London & Vienna, August/September 2006
Proms:
The BBC put on The Proms from July 14- Sept. 9 this
year at the Royal Albert Hall, the standard venue, in Kensington. We attended 4
concerts this year before heading to Vienna on 9/4. The day after our arrival
in London on 8/29 our first concert, Prom 61, featured the Pittsburgh Symphony
Orchestra conducted by Leonard Slakin, in lieu of Sir Andrew Davis who was due
for heart surgery that very day. The symphony performed Charles Ives’ Symphony
No. 2, Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor with the young sensation Lang
Lang, and a short piece by R. Strauss:Till Eulenspiegel. The following
day we heard back-to-back concerts and went for a brief dinner in between at
the Café Consort within the Royal Albert Hall: Prom 62 included Mozart’s Piano
Concerto 23 and Bruckner’s. 9th, and Prom 63 featured choral works including
Schumann’s Four Songs for double chorus This late night concert was very
strange to our ears and one we did not enjoy as much as last year’s late–night
choral concert. Then on Saturday we shared Prom 65 with Tom & Ginger Luce, another couple who divides their time between Seattle and London. We heard the
Berliner Philharmoniker with Sir Simon Rattle conducting Bruckner’s 7th
(glorious) plus Szymanowski’s Violin Concerto No. 1 with Frank Peter
Zimmermann playing violin (which Ginger, an American violinist, found
especially. interesting). Before the concert we attended a lecture entitled
“Meet the Players” where we heard Peter Riegelbauer, a double bass player, and
Jan Diesselhorst, a cellist, who are chairmen of the orchestra, speak about
choosing Sir Simon before they answered questions from the audience. We were
scheduled for one last Prom concert this year, #66 – Beethoven’s 9th
symphony played by the Philadelphia Orchestra, but it was cancelled due to a
fire in the Artists’ bar which caused the sprinkler system to be activated and
shorted out the electricity in the entire building. We got off a very slow bus
ride to be greeted by this news so we took another bus for a quiet evening at
home.
Other Concerts and Music:
While in Vienna we took advantage of the Lange Nacht der Musik on Saturday, Sept.9th hearing 2 Mozart sonatas for piano at the Sammlung alter Musikinstrumente in Heldenplatz (near the city center), a complete organ concert of Baroque music at St. Michael’s church in Michaeleplatz (near the Hofburg), and a Schostakowitsch sonata for cello and piano at the Herbert von Karajan Centre on the Ring. The Bösendofer salon near the Musikverein was packed with people, so we moved on to a concert by a soprano with piano accompaniment at the Arnold Schönberg Centre. We tried for one last concert at the University for Music and the Performing Arts in the 3rd district, but the performance let out early just as we arrived. We took the free shuttle bus most of the way home, a beautiful night to be outdoors.
Upon our return to London we heard 3 concerts with house guests Julie & Terry Cheetham. They joined us on Carmen’s birthday for Mahler’s Symphony 8 (Symphony of 1000), celebrating 60 years of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra with Daniele Gatti conducting. The London Symphony Chorus, the London Philharmonic Choir, the London Chorus, the Brighton Festival Chorus & the New London Children’s Choir sang, and the Royal Albert Hall is large enough to accommodate that huge chorus. We love the Mahler 8th, having heard it in Vienna. The next day we heard Vivaldi & Bach by candlelight at St. Martin-in-the-Fields which is undergoing an extensive 2-year refurbishment, and before the Cheethams left on Sunday, 9/17, we heard a coffee concert (coffee, sherry or juice afterwards) of Brahms’ Violin Sonata No. 2 in A Op. 100 and R. Strauss’ Violin Sonata in E flat Op. 18 played by Tasmin Little with Piers Lane on piano which was very good too.
Opera:
At the Wiener Staatsoper we
saw Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia with Antonino Siragusa as
Count Almaviva, Wolfgang Bankl as Bartolo, Silvia Tro Santafé as Rosina,
Dalibor Jenis as Figaro and Walter Fink as Basilio. On Sunday morning C got up
early and went to get last minute tickets for the Monday performance of Lohengrin
with the new cast of Peter Seiffert in the title role, his real-life wife Perta
Long as Ortrud, Peter Weber as Friedrich of Telramund, Ortrud’s husband, Petra
Maria Schnitzer as Elsa from Brabant, and Kurt Rydl as the Germen king Henry, Then
on Tuesday we saw Janácek’s Osud with Zivný, the composer,
sung by Jorma Silvasti; Míla Válková sung by Cornelia Salje, and Mílas’ mother
sung by Janina Baechle coupled with the story of gilrs who die before their
wedding day. It was Puccini’s first opera ,Le villi, with
the role of Guglielmo Wulf sung by Alberto Mastromarino; Anna, his
daughter, sung by Krassimira Stoyanova;and Roberto, Anna’s lover, sung by José
Cura. Both operas had strange sets 
and costumes.
The night before we left London we saw Faust at the Royal Opera House (Sept 18) with Piotr Beczala in the title role. Méphistophélès was sung by John Relyea, Marguerite by Angela Gheorghiu, whom we have seen there in many roles; Wagner by Robert Gleadow (a Young Artist), Valentin by Russell Braun; Siébel by Christine Rice and Marthe Schwerlein by Della Jones. It was a gorgeous production, and we heard the French singing again on the British Air radio on the flight home.
Ballet:
Besides Il barbiere, the 2 short operas, and Lohengrin, we saw the ballet Onegin.at the Wiener Staatsoper with Ivan Popov as Onegin; his friend Lenski danced by Eno Peci; who has partnered our Wiener Staatsoper ballerina friend, Michela Centin, in other productions. Tatjana was danced by Irina Tsymbal and Olga by Liudmila Trayan in her role debut. We saw our friend Michela dance.
Dancing:
Our guests are also dancers so together we attended an afternoon of Old Time Dancing near Putney Heath on 9/14. The following day we danced to a great orchestra at the Floral Tea Dance in the Royal Opera House. Unfortunately Micheal, our soon-to-be-90 year old friend, who we originally met on the train to Glyndebourne last summer, had caught the flu and could not see the four of us dance the Veleta, a pattern waltz from 1900, or the Military 2 step another sequence dance. Hopefully he will see us on Dec 15, the next tea dance when we will be in London.
Shows:
On 9/14 the Cheethams and the Delos saw Seven Brides for Seven Brothers at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in London and took a modern double-decker bus home.
London Architecture
After the Floral tea Dance we took an old Route
master double-decked bus to the end of the line, Royal Albert Hall, and walked thru
the park to Kensington Palace. There we saw a variety of displays including one
on 
Diana, Princess of Wales,
and some of her long evening dresses, another on correct attire for being
presented at court, the apartments of Princess Margaret - Lord Snowden and their
children, and the King’s apartments from the time of William and Mary when Kensington
was just a village outside London with cleaner air. The royal gowns that Julie
had wanted to see, but there was plenty to see and hear with our audio guides.
J also bought a chart of the rulers of England which we plan to attach inside a
kitchen cabinet so that we can readily refer to it.
A London architecture open house was held on Sept 16 &17
with hundreds of normally off-limits buildings open free of charge. To limit
our travel, we constrained ourselves to the Westminster section of the city,
first visiting Apsley House, the London town house-palace of the first Duke of
Wellington, at Hyde Park Corner. Then we saw to the Banqueting House of
Whitehall Palace designed by Inigo Jones and most famous for the execution of
Charles I in 1649, and the Foreign Office and India Office, a grade 1 listed Victorian
government office building with an abundance of elegant staircases and
interiors. Finally, we visited St, Mary-le-Strand church which dates back to Saxon
times (1095), but may be are older. Thomas a Becket was Rector of the parish
from the early 1150s.
Sunday was a beautiful day, and after our morning
concert at Wigmore 
hall, we bid goodbye to Julie and Terry as they left
for the coast. Nearby we toured the Home House, probably the greatest surviving
Georgian town house, with interiors designed by Robert Adam. Originally the London base of the Countess of Home, it has been carefully restored and is now a private
club. We weren’t up to another day of tromping around town, so after a brief
walk down Oxford street and headed home to enjoy our own terrace.
Friends:
In Vienna we had fine wine and food with friends Helli and
Tim bringing vintage Washington State wine to share, but this trip we had
to carefully pack it in checked luggage. We also went to Heuriger Schneider-Gössl
on Firmiangasse in Hietzing with August and Anne Tishlinger (our July
houseguests in WA state) and Evi Kuzmany, the later 2 being from the Contact
group, along with C, who had met the day before at Anne’s Hietzing home.