We drove from Vienna, without opera, to Salzburg, with opera. This is the off season for opera in Vienna, but the famous Salzburg Festival is in full swing. We were able to get last minute tickets to see Mozart's The Magic Flute, performed in the city of his birth. Here we cheer our good fortune pre-show outside the theater. The Magic Flute is part fairy tale, part comedy, and part morality play, with the three lead characters all wanting to do themselves in at various points during the opera. (Perhaps not ideal for children?) The version we saw was transferred to Vienna during WWI and we learned that war was bad, very bad. I agree on that point, but the libretto didn't really match. I wanted the Sun King to be all good,but in this version the Sun King recruits soldiers to go into battle! And I wanted Papageno, the bird catcher, to be covered in feathers, but here he is the family butcher. I do the director, Lydia Steier, credit for inventiveness. And yes, the staging and singing was pretty spectacular.
Here you see the opera crowd at intermission. Note fancy dresses and leiderhosen and drindl dresses.
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