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It is most likely the most famous opera house in the entire world. Maistros, divas – the best that the musical world has to offer appear on stage at the Vienna Opera house.
But Vienna hated this opera when it first opened. Peter Blaha, the senor dramatic advisor here at the Vienna Operahouse explains why.
I would say that’s a typical Viennese trait. We reject everything at first, but then after a while we get used to things. Familarity leads to love and then all hell breaks loose when things change again.
The Austrian Kaiser first staged opera extravaganzas in order to show off his power and glory. Unforunately, the old opera house was too small for his taste and he ordered that a bigger one be built.
But the Vieneese had already found a soft spot in their hearts for the old opera house so when the current opera was built the public nastly said it looked like a train station. The critism was so harsh that one of the architects committed suiside and the other became sick and died.
If they could only see Vienna came to love the opera house they built.
This was the case when the opera house was bombed on the 12th of March 1945 and those who were there reported that people stood around the opera house and cried – even those who had never been to a preformance in their life.
So before the war was over, Vienna decided to rebuilt the opera exactly as it was.
The destroyed building was easily replaced, but there are some things in an opera house that simply cannot be repaired. Like – for example – when an opera singer doens’t quite know his part. In any other opera house a couple of wrong notes might not even really be noticed. But in Vienna – the wrong note is a national disaster!
In 1976 the opera staged a prefornance of Richard Wagner’s Götterdämmerung. There was a tenor who wasn’t quite so sure of his part on that night. And somewhere during the second act the conductor began to lose his nerves AND his patience. Finally at the beginning of the third act he cried out the tenors lines from the directors pult himself: „Two, Three! Drink Gunther Drink!“
On the next day the country’s most serious newspaper carried the headline: Scandal at the Opera: Conductor sings tenor’s part.
And two years later! The famous German conductor Herbert von Karajan was here and again it was a tenor, who wasn’t too sure of his part. He starting singing a famous aria – the Troubadour that everyone knows – and it wasnt really very good so the audience started murmoring – they didnt boo – but you could hear their disapproval. The tenor heard them too – and was offended. He pulled out his costume sword threw it down on the stage in front of the director and stomped off. And all the time Karajan just calmly kept conducting through the end of the preformance. Again on the next day the headlines read: Scandel in the opera – „Tenor Throws sword and part at the Conductor“. So you see the opera really touches a nerve in our entire country. You probably won’t find that anywhere else. Its the real Austria – the true Vienna. The opera is a part of our day-to-day life here.
The opera is so important for the Viennese you better get tickets in advance. But if you don’t, you can get standing room only-tickets on the day of the preformance. But take a scarf! When you finally walk into the audatorium tie it to the railing. Thats how you reverve your spot.
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Vienna has a sweettooth, and that little tooth has inspired countless desserts. But perhaps the most famous dessert of them all is Vienna’s Sacher cake. Generations of Viennes have come to the Sacher Hotel to enjoy a cup of coffee and a slice of the Sacher cake.
You might not see him through the show windows – only cakes – but Alfred Buxbaum is always behind the scenes. He is Sacher’s head baker and describes how the exquisit composition of chocolate and aprocot was first created.
It was in 1832. Franz Sacher was a trainee in the kitchen and it just so happened that the Prince back then – Prince Metternich – gave the order to his head baker to think up a new dessert. But the chef was sick – and so the entire job was left up to the young kitchen assistant – Franz Sacher. So he experemented around in the kitchen – tried a few things – and came up with a new cake – the Sacher Torte.
Almost as soon as it was served, the Sacher cake became Vienna’s most sought after treat.
The secret recipe is locked away in a safe inside the Hotel Sacher – hidden away from every mortal being.
Of course that raises the question – how can you bake a cake when the recipe is locked away in a safe?
When I started this job, as head pastry chef, I was naturally handed the recipe. I studied it, gave it back, and since then it’s been locked again in the safe.
Unfortunately we couldn’t pry the secret recipe from Mr. Buxbaum. But he did take us on a tour through his kitchen. The famous Sacher Cake begins very simply.
We seperate the egg whites here at Sacher by hand. We tried using a machine, but our employees are faster. Then we add sugar and the mixture is whipped to a froth. Then butter is mixed together with chocolate and powered sugar. The egg yolk is whipped. These two masses are mixed together and poured into a form. Its placed in the oven, taken out of the oven, taken out of the form, allowed to cool off some, cut through in the middle. Then the cake is filled with apricote marmelade and finally glasied over with chocolate.
Of the 36 seperate steps, all but four are done by hand. A real Sacher cake is true crafstmanship. But why the fuss when the cakes could be produced by modern industrial machines?
The answer lies in the fact that Vieneese demand nothing less than the best quality and that only comes hand-made. It’s typical Viennese „quality of life“ – That’s why you find little demand in Wien for American-style cafes serving serve coffee in paper cups….
I truely prefer to drink a fine cup of coffee at a table while eating a piece of cake – cake which you can find in most coffee houses in Vienna. There’s not only the Sacher cake. Theres also Malakof cake, Linse cake, or – naturally – the Apple strudel.I think that the Vienese really charish their traditional coffee houses. Where else but in Vienna can you find a place where people really sit down, drink a cup of coffee, perhaps eat a piece of cake and then read not only one but any number of newspapers and magazines? This kind of coffee shop peace and tranquilty is hard to find anywhere else on earth.
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