G&A: Day Eight, Sat Aug 16

SAT AUG 16

We connected at about 8am and took an Uber down near the Mozart Wohnhaus, the apartment where he had lived with his parents and sister. There was a cute little restaurant next door, we had breakfast there. Scott had cold cuts, cheese, rolls, yogurt, a soft-boiled egg, and coffee - - I had the same thing minus the yogurt. We also had a large bottle of sparkling water, natch.

We toured the museum, which was interesting but not amazing. We walked over the bridge to the Mozart Geburtshaus (where he was born) which was more of the same but had more interesting artifacts. Of course we were most interested in the set models and that kind of stagey business, like these prints of the Queen of the Night from *The Magic Flute.* I think they were from the premiere?

And here’s a production of *Don Giovanni* from the 1930s, the scene where Giovanni is brought to hell.

I was amused that the “guard” was seated in the corner paying attention to nothing but his phone.

I was on the hunt for something a little classy to give to one of my coworkers who had been very helpful when we were buying our tickets for Bayreuth last fall. The Bayreuth website was in English but still impossible for me to understand. She’s German so she was able to crack the code for me. She did the same for Salzburg, though their ticketing process was much less prohibitive. I found a gift shop and bought her a cute tea towel that says SALZBURG.

Scott wanted to wander off his own for a while and I wanted to go back to the hotel and unwind. So nice we can both get what we want.

We met up at about 4:45pm and hopped over to that same old part of town. I made us a 5:15pm reservation at L’Osteria, a restaurant in the chain that we had been to in Bayreuth, that place we loved with the huge pizzas and handsome waiters. Sadly we had nothing like our sublime experience in Bayreuth. Again they tried to get us to sit outside - - I should explain that apart from it being cooler inside (due to the AC), you’re also generally not someone smoking a cigarette. This was a bit of time travel back to the 80s, one I didn’t really enjoy.

We sat down, decided what we wanted, and waited 10-15 minutes for a waiter to come and take our order. I noticed that most of the wait staff were handsome men spending their time talking to each other, fanning themselves (with actual fans), and diligently avoiding eye contact with customers. Our waiter was younger, not as handsome, and working his butt off. We still hadn’t gotten our food at 6:10pm so I waved him over and asked if we’d be getting our food anytime soon, we had a 7pm curtain. He apologized profusely and said he’d check with the kitchen. Our pizza and salad were on the table in five minutes, with more apologies from him. We gave him a very big tip.

I saved my most special outfit for the last night: the dark grey linen suit I had first worn at Bayreuth, a light grey cotton shirt, and a Tiffany silk scarf. Which deserves its own side story…

I celebrated my fifth anniversary at Tiffany in June. I received an automated email from HR in April congratulating me on my upcoming service anniversary and inviting me to go to Tiffany.com and choose an item or a number of items up to $500. That’s $500 retail, not with my employee discount. Plus you’re not allowed to choose something for $800 and cough up the extra $300 out of pocket. It’s $500 full stop.

That might seem like a lot of money but not when we’re talking about Miss Tiffany! I’m not really one for jewelry and I already have a beautiful silver bracelet that I don’t even wear once a year. Sure, I could easily spend $500 in gifts for my mom and others but I thought this should be something for me. Initially I went to housewares, looked around for quite a while at things that were the right price and tentatively landed on a sterling silver Elsa Peretti cheese serving set.

It’s lovely but who am I kidding? I’m not serving cheese at this level. I might cut up some brie for guests but that doesn’t call for a $500 cheese serving set. I decided to table this project for another day. The next day I let my mind run free (something I do sparingly) and remembered that I had worn silk scarves every now and then when I was in my 20s and 30s. I thought I might revive this notion and found this gorgeous 3’ x 3’ silk scarf for $400:

And I finished the deed with one crystal glass for $100.

Here’s the scarf as I wore it that night, its first outing.

I’m going to ask some fancy female colleague on my team to give me a tutorial on different ways to wear a scarf. Though I predict this will be another Tiffany item that gets aired less than once a year… Speaking of Tiffany colleagues I took this picture of a woman in the audience that night to show to a colleague who is crazy nutty for Pucci. She confirmed that this was Pucci:

And this was not, this was just paisley (but also fabulous):

Our final opera was Donizetti’s *Maria Stuarda,* an adaptation of the Schiller play about Mary Queen of Scots squaring off against Queen Elizabeth I. Yes, I know they never laid eyes on each other in real life but why should we let history get in the way of a good story?

Scott and I had both seen productions recently at the Met (me) and Lyric Opera of Chicago (him) so we knew what to expect. I was excited to hear two rising American singers as the two queens: Lisette Oropesa as Mary and Kate Lindsey as Elizabeth. I’d heard them at the Met, Scott had not heard them - - I told him to expect a night of great singing.

We definitely got that but unfortunately it was in the context of a really dopey production. Director Ulrich Rasche set the opera on two enormous rotating discs.

Mary was on one, Elizabeth was on the other. They were joined by whoever was in the scene with them but even when they were in a scene together the queens never left their home turf. An imaginative director might have done something meaningful with that separation concept but instead Rasche gave us a modified Nordic Track staging: the discs were constantly spinning, meaning the singers were constantly walking. This is highly demanding music for the singers so the idea that you’d have to sing it while constantly walking, sometimes sideways or backwards, was just plain ludicrous. It didn’t add anything, it didn’t make sense, it only served to annoy me. Scott said it was the director's way of abdicating the his responsibility to create a staging that was dramatically insightful and/or meaningful.

Somehow the singers made it work! They sang beautifully while walking walking walking. Oropesa conveyed the delicacy and the fortitude of Mary, all the while singing with incisive attack, limpid legato, and fiery exactitude, whatever was required. She’s the whole package and the audience went crazy for her, especially after her interpolated high M in the finale. She came up through the Met apprentice program and is now singing leading roles there and all over - - while I’m sure that being a hit at the Met is very gratifying (they’re doing a new production of *Sonnambula* for her this coming season), it must give her a different kind of satisfaction to be the toast of the town in Salzburg or Covent Garden. I’ve got my eye on her, I hope she has a long and extraordinary career ahead of her.

Lindsey didn’t have the same degree of familiarity with the bel canto style but she sang with fervor, bit into the text with relish, and vamped up a storm. Scott thought someone might have reined her in a little - - she was giving full tilt Disney villainess with her body language. But our guess was that the director was only interested in the cast getting their steps in (as we hilariously read in an online review), he probably let them do their own thing apart from that.

I also want to mention tenor Bekhzod Davronov as the object of affection for both ladies. Oh what a lovely voice. Remember how I felt like the tenor in *Macbeth* was a parody of an Italian tenor? This guy had the best of that without going too far. He sang with taste and subtlety without holding back on the expression, always deeply Italianate in his vocalism. I would love to hear him again. I should also give a shout-out to conductor Antonello Manacorda and the hard-working Vienna Phil. They played three very different consecutive evenings, all of it right on target and with a feeling for the particular style they were playing that night. You don’t get this from the conductor, you get it from years of playing this music day in, day out. They were outstanding.

Next day...