Vienna Day 3 - Schonbrunn, Elisabeth the Musical

10/21/2012

Last day in Vienna ;( We woke up at 7am so we could get to Schonbrunn when it opens at 8:30. We arrived at 8:50, having taken a short breakfast at home with some yummy Viennese breads. The nuss and mohn at Julius Meinl is expensive at $8 a loaf, but it comes chockfull of hazelnut and poppyseed spread and creamy running frangipan in the middle, as well as a heavy dusting of sliced almonds on top. There was also a cranberry stollen with rock sugar on top that Dad and Angel were fighting over, as well as sour cherry and streusel almond butter cake. The sour cherry was so sour, it made the cake taste sweeter!

Mom enjoyed Schonbrunn very much… as with the Hofburg, audio guide is included with admission and you can choose what language you want. Mom chose Chinese so she was better able to understand the history of Austria.

It was very foggy… a dewy mist, if you will. The last time we came here, we were able to see up to the other side, to the petit palace. But it was so foggy today, we couldn’t even see the garden, let alone the fountain. And the petit palace is up a steep hill after the fountain! We walked around the garden, and decided to climb up. While you can’t really get good pictures in the heavy mist, the petit palace is well worth the visit. It’s a charming, beautifully sculpted piece of architecture.

Baby's not too happy about the weather

Can you spot Mom & Dad?

There they are!

Yes, yes, I bow to you... you have The Vision, alright? Angel made Mozartkugeln magnets way before they even thought of the idea.

The Petit Palace

Afterwards, we went to the Furniture Collection, which houses a lot of objects from the Imperial Household, including the bed Prince Rudolph committed suicide in. I always thought the star portrait of Sisi was here, but apparently it is in the Hofburg... which I saw yesterday, but only gave it a glance over, as I thought I’d be seeing the original here today! The conclusion to the visit here is that we need to borrow Sissi the movie trilogy when we get home so Mom can watch it. I was very enamored with Sisi’s life story the first time I came, and my heart strings still tug for her, but Angel’s venom has started to seep in. When you have someone constantly repeating to you that she is a selfish, bratty woman… it starts getting to you! Mom commented that Princess Diana’s life is very much like hers.

Elisabeth the Musical

We rushed to the Albertina (Jirsa in the Tourist Office across from the Albertina, next to Café Mozart) to buy last-minute discount tickets to Elisabeth the musical. Someone online said discount tickets were 3.5 euros each, which I thought was awesome because the retail price is ridiculously expensive. I thought you could only buy last-minute tickets “last minute.” Apparently not. “Last minute” tickets come on sale a week before the performance date, so we were royally screwed. On top of that, there were no 3.5 euro tickets at all! It is just a straight-up 50% discount on whatever seating the ticket is in… so if it’s orchestra seats (prime) then it is 50% off the retail price. The cheapest one available was 36 euros… and they only had one ticket left! Man, the Viennese really love their theatre and operas and concerts. We were told that some operas sell out a whole year in advance! At full retail price! I was about to go—and then I thought of some other questions to ask… which I wonder why the guy couldn’t just offer up the info himself. Such as: standing room tickets are 5 euros, but they don’t sell it at Jirsa. He said if we go at 5pm, there should be plenty of tickets left (show starts at 6pm). I was skeptical, as the opera standing tickets you have to arrive 3 hours beforehand. But he assured us it wouldn’t be a problem.

Well.

We went at 5pm, only to be told that standing room tickets are sold a week beforehand as well! They were all sold out! So we were left with only one option: buy at full retail price. And that’s never something I condone. Thank God it was a Sunday, which meant tickets are 10 euros cheaper than any other day of the week. The only tickets left (guess what. Full retail seats were sold out as well!) were two seats at the very, very top, the very, very farthest corner of the theater. But since we had already come all this way, it was stupid to cut off our nose and not see the musical. So we bought it at 29 euros each. When we got in, they were the worst seats ever! The railings from the rows below and the crossway obstructed much of the view, so we would either have to stand or lean very far forward to get a decent view.

But. A few minutes before the show was about to start, a woman and her disabled mother came in. They asked to switch seats with us as the mother couldn’t climb down the steep flight of stairs. They were in the fourth row (versus our eighth). We agreed to the switch and they were pretty good seats, except the crossway railing was still blocking my view. But… as the lights dimmed and the music began… the two seats next to us were unoccupied. So we got pretty good viewing for the entire show!

The tickets at these seats are 49 euros versus the 29 euros we paid, so we walked out very very happy. And we were happy to see that the woman and her mother changed to an unoccupied box next to the stage (maybe the woman explained her mother’s disability to a kind usher?).

I love you, Oliver Arno! He's the guy in white :)

The musical was amazing! The songs were good, the acting was superb and the singing was out of this world. The actress who played Sisi and the actor who played Der Tod–or Death (Oliver Arno)–in particular were awesome. We kept commenting that the actor could be a major US singer if he knew English. Staging was fantastic (see ahem, opera!), the costumes were elaborate… but the singing. Wow. Blown away.

When I get home, I’m gonna watch it on Youtube again… this time, with subtitles. They didn’t have any, but if you know Sisi’s story and read a brief wiki intro of the musical, then you’ll get most of what they’re singing about. Plus the superb acting made it all that much more easier to imagine. Oliver Arno is going to play Raoul in the upcoming Viennese production of Phantom of the Opera... booo, I'm gonna miss it!

That's Der Tod glowing in white... ironic, no?

This is the 20^th anniversary of the musical Elisabeth. It is the most successful German musical of all time and has been performed in various countries. For the 20^th anniversary celebration, they decided to come back to Vienna (where it first premiered) and perform for a limited time. We were lucky, as the musical had just came into town on Sept.9^th. Ever since I saw the advertisements, I really wanted to see it. I’m so happy I did!

Mom and Dad had a relaxing stroll on Kartnerstrasse (the main shopping district… also the poshest place in town, near our rental). They bought a sandwich kebab for dinner, but were too stuffed from eating a 3pm lunch that they saved half for us. Lucky me! I was starving and really wanted one more bite before we left Vienna… not sure why the American restaurants can’t get it right, but the Turkish cuisine here is awesome.

They ate the world famous Viennese Wienerschnitzel for lunch on Kartnerstrasse.

Wienerschnitzel was one of Emperor Franz Joseph’s favorite dishes. I kept saying it wasn’t good; the one I had at Figlmuller the last time was dry, tough and thin. But Angel went in to give them the map and tell them how to get back to our apartment, and she stole more than a few bites of their meal. Angel came out raving how juicy it was… so now I’m thinking Figlmuller’s rendition is maybe more traditional?

They bought Manner waffle cookies at the Manner store on Kartnerstrasse. It has Nuss (hazelnut) filling. It is 1.99 euro for a pack of 3 and Angel, Mom and Dad all really liked it. Too bad Vienna is closed on Sundays!!! Seriously, EVERYTHING IS CLOSED. Except restaurants… Starbucks, McD’s, Burger King’s (ahem, all American places!). Even the supermarkets are closed! Thank God Angel bought her Mozartkugeln on the first day we were here. Had we waited until the last day, she would not have been able to buy any at all and I would’ve been witness to the worst tantrum in history.

This is not a 24/365 country, people! Supermarkets open around 7:45am and close around 7pm on a regular day, and they are closed altogether on Sundays. Every. Single. Last one of them. We went to all the ones we could find, but alas. Our luck had run out. Unfortunately, that means we can’t resupply on the Manner cookies either (as Mom and Dad only bought one pack). Hopefully Salzburg will have some, but in the meantime, we’ll all be dreaming of when we can return here again. It’s a beautiful city, no litter, no cutting in line (Austrians are super polite about that… hell, no jaywalking! And you don’t walk when the sign is red!), lots of history and romanticism. But just don’t come on a Sunday, unless you plan to do a lot of touristy sightseeing on that day.

Note: The Vienna opera is the only one that offers standing room tickets ONLY on the day of performance. Vienna’s operas (not standing room) sell out a year beforehand in some cases.

Munich has standing tickets but it goes on sale 1 week beforehand and you really need to buy it—we went on the day of, thinking we could get seats. They were completely sold out. Even the expensive tickets were sold out. Apparently Munchens take their performing arts seriously, as well.

Paris is the same way; they have restricted view seats for 5 euros but it’s already all sold out as well. So you need to plan at least half a year beforehand in order to get seats. When we bought Phantom tickets, we pretty much bought 4 months in advance; a lot of seats were sold out as well. On a Tuesday night. Go figure.