[video dead; I can edit if you like] WOSU is collaborating with Washington State based Earthbound [caption id="attachment_14081" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Musikverein, Vienna"][/caption] Expeditions for a journey with music, food, scenery, more music, chocolate, more food, lotta music, palaces, monasteries and ME, from December 3 through the 13th. We'll arrive in Vienna and make our way to Salzburg and Prague. Come with us! (Come with me!) You can get all the information you need from Earthbound Expeditions (800) 723-8454 or go to earthbound expeditions dot com. Tell them I sent you. My first trip to Europe began in Vienna back in the mid 1980s. I squeezed [caption id="attachment_14067" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Hofburg, Vienna"]00000178-6a23-ddab-a97a-6a3b5a740000[/caption] into my best thrift store suit and waddled into the Volksoper-the "popular" opera house in Vienna, not caring what was on that evening. It turned out to be a local favorite, Johann Strauss Jr.'s Wiener Blut sung not in German but in a Viennese dialect understood by most of the audience. Everyone sang along, as if it were La traviata in Palermo. I had a blast but understood not one word. In fact, I turned to my box mates and said proudly "Hier ist meine erst abend im Europa" (Here is my serious evening in Vienna) and the man said, "No kidding! Howya doin'! We're from Wisconsin!". That production of Wiener Blut starred character baritone Karl Doench, who was the director of the Volksoper. Think a Viennese Don Rickles. The audience adored him. And Don Rickles nothing, Karl Doench appeared with Wilhelm Furtwangler in Salzburg and starred with Karajan in Vienna and Milan. So there. The Volksoper is up the Mariahilferstrasse (you gotta love a city that [caption id="attachment_14069" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Volksoper, Vienna-up the Mariahilferstrasse"]00000178-6a23-ddab-a97a-6a3b5a750000[/caption] names a main drag the 'Help Us, Mary" Street) which is sort of the Cleveland Avenue of Vienna. It's where the Viennese actually live, work and go to the opera. Otherwise I stayed pretty close to 1010. You know the hot zip codes? 90210 Beverly Hills? 10021 Upper East Side, New York? 1010 is the heart of Vienna, the inner stadt. Here' you'll find the Hofburg, the imperial fortress, St. Stephen's Cathedral, the Hotel Sacher, home of the famed chocolate-raspberry torte-- the Musikverein and the Vienna State Opera. 1010 is a largely pedestrian walkway and yup, those are Mozart's and Schubert's cobblestones. Me, I learned to frequent the echt-Cafe Hawelka for coffee mit schlag--it was a good place to eavesdrop on the gossip. Not that I could understand the gossip mind you, but the coffee and cake were fantastic. For people watching and a taste of nosy, spicy Vienna the Cafe Cafe Hawelka is the place to be. Mahler didn't breakfast here, but Karajan did. We'll go there for gulaschsuppe and pastry. Stick with me. [youtube svORW5a7GiU 490 344] The Theater and der Wien is a healthy walk or a nice tram ride out of [caption id="attachment_14071" align="alignright" width="125" caption="Teater and der Wien"]00000178-6a23-ddab-a97a-6a3b5a760000[/caption] 1010 toward the city walls. Here Beethoven conducted Fidelio. Here he tried to conduct the premiere of his Ninth Symphony-though the musicians were told to ignore the foundering composer. On this stage Beethoven was turned around to face an audience whose cheers he could see but not hear. Mozart conducted Le nozze di Figaro here along with the Viennese premiere of Don Giovanni. It's said that the Zerlina of the first night could not scream convincingly until Mozart hid in the wings and pinched her fanny. Then she was wonderful. Sounds like Mozart. Come with me to take a tour of this magnificent theater, still very active. In fact, Placido Domingo will be there while we are in Vienna, rehearsing Daniel Catan's new opera Il postino-in which he plays the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda (don't you love opera?) Come see the Theater an der Wien. Maybe somebody will pinch your fanny. [youtube Eu7vKYjxWOA 490 344] P.S. About Domingo's rehearsals during our stay in Vienna. I've been known to crash rehearsals. Don't tell. Stick with me. I'm Boston Irish and we do love our wakes and funerals. Let's go visit the graves of Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Johann Strauss and Hugo Wolf. We can head a few miles southeast of 1010 to the Zentral Friedhof. Mozart has a monument here. We don't know the exact location of his grave. Maria Theresa we know (in the Hofburg). We also know the Empress did not approve of Papa Mozart carting his children all over Europe to "perform like trained dogs." Don't mess with the Empress. [youtube jAEjafQnleg&feature=related 490 344] P.S. to the Zentral Friedhof. Here's the grave of one of my favorites, [caption id="attachment_14073" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Lotte Lehmann's grave ZentralFriedhof, Vienna"]00000178-6a23-ddab-a97a-6a3b5a780000[/caption] soprano Lotte Lehmann (1888-1976). Many great singers are here who made their careers in Vienna: Schubert's friend Michael Vogl, Anton Dermota, Erna Berger, Max Lorenz and Leonie Rysanek among them. We'll visit them, too. The Hofburg is the center of the center. The imperial fortress, home of royalty was the headquarters for the far reaching Austro-Hungarian Empire. Haydn sang here as a boy. The child Mozart was a guest. Schubert was a choir boy. Hugo von Hofmansthal passed by every day on the way to his favorite cafe, where he sat down to write Der Rosenkavalier for Richard Strauss. The Hofburg is meant to be forbidding and very, very grand. The imperial library-seldom opened to the public was one of the great sights of my life (I snuck in. Stick with me). How is your church choir? Lovely, I'm sure. At the Hofburg, the choir at the 9.15 Sunday mass is-hello-the famed Wiener Sangerknaben--the Vienna Choir Boys [youtube mw1YpFgIUvc&feature=related 490 344] If I can sneak us into a library, I can probably sneak us into mass, too. [caption id="attachment_14079" align="alignright" width="144" caption="The library-Hofburg"]00000178-6a23-ddab-a97a-6a3b5a790000[/caption] Call me up if you want to know more. Better yet, call Earthbound Expeditions--1-800-723-8454. The trip is December 3-13: Vienna, Salzburg, Bohemia and Prague. And watch this space. Salzburg next! --Christopher Purdy P.S. I invited my wife on the trip. She ran to the phone and began calling her girlfriends. "Tell Tom/Dick/Harry/Anton to go on this trip with Christopher. We'll get rid of them all for two weeks!"  She's not coming. I hope YOU are!
