The Vienna Opera House, c. 1900
"When the Opera House was opened in 1869, it was greeted with paeans of praise. Never had there anywhere been seen such sumptuous fittings, such magnificence of decoration, such air…
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From Vienna and the Viennese, by Maria Hornor Lansdale, 1902.
The Albrechtgasse, which skirts the side of the Hofgarten, leads back to the Ring, directly opposite the Schiller Platz and the great Academy of Fine Arts. Attached to the latter are schools of painting, sculpture and architecture. The facade has gilded niches, in which stand terra cotta figures representing the heroes and goddesses of Olympia, the whole forming a remarkably poor background for the bronze statue of Schiller, which rises in the centre of the Platz. Were this but of marble, instead of bronze, it would be much more effective.
The veneration shown by Germany for her literary heroes is altogether admirable. No fewer than forty statues of Schiller and Goethe are to be found on German soil. How many monuments, it may be asked, has France erected to Moliere or Corneille ?
A little beyond the Academy is the Opera House. As early as the reign of the Emperor Leopold I. (1657-1705) the opera was performed at Vienna with great magnificence. One hundred thousand florins were expended upon the production of Sesti's "Il Pomo d'Oro" alone.
In this opera the scene was changed twenty-three times, and there were the same number of combats. In the ninth scene of the first act, Paris was discovered displaying to Juno a glittering galaxy of diamonds: on the right, two genii were bearing away the figure of Momus, while on the left, Minerva, completely armed, stood poised upon a rainbow. The final scene represented Olympus above the clouds, and Jupiter, from his throne, informing the assembled goddesses that the golden apple could belong to none other than to the Emperor's bride (his second wife, Claudia of Tyrol), as she combined the stately dignity of Juno, with the virtue and wit of Minerva and the beauty of Venus.
Leopold was passionately fond of music, and. although he possessed a fully developed "Habsburg lip," he himself played very well on the flute and also on the spinet. The Empress Claudia shared this taste, and her musical proficiency was one reason of her great influence over her husband. Sometimes she utilized the opera to bring things to the Emperor's notice, which even she hardly dared to tell him of plainly. Thus the "La Laterna di Diogene" was an exposition of the abuses rife in the Viennese Court at that time.
Leopold's third wife, Eleanora of Mantua, was, on the contrary, a pronounced dévote; obliged to accompany the Emperor to the opera, she took with her a copy of the Psalms, bound to look like a libretto, and studied them devoutly throughout the performance.
The Emperor's passion for music remained with him to the very end. When on his death-bed, after the last rites of the church had been performed, he asked to have the Court band brought to his chamber, and as they played he expired.
Leopold's youngest son, the Emperor Charles VI., inherited his father's musical taste. In his time the band of the Burg Opera was brought to a high state of proficiency, under the leadership of the gifted Styrian, Joseph Fuchs. Occasionally on such high festivals as the Emperor's or the Empress's birthday, Charles would himself lead the band, while distinguished ladies and gentlemen of the Court would perform on the various instruments, and sometimes the two Archduchesses would even take part in the ballet! Metestasio, who had then settled in Vienna, composed the librettos; the soprano parts were sung by eunuchs.
Notwithstanding the enormous expense of these performances (it never cost less than sixty thousand florins to bring out a new opera), the public was admitted free of charge, certain boxes being set aside for the use of the Court and distinguished guests. The Emperor and Empress occupied an estrade, placed directly in front of the stage. A page knelt on either side throughout the performance to fan their Majesties; the rest of the Imperial family sat on the stage itself.
The exterior of the present Opera House, which was begun in 1861, is not especially impressive. Five unimposing statues, wearing an air of excessive ennui, are stationed between the square columns of an Italian loggia, and constitute the chief decoration of the facade. The two architects, Van der Nüll and Sicardsburg, both came to untimely ends before the completion of the building — one shot himself, from chagrin at the sinking of the foundation, and the other actually died of mortification, caused by the severe and quite unjust criticisms of the Viennese press. The interior, however, fully atones for any disappointment one may feel at the exterior. Regarded from a practical standpoint, it is unsurpassed. Three thousand spectators can be accommodated comfortably, each individual being well seated, and commanding an uninterrupted view of the stage — one of the largest in Europe.
When the Opera House was opened in 1869, it was greeted with paeans of praise. Never had there anywhere been seen such sumptuous fittings, such magnificence of decoration, such air and space and comfort, such light and ventilation. The Imperial box, which occupies the middle of the house, is furnished with several ante-rooms and a splendidly decorated foyer. The machinery for opening and closing the trap-doors, shifting the scenery, and so on, is operated by steam and electricity. The scenery is all got ready in the morning, and in the evening the head machinist, installed in a little box, has merely to touch a button, and the wings at once begin to glide on or off, as the case may be, and the trap-door to rise or fall. Electric wires also connect the manager's box with the dressing-rooms of all the actors, actresses and ballet-dancers; with the orchestra, the director of the scenery, and the entire service of the house; and he can also sound a general fire-alarm throughout the city.
The employees of the Opera number seven hundred. There is a carpenter shop, a tailors and dress-makers' establishment, and a studio for scene-painting, attached to it; and it is not uncommon for as many as four hundred dancers to take part in a single ballet. The costumes are truly magnificent, fashioned, as a rule, out of the richest qualities of silks and velvets, and designed by the leading modistes. No pasteboard helmets or tin armor are found here, as at other theatres. Everything of this sort that is required is furnished from the Imperial Arsenal, and the collection, preserved in a special room, forms a museum in itself.
The Hofopern Orchester of Vienna ranks perhaps higher than any other orchestra in the world. Since 1875 the famous conductor, Hans Richter, has been associated with it ; and on the death of Hellmesberger, in 1893, he became head Kapellmeister.
Richter conducted the Nibelungen Ring at Bayreuth in 1876, and has been conductor-in-chief of the Bayreuth Festivals ever since. He is very well known in England, having frequently given concerts in London, and conducted the Birmingham Festivals.
The ballet is likewise produced at Vienna in a manner to place it far above all other ballets. The dancers are really beautiful and graceful women, trained to the very highest degree of perfection in their art, and most exquisitely costumed. A performance is given in the Burg Opera every evening, except in summer. Society, in its silks and laces, its diamonds and decorations, its gorgeous uniforms, gold lace, pomps and vanities, flows up the great stairways and into the boxes, and forms of itself an exhibition almost as interesting and quite as dazzling as that to be seen on the stage.
At the other extremity of the musical balance is what has been misleadingly entitled the "Opera of the people" — that is, the Cafes Chantants. These unhealthy excrescences, which are always to be found in a community where the love of music is widely developed, are perhaps a little less hopelessly vulgar and meretricious in Vienna than elsewhere, by reason of the Tyrolese singers, who may be found here and there, rendering the charming and plaintive songs of their native mountains. The entire audience will sometimes join in the chorus of Andreas Hofer's hymn, and then it seems for a moment as though the image of Country suddenly raised, and glorified the ignoble faces and squalid surroundings into something vigorous and almost fine.
The Viennese singers have won a world-wide reputation; if they figure on a programme, the performance is sure to draw a crowded house. Furst was the Christopher Columbus of this branch of art. An excellent mimic, he made a great hit by taking off the most familiar Viennese types — the terrible Hausmeister (portier); the Polish Jew; the curt and haughty employer, with his lean jaw, his fierce moustaches, his air of a hungry crocodile; the hack driver, with his florid countenance; the happy-go-lucky shoemaker's apprentice; the bent and tottering old soldier — all of these, and many others, Furst was able to imitate exactly, in the tones of their voices, their gestures, all the little characteristics that were so familiar to his audiences. Words were easily provided, and Furst soon found himself the most popular man in Vienna, besides being the founder of a school.
On a plane below his are the innumerable harpists, violinists, flutists, soloists, of the street. During the day they wander about from one courtyard to another, and in the evening they are found in the cheap taverns and restaurants.
The most celebrated member of this class was the seventeenth century Augustin, whose songs are still sung and loved by his compatriots. Augustin's circumstances were like those of most other street Bohemians; ragged, thin, and miserably poor, his songs are epitomes of his life, wild bursts of gayety interspersing the prevailing melancholy, sobs and laughter, line irony and deep despair. This nightingale of the gutter had withal an exquisite feeling for beauty in all its forms. And now, after a lapse of more than two centuries, that despairing cry of his, worthy to rank with the productions of Villon and of Murger, still echoes not alone in the streets of Vienna, where he lived and suffered and died, but throughout the world.
"O, du lieber Augustin, Augustin, Augustin,
O, du lieber Augustin, alles ist hin!
Geld ist weg, mäd'l ist weg, alles weg, alles weg!
O, du lieber Augustin, alles ist hin!"
Lansdale, Maria Hornor. Vienna and the Viennese. H.T. Coates & Co., 1902.
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