Day 052: Standing room only, La Bohème
36yearsago.com
Vienna 1971—A Student Journal
A year of music, study, travel, sightseeing &
friends.
Day
52 — Standing room only,
La Bohème
23-September-1971
(Thur.)
TRANSCRIPT
Busy day—too busy, except with music.
Went to the opera again (becoming a fanatic)—standing
room, and saw “La
Bohème.” It was a beautiful
performance—singing, music, scenery—our standing
[room] place was excellent. This has been the most
enjoyable opera so far—it’s because of all the
beautiful arias and themes, which add so much emotion
to the typical (man-woman-falling-in-love) theme.
Really good.
REFLECTIONS
La
Bohème. If you’re
only going to see one opera in your life, make
it La
Bohème by Giacomo
Puccini. The opera is in Italian and was first
performed in 1896. A love story, the opera's
memorable arias and melodies, famous crowd scene, and
tragic ending captures the hearts of all who attend.
It is a great opera. You will enjoy it.
Standing
room only. My second
experience with standing room. Standing room allowed
me to see many operas in Vienna—it is unbelievable
experience (for the young at heart, and students) at
an incredible price of 10s, or about $1. This price
enabled us students to be able to afford to see
operas regularly.
Standing room required going early to wait in line
and then scramble up the stairs to the “heavens of
the opera house” (err, way up there), and then
standing/sitting at specified locations of the top
two tiers of the opera house. It's a unique and fun
experience (when young).
Good friend, Mike. Although I
don’t write about it a lot in the journal, one of my
good friends in Vienna was an organ student named
Mike. From what I remember, Mike was the main
organizer of telling us students what concerts were
up and coming, and he was the one who introduced us
to standing room at the Vienna Staatsoper. I wish I
could have had a video of the experience. I wonder
how many “less” concerts I would have seen if Mike
wasn’t one of my friends. Thanks Mike.
I wonder what standing room is like today.
Great way to end the day.
John
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