Mark Slater Posted December 8, 2013 Share Posted December 8, 2013 That said, I'm nominating Vienna State Opera as the platinum standard for opera houses. Here's their schedule for this month. The Vienna State Opera produces more operas each year than any other house in the world. It also has the longest season of any opera house - September to June. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DonRocks Posted December 8, 2013 Share Posted December 8, 2013 The Vienna State Opera produces more operas each year than any other house in the world. It also has the longest season of any opera house - September to June. The Vienna VolksOper ("Vienna People's Opera") also runs from September through June, and also puts out 300 performances annually (but only half as many operas). I may be wrong, but I think the Vienna State Opera is the equivalent of the Metropolitan Opera, and the Vienna People's Opera is the equivalent of the New York City Opera. The NYCO shared their space with the NY Ballet and the result was a sound stage not fit for their level of performance. Their mic-ing of the operas was something that was obvious {general ambient amplification of the entire sound stage, not mics on the individual singers} They battled for years to get a sound redesign. While the problems weren't the same, there was also a ballet "controversy" in Vienna - in 2005, the State Opera and the People's Opera merged their ballet companies into one, and that proved to be a mistake - the problem was addressed in 2010. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arts Hawk Posted December 8, 2013 Share Posted December 8, 2013 Keep in mind, Vienna is kind of a unique place - steeped in the Habsburg tradition, eschewing progress at practically any cost and is hardly the model of 21st century reality. The place in Europe for art and music is Berlin. And food is quite spectacular, not the old sausage and sauerkraut culture which is also awesome, but gets old fast if you have no choice. Berlin is an incredible metropolis. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Slater Posted December 8, 2013 Author Share Posted December 8, 2013 The Vienna State Opera is partially supported by the government - more than 50% of their budget is covered by the state subsidy. The Volks Oper produces mainly comic operas (when I lived there in college this included Carmen and Magic Flute). The State Opera produces far more operas per year than the Met. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DonRocks Posted December 8, 2013 Share Posted December 8, 2013 The State Opera produces far more operas per year than the Met. Of course. The parallel I was trying to draw (unsuccessfully ) was: TheMet is to StatOper, as NYCOpera is to VolksOper. The "standing-room" patrons at the Vienna State Opera are legendary. Sort of like the crowds at the U.S. Open Tennis Championships. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Slater Posted December 8, 2013 Author Share Posted December 8, 2013 The Volks Oper is more like the Opéra-Comique in Paris. City Opera never had close to the stature of the Met. Personally, I think the repertoire choices over the last few seasons are what did them in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DonRocks Posted December 11, 2014 Share Posted December 11, 2014 "Vienna State Opera's Music Director Resigns" by Michael Cooper and Rebecca Schmid on nytimes.com Franz Welser-Möst resigned a couple of months ago (over differences in "artistic planning and profile"), and took his 34 scheduled performances with him. This was right at the beginning of the season with 99% of all tickets already sold. Ouch! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Hersch Posted December 12, 2014 Share Posted December 12, 2014 I had attended opera performances before, but 1976 was the year that opera captured me for life. At the beginning of the year, the Wiener Staatsoper came to the Kennedy Center Opera House and put on Cosí¬ fan tutte. Pilar Lorengar was on stage and Karl Böhm was in the pit. I was entranced. That summer, La Scala, the Paris Opera, and NYC Opera did a sort of summer season, to which I had a subscription for five operas. The most memorable was La Scala's La Bohème, with a movie-star-handsome José Carreras as Rodolfo. Bohème with a really good-looking Rodolfo is a blissful spectacle, especially if he can really sing, which Carreras could. Prague also has a really extensive opera season, which they spread across three different and very grand opera houses, including the one, known nowadays in English as the Theatre of the Estates, where Mozart conducted the world premiere of Don Giovanni. The librettist, Lorenzo da Ponte, was in the audience with his friend Giacomo Casanova, a sort of real-life Don Juan, which is among my favorite fun facts. I don't know if it's quite as extensive as the season in Vienna, but I think they do at least 40 different operas per season. I hope to get there some time soon. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DonRocks Posted August 7, 2016 Share Posted August 7, 2016 In the "Don's The Only One Who Gives A Damn" category ... "Choir, Vienna Opera House Partner" by Radka Minarechová on spectator.sme.sk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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