Centennial of a Shrine

There are, of course, some Viennese who dislike opera--just as there are some who find Sachertorte unappetizing, the waltz old-fashioned and the Danube dismally dirty. But they belong to a special class of people that Austrians consider teppert, or slightly mad. Even more than Milan, Vienna is the heart and soul of opera land, the city of melodic Mozartian fantasy and thunderous Wagnerian pageantry. Every coffee house has its tables of self-appointed critics; taxi drivers know all the gossipy details of each new backstage feud. Though impoverished Austria badly needed more practical things after World War II, one of the government's first major building activities seemed quite plausible to the Viennese. It was the $10 million reconstruction of the bombed-out Vienna State Opera.

Last week Vienna celebrated the centennial of its baroque musical shrine on the Ringstrasse. One of the city's favorite visitors, Leonard Bernstein, opened the festivities with a stunning performance of Beethoven's Missa Solemnis. Next evening Karl Boehm conducted Beethoven's Fidelia, with a cast that included American Tenor Jess Thomas and Soprano Leonie Rysanek of New York's Metropolitan Opera. The week's musical highlight was undoubtedly Mozart's Don Giovanni, which was performed on the gala May night in 1869 when the Emperor Franz Josef presided over the opening of the huge sandstone operatic palace. In the pit last week was Conductor Josef Krips, who revived Don in 1945 in the grim days immediately after the war, when the company took temporary refuge in the Theater an der Wien.

Better Days. Musically, all three performances were an unabashed triumph as well as a fitting tribute to one of the world's great musical theaters. "Paris, London, St. Petersburg and Milan all claim to have the best opera houses in the world," said Giuseppe Verdi in 1874. "Yet I would concede this honor only to Vienna."

Vienna's operatic tradition is not only honorable but ancient. It dates back to the reign of music-loving Emperor Leopold I, who in 1659 tried to distract his subjects from problems of the plague and the Counter-Reformation by staging Italian opera at his court. The royal theatricals became a showcase for the works of such musical immortals as Gluck, Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven and Schubert. Toward the end of the 19th century, Composer-Conductor Gustav Mahler ushered in another Golden Age of Viennese opera by stressing dramatic stagecraft as well as musical excellence in his productions. The years that followed were a time of great names (Enrico Caruso, Maria Jeritza, Lotte Lehmann, Bruno Walter and Arturo Toscanini) and spectacular gestures. Many Viennese still remember the flamboyant tenor Jan Kiepura, who after performances serenaded his fans from the roof of a taxicab outside the stage door.

Though the Staatsoper has regained much of its prewar luster, it is no longer the unquestioned queen of the world's opera houses. Acoustically, the theater itself is a marvel. Yet even Vienna's chauvinistic critics will concede that artistic standards at New York's Met and Milan's La Scala are at least as high. More exciting days, though, may be ahead. Next year Bernstein and the Viennese stage director Otto Schenk will collaborate on a new production of Fidelio. Also scheduled are expensively mounted revivals of Verdi's Macbeth, Gluck's Iphigenie and such relatively little-known works as Smetana's Dalibor and Gottfried von Einem's Der Prozess.

As always, the Staatsoper will have its eye on the past as well as on the future. Musing about his city's place in operatic history, Viennese Music Historian Marcel Prawy said last week: "Where is there a house in which the orchestra plays from scores that carry the personal annotations of Mahler, Richard Strauss and Herbert von Karajan? Where is there a house where each stagehand and stage technician has undergone an apprenticeship under masters whose teachers themselves form an uninterrupted chain through four generations? And where else is there a house where ushers greet each lady or gentleman by saying 'Kuess" die Hand [I kiss your hand]' with a deference that dates straight back to the Imperial days?"

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.