A day and a half completed here in Vienna, and I have completed one successful interaction entirely in German: a krainer hot dog has never been so rewarding...
Anyway, last night at about 2130 marked the end of our first concert attendance at the Vienna Konzerthaus. We saw a performance of Lieder composed by the Schumanns, the Mendelssohns, and Brahms presented by four performers: a pianist, a mezzo-soprano, a tenor, and an actress who read the correspondence of the Schumanns as Clara Schumann. The concert was performed in two acts with no applause breaks between songs until the end of the first act. Altogether, the performers were stellar and put on what was essentially a musical revue (of Lieder) that leaned more toward drama than I anticipated going into the concert.
As someone who was only able to understand the general message of about a quarter of the text at most, it was a bit of a strain to stay engaged in the performance for over two hours- a strain reflected by the seven classmates who fell asleep at one point or other. But the presumably German-speaking audience seemed to love the performance, reacting with four continuous rounds of applause. Whether or not such an audience reaction is out of the ordinary for the Viennese, I cannot confirm; if it can be compared to my own experience, then I imagine that we got to experience something quite special last night.
No comments:
Post a Comment