in the language. It's also been a bit less grueling than my trip, wonderful as that was. I have an unusual schedule where my m=Mondays are completely free, on Wednesdays I have only voice lessons, and on Fridays only German. In between, I have six hours of class on Tuesdays and Thursdays. That said, it's kind of an enjoyable schedule because of the free time off it provides. In this time I have been able to take advantage of catching up on sleeping, catching up on blogging, and preparing for my time in Vienna and my classes. Classes have begun, and I am quite satisfied with them on the whole. My German professor is definitely more serious and intense than the one I had for the Intensive German classes. That said, I think she will be able to keep the class more...

From the opera blog: This review comes a bit after the fact due to my hasty departure to Prague (and on the way to Krakow and Budapest). However, I thought I would review my third opera seen in standing room at the Wiener Staatsoper, Richard Strauss'  Arabella . The production was avantgarde in some ways, and relatively standard in others. It was well produced and the singing was, for the most part, very well done. On the evening I saw the production, I found that it got better and better as it went along, after a somewhat lackluster first act. I must apologize that this review will be slightly shorter as I am also trying to blog about my travels throughout Europe; I wanted to write this review while  Arabella  was still fresh in my mind, but I did not have access to a cast list while travelling. Therefore I will do my best to reconstruct my opinions a week and a half after the fact. Conductor - Franz Welser-Möst Director - Sven-Eric Bechtolf Set Design - Rolf Gl...

IES Vienna's 3 Cities Tour was such a monumental trip for me that I thought I would write a brief epilogue with some more general thoughts and notes. I have to say that it was an exciting yet exhausting trip. The ten days after Intensive German are called the "Post-Intensive Break" - The 3 Cities Tour was the "Intensive Post-Intensive Break." Getting to bed fairly late, getting up fairly early, and walking around for 5-6 hours a day, stopping only for lunch and dinner, was a pretty intense affair, especially moving about from place to place. The bus rides were a bit of a reprieve, but being on a bus for nine hours isn't entirely restful. Now, I have to put the caveat in that each city is very different and each had beautiful, amazing things to see and experience. They were all places I found very worthwhile to visit and they would all be places I could find more things to explore if I were to return. That said, I will offer the ranking that I most liked Kr...

Roman Colosseum from the ancient Celtic, then Roman town of Aquincum Today we got up bright and early (okay... not that early...) to see remnants of two periods of history (separated by almost a thousand years). The first was the Roman period, the second, the medieval renaissance periods which founded the Buda Castle. Our first stop was to the ruins of a colosseum. Certainly this particular colosseum ruin is not as well preserved, large, or impressive as the one in Rome, but it is cool to see that even here, right where the Danube described the border of their empire, the Romans thought it necessary to put in the entertainment and culture of a colosseum (even if they were having people die in there). Apparently it was a necessary fixture in every town to keep the people happy and occupied. I also heard talk about a Colosseum in Tunisia that is apparently comparable to the one in Rome and pristinely preserved since it was under the sand for quite some time. I'd love to...