Vienna doesn't get the riot of fall color that either of us grew up with in the midwestern US. Only occasional bursts of dullish red and orange vary the tired yellow of the trees, fool's gold indeed, drained even further by the leaden skies. The air contains a warning edge that spurs me toward my bike; how many more Sundays before snow makes a ride impossible? I pump up my tires and pedal, legs and heart working against a variety of dragging weights.
North along the Donaukanal, I'm not paying attention to much. Bridge. Subway station. Riotously colored utility plant, yellow tree, yellow tree, yellow tree. Familiarity is turning this part of the ride invisible. I start to ascend a ramp that will take me across two bridges to the long island in the middle of the Danube. Over the water now, the wind is colder, bracing, and I lean into it gratefully, happy to push into something that pushes back. Lean men in tight spandex rush past me on their light bikes, and I pass a couple jogging and talking leisurely together, running as though the sun is shining. Cars drive past us on the long bridge.
On the island, the mist starts to organize itself toward rain, and no one's around on the long paths but long-haul bikers and runners plus the occasional practicing skier with poles and rollerskates. We smile at each other in an uncharacteristic way, a small congratulations for freezing together. The sky seems content to fall down on us slowly, one small drop at a time. Yellow tree, yellow tree, yellow tree. But then, a startling long canopy of yellow, burnished, lovely. From the heights of mid-island hills are expansive views of the admirable buildings of several centuries across the river on either side, big spired churches and hotels like ships and structures of glass reflecting the water and vice versa. The wind blows sharply, and the smell of the dying leaves struck by the new cold rain surprises me. The wind brings water from my eyes, my eyes take in the majestic city, my legs work at the bike pedals, my heart works.
Up another ramp onto another bridge, over the wide Donau. A barge of trash that says ГABAHA passes a barge of containers. The wind picks up, fighting the roar of traffic from the other side of the barrier. There is a collection of tiny houses and gardens at the west end of the bridge. A woman is covering some plants with a tarp, a man is bent over the open hood of a car. I steer into the Prater, right into some kind of race, people with numbers pinned to their raingear walking and running down the Hauptallee, rock music and laughter and tents and tables with water. There are suddenly families again, intrepid kids on tiny bikes, old people moving at a stately pace or jogging trim and clear-eyed, groups of parents and children or friends taking up leisurely amounts of space, insanely well-behaved Austrian dogs. Yellow tree, yellow tree, yellow tree.
The bridge back over the canal leads to some of the third district's prettiest houses, ornate balconies and turrets above a path suddenly ruddy. Die letzten roten Astern trag herbei. By the Urania, observe how the rain means business. I opt to stay by the water , under the bridges. My big and big-tired bike is good over the occasional cobblestones. My legs shiver under my wet sweatpants. The hydrofoils to Bratislava wait in vain for customers, and the sullen white-shirted waiters are smoking in the rain, scowling in unzipped jackets with the hoods pulled up. LESS! screams the graffiti on the Leopoldstadt side, big pictures of bloated red-white-blue zombies and an exploding globe. The Sunday morning exercisers in midtown wear Saturday night heavily as they pant past me, earbuds in place.
Friedensbrücke, last ramp, Glasergasse. I lock my bike in the rain and step into my warm house on slightly rubbery legs. The sky keeps slowly falling.
dkz
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Sunday, October 10, 2010
10.10.10
The date seems significant, yes? One on which to take stock.
Our dearest friends from Seattle just left yesterday after a week's visit. It was, of course, remarkable to have them here, to add their eyes to ours looking at this lovely land, and our nearly 25 (25!!) shared years of friendship brought comfort and familiarity and joy to the week. It has also thrown our situation into sharper relief. This couple has been in Seattle since 1989, when MtMn and they were in law school together. Their rich life of career and friends and volunteerism and culture is more than two decades deep in that beautiful city. Thanks to the way we can communicate today, I have connection to them and to lots of friends from that many years. But sitting with these dear two for a few days puts me in touch with what the itinerant life makes impossible, or less possible. Not yet rooted in this new soil, something inside me reaches toward them, or maybe just out to some version of home I've lived, somewhere.
Sunday morning, six weeks into the Staatsoper and not quite eight into Wien, I sit on my couch with a cup of tea feeling unsure, foreign, alone.But I also feel accomplished, supported, and comfortable, because it's not hard to return to the joys and rewards of a life that includes many homes. A walk with a new friend, a few hours of Skype, and much MtMn time will make this a perfect day worthy of any city. I'll go put my feet on the ground, this ground, and try to feel myself standing.
I wish you could see the new production of Cardillac that we're opening next week. It's a very precise, expressive, non-realistic way of telling the story, and the singers and orchestra are in terrific form. What we can do with rehearsal time is extremely impressive. In the same week, we'll open a Barber of Seville without any stage or orchestra rehearsal, in which three young singers will make their Staatsoper debuts. At the same time, we'll have performances of Lucrezia Borgia, the premiere of a new ballet, and we'll rehearse Salome and L'Elisir d'amore. There are also a few performances of the children's opera. That takes us through next Sunday.
In the meantime, MtMn goes to the Shaolin Temple, trains, goes to jazz clubs, trains. Sometimes he plays in the street. Soon it will be too cold for that, but yesterday I could hear him in the pedestrian zone by the opera house as I finished up some paperwork. I closed up my computer and my office and went down into the street, setting my face against the chilly breeze, following that beloved sound.
dkz
Our dearest friends from Seattle just left yesterday after a week's visit. It was, of course, remarkable to have them here, to add their eyes to ours looking at this lovely land, and our nearly 25 (25!!) shared years of friendship brought comfort and familiarity and joy to the week. It has also thrown our situation into sharper relief. This couple has been in Seattle since 1989, when MtMn and they were in law school together. Their rich life of career and friends and volunteerism and culture is more than two decades deep in that beautiful city. Thanks to the way we can communicate today, I have connection to them and to lots of friends from that many years. But sitting with these dear two for a few days puts me in touch with what the itinerant life makes impossible, or less possible. Not yet rooted in this new soil, something inside me reaches toward them, or maybe just out to some version of home I've lived, somewhere.
Sunday morning, six weeks into the Staatsoper and not quite eight into Wien, I sit on my couch with a cup of tea feeling unsure, foreign, alone.But I also feel accomplished, supported, and comfortable, because it's not hard to return to the joys and rewards of a life that includes many homes. A walk with a new friend, a few hours of Skype, and much MtMn time will make this a perfect day worthy of any city. I'll go put my feet on the ground, this ground, and try to feel myself standing.
I wish you could see the new production of Cardillac that we're opening next week. It's a very precise, expressive, non-realistic way of telling the story, and the singers and orchestra are in terrific form. What we can do with rehearsal time is extremely impressive. In the same week, we'll open a Barber of Seville without any stage or orchestra rehearsal, in which three young singers will make their Staatsoper debuts. At the same time, we'll have performances of Lucrezia Borgia, the premiere of a new ballet, and we'll rehearse Salome and L'Elisir d'amore. There are also a few performances of the children's opera. That takes us through next Sunday.
In the meantime, MtMn goes to the Shaolin Temple, trains, goes to jazz clubs, trains. Sometimes he plays in the street. Soon it will be too cold for that, but yesterday I could hear him in the pedestrian zone by the opera house as I finished up some paperwork. I closed up my computer and my office and went down into the street, setting my face against the chilly breeze, following that beloved sound.
dkz
Thursday, September 30, 2010
maestri
It's my first blog post from Italy! MtMn and I have made a short-notice trip to Trento, where I am filling in for my boss DM and representing the Staatsoper (addition for my Merkin friends: yo) at a competition for conductors. The situation is unreasonably comfortable: great hotel, jaw-dropping Italian food, fascinating company. The jury communicates in English, German, and Italian, and I'm getting to know the two non-smokers better than my other equally compelling colleagues who flee the concert hall at every conceivable break. And the competition is a real learning experience; I've never judged one for conductors before. The rep list was put together by a man who knows his stuff. Brahms 2 is there, but so are Zerbinetta's aria and the Sprecher scene from Zauberfloete. We get to see right away the depth of each candidate's training, listening, and curiosity. And then there's all that you can't explain, why the (very good) orchestra suddenly sounds warmer for one person, larger for another, edgy for the next. Often these results bear no relation to how the conducting (addition for my Merkin friends: carving) looks. We go out to pranzo and talk about the mysterious and totally unique combination of skills possessed by every good conductor. Today we will cut a field of eight (six men, two women, seven countries) down to five finalists.
But I wanted to tell you about last night, so let me back up. We were collected at the airport by the president of the association whose name is on this competition (which seems actually to be run by the conductor of the orchestra, and the relationship between the organizations is beautifully unclear). He speaks only a little English, so he had another friend along. This man is a retired banker capable of charm in three languages, and he switched effortlessly between them while regaling the president, myself, and MtMn with the history of Trentino and South Tyrol. We went down the autobahn at about 95 miles per hour, the Dolomites jutting on either side of us and the stars bright in the sky. In the middle of his stories about palace construction during the Council of Trent, our host mentioned that on Thursday night there would be a small concert in our honor, featuring the mens' choir sponsored by their association. Just a few traditional songs, nothing more.
After we chose the semifinalists yesterday, this was confirmed by the conductor. We had to do this to make some of the sponsors happy, he said. He'd never heard the choir before, but he promised there would be two or three numbers, and then we could eat and beat a hasty retreat.
This is not actually how it all went down. First of all, no matter how the music sounded, we would have stayed long for the food. A table in the center of the simple room (it turned out we were in the house of our driver's grandfather, the founder of the association) groaned under plates of sausage, prosciutto, grapes, breadbox-sized wedges of gorgonzola, liters of local wine and mineral water, and housemade cannoli. We were doomed, we were done for. But before we approached, of course, there had to be just a few songs.
You've probably already guessed that the choir knocked our socks off. They are not classical singers in any sense. They make their noise in a natural, untrained way, singing traditional songs traditionally (the brilliance of their beautiful, compact vowels is something I'd love to import). Of the 35 men in the group, three can read music.One of those is the leader, the brother of our driver, also a grandson of the founder, and he teaches each section (11 tenors, 9 leads, 7 baritones, 8 basses) by rote. They sing everything a capella, in Italian, French, German, and several dialects that are ear-bending combinations of all three. Pictures of the choir from 1926 onward fill the walls of the house, and I looked at them during the concert, at younger versions of the performers, at their fathers and grandfathers. The current group ranges in age from 24 to 77, young and old guys of all professions carrying the tradition forward, all of it dependent on staying in one place, preserving a language, a way of rehearsing, a set of shared relationships.
They stand in a half-circle, in two rows. Their leader, the grandson of the founder, stands at the far end of the first row, singing with the basses, and he conducts them with his eyes and the most minimal use of his right hand. A small widening and strengthening of that hand produces a huge, lusty sound that fades to a whisper when he turns the hand over and softens its gesture. He opens his blue eyes a little, and the music warms. He sharpens his stare, the rhythm solidifies.
The songs are about the bells in the valley, the way to the church, the young girl at the mill, the soldier marching off to war, and we ask them to keep singing and then after dinner they sing some more. The leader has his choir, his neighbors, his friends, hold the final notes for impossible seconds, and they stop on a dime when he suddenly closes his hand.
dkz
But I wanted to tell you about last night, so let me back up. We were collected at the airport by the president of the association whose name is on this competition (which seems actually to be run by the conductor of the orchestra, and the relationship between the organizations is beautifully unclear). He speaks only a little English, so he had another friend along. This man is a retired banker capable of charm in three languages, and he switched effortlessly between them while regaling the president, myself, and MtMn with the history of Trentino and South Tyrol. We went down the autobahn at about 95 miles per hour, the Dolomites jutting on either side of us and the stars bright in the sky. In the middle of his stories about palace construction during the Council of Trent, our host mentioned that on Thursday night there would be a small concert in our honor, featuring the mens' choir sponsored by their association. Just a few traditional songs, nothing more.
After we chose the semifinalists yesterday, this was confirmed by the conductor. We had to do this to make some of the sponsors happy, he said. He'd never heard the choir before, but he promised there would be two or three numbers, and then we could eat and beat a hasty retreat.
This is not actually how it all went down. First of all, no matter how the music sounded, we would have stayed long for the food. A table in the center of the simple room (it turned out we were in the house of our driver's grandfather, the founder of the association) groaned under plates of sausage, prosciutto, grapes, breadbox-sized wedges of gorgonzola, liters of local wine and mineral water, and housemade cannoli. We were doomed, we were done for. But before we approached, of course, there had to be just a few songs.
You've probably already guessed that the choir knocked our socks off. They are not classical singers in any sense. They make their noise in a natural, untrained way, singing traditional songs traditionally (the brilliance of their beautiful, compact vowels is something I'd love to import). Of the 35 men in the group, three can read music.One of those is the leader, the brother of our driver, also a grandson of the founder, and he teaches each section (11 tenors, 9 leads, 7 baritones, 8 basses) by rote. They sing everything a capella, in Italian, French, German, and several dialects that are ear-bending combinations of all three. Pictures of the choir from 1926 onward fill the walls of the house, and I looked at them during the concert, at younger versions of the performers, at their fathers and grandfathers. The current group ranges in age from 24 to 77, young and old guys of all professions carrying the tradition forward, all of it dependent on staying in one place, preserving a language, a way of rehearsing, a set of shared relationships.
They stand in a half-circle, in two rows. Their leader, the grandson of the founder, stands at the far end of the first row, singing with the basses, and he conducts them with his eyes and the most minimal use of his right hand. A small widening and strengthening of that hand produces a huge, lusty sound that fades to a whisper when he turns the hand over and softens its gesture. He opens his blue eyes a little, and the music warms. He sharpens his stare, the rhythm solidifies.
The songs are about the bells in the valley, the way to the church, the young girl at the mill, the soldier marching off to war, and we ask them to keep singing and then after dinner they sing some more. The leader has his choir, his neighbors, his friends, hold the final notes for impossible seconds, and they stop on a dime when he suddenly closes his hand.
dkz
Saturday, September 25, 2010
smooth sailing
Why is my bike commute so awesome? It's partly my bike, which is a beauty. I went out to Cooperative Fahrrad in the Gumpendorferstrasse, a first-rate street name if I ever heard one, and bought myself a real cool old lady's bike. Like, if Miss Gulch one morning suddenly took a yoga class and got a mani-pedi, this is what her bike would look like: big and not fast and made for those rough Kansas rural roads (or the cobblestones of the Ringstrasse) and yet a snazzy white with unnecessarily cool leather handgrips. There's a bike path along the entire Ring as well as along the Donaukanal, so it's smooth sailing for me all the way to work. As the air gets cooler and the leaves start to change, the chilly mornings grow more precious, and the pedals beneath my work shoes and the wind in my face take me right back to Union Street and my first bike, my September path to Sibley Elementary, the thrilling freedom that came along with that first set of wheels, with getting there by myself. I feel giddy every time I ride, about twelve years old, tops.
No bike riding today, however, with the rain coming down and the gray fog of autumn beginning to settle over Vienna. Saturday started on the streetcar and continued in a morning of piano practice and an afternoon of "The Wire" episodes and Skyping with family. I looked at online pictures of the flooding in downtown Northfield, recognizing some familiar faces among the locals sandbagging a riverside bar against the rising water. I savored the memory of last night's dinner party which was full of great food, new friends, and lots of music (including MtMn). Tomorrow is my first recital at the Opera, with two young ensemble members.
Preparing to make music, taking a little leisure, keeping in touch with my faraway family, enjoying the company of engaging and warm people that generous fate puts unfailingly into my path. This could be a weekend at any time, in any city. There is sudden joy, sharp and unspectacular, in finding this familiarity.
The window is open to the rainy night, the wind in my face. Freedom.
dkz
No bike riding today, however, with the rain coming down and the gray fog of autumn beginning to settle over Vienna. Saturday started on the streetcar and continued in a morning of piano practice and an afternoon of "The Wire" episodes and Skyping with family. I looked at online pictures of the flooding in downtown Northfield, recognizing some familiar faces among the locals sandbagging a riverside bar against the rising water. I savored the memory of last night's dinner party which was full of great food, new friends, and lots of music (including MtMn). Tomorrow is my first recital at the Opera, with two young ensemble members.
Preparing to make music, taking a little leisure, keeping in touch with my faraway family, enjoying the company of engaging and warm people that generous fate puts unfailingly into my path. This could be a weekend at any time, in any city. There is sudden joy, sharp and unspectacular, in finding this familiarity.
The window is open to the rainy night, the wind in my face. Freedom.
dkz
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Time Slice #3
It's cloudy and quiet on a Sunday morning, not that early, but all of the 9th Bezirk still seems to be sleeping. Sipping on a huge mug of fragrant tea, I look out over another day of events both personal and monumental. Either I've entered some huge and rare cone of synchronicity, or this is just what life is like.
Today marks both the Staatsoper conducting debut of a friend and the memorial service of a mentor. I have the privilege of rejoicing in the friend's fine accomplishment and remembering the mentor's unforgiving brilliance. I also have to think on the association we all share with the San Francisco Opera. Friend and I both trained there at different times, mentor and I worked there.
Tonight also happens to be the final performance of our La Boheme, and that opera will always bring San Francisco memories to my mind. The piece is completely interwoven into my early professional life. It was the first thing I ever prompted, back when the aforementioned mentor was my reluctant teacher. It was my daily work and inspiration as I was discovering a gorgeous city, navigating a wholesale change in my life, and drowning in a challenging new job.
Sipping tea. Is this a memory?
Every professional relationship, every next step was born in that house. Friendships stretch back to those days. Life in three cities happened because of them. Friends who are sending congratulations toward the Vienna debut, friends who will stand in tribute at the War Memorial, all these threads stretch back that far, intertwine, fold in on themselves.
Today begins with these delicate threads. I can know about beautiful singing in Houston and exciting rehearsals in New York as the sun breaks through Vienna's morning clouds. It is delicious to sit here slightly unsure of where and when I am. Soon MtMn will wake up and we'll ride our bikes north for a bit, and I imagine that the activity and terrain will bind me firmly to time and place, but right now life feels vertical, all at once, a slice.
Willkommen. My the angels lead you into paradise. Keep in touch.
dkz
Today marks both the Staatsoper conducting debut of a friend and the memorial service of a mentor. I have the privilege of rejoicing in the friend's fine accomplishment and remembering the mentor's unforgiving brilliance. I also have to think on the association we all share with the San Francisco Opera. Friend and I both trained there at different times, mentor and I worked there.
Tonight also happens to be the final performance of our La Boheme, and that opera will always bring San Francisco memories to my mind. The piece is completely interwoven into my early professional life. It was the first thing I ever prompted, back when the aforementioned mentor was my reluctant teacher. It was my daily work and inspiration as I was discovering a gorgeous city, navigating a wholesale change in my life, and drowning in a challenging new job.
Sipping tea. Is this a memory?
Every professional relationship, every next step was born in that house. Friendships stretch back to those days. Life in three cities happened because of them. Friends who are sending congratulations toward the Vienna debut, friends who will stand in tribute at the War Memorial, all these threads stretch back that far, intertwine, fold in on themselves.
Today begins with these delicate threads. I can know about beautiful singing in Houston and exciting rehearsals in New York as the sun breaks through Vienna's morning clouds. It is delicious to sit here slightly unsure of where and when I am. Soon MtMn will wake up and we'll ride our bikes north for a bit, and I imagine that the activity and terrain will bind me firmly to time and place, but right now life feels vertical, all at once, a slice.
Willkommen. My the angels lead you into paradise. Keep in touch.
dkz
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
hearing voices
Walking through a large repertory opera house will probably always be one of my favorite things to do. I finished up a coaching last night at 6 and opened my office window. On the Herbert-von-Karajan-Platz below, the live video transmission of Tannhäuser began, and the first burnished notes floated up to me along with the combined music of steps, conversations, and streetcars. Somewhere around the beginning of the Venusberg music I closed my email and walked into the hallway, where that same music took on a new, ghostly timbre as it traveled up from the theater five floors below. It grew louder and brighter as I passed the half-open door to the catwalk and faded as I entered a rehearsal room to check in on Pique Dame. Under the brilliant, busy piano whispered important voices, saving their effort and tone for the theater. Back in the hallway, I heard the mens' chorus from the half-open door. In the corridor that leads into the house itself, I couldn't hear anything, and then in the lobby outside the top balcony there was just a hint of Wagner, as though from a distant radio. Into the Kinderzelt, a tent on the roof of the opera house, where the children's opera rehearses: tinny upright, dead acoustics, young singers working to be understood by the kids that will fill the tent come Sunday. It was intermission when I headed back to the theater, where I had intended to hear the rest of the opera from my usual seat in the company loge. But I kept wandering, up to the catwalks for Act 2 and the backstage for Act 3. I took such joy in this evening, hearing the various musics of the house from the shadows. The intimacy of it, the privacy, was balm for my overextended spirit. The paying guests were at the party and I was a servant listening in secret, and that meant the grand house was truly mine.
Late in the evening, MtMn went down into our street to help our visiting friends get the luggage out of their car. I leaned out of our window, five stories up, and listened to familiar voices floating up to me, and waited for our guests to enter our home.
dkz
Late in the evening, MtMn went down into our street to help our visiting friends get the luggage out of their car. I leaned out of our window, five stories up, and listened to familiar voices floating up to me, and waited for our guests to enter our home.
dkz
Friday, September 10, 2010
Morning
MtMn has been felled by his first Austrian cold virus. He sleeps as I start my day perfectly thanks to his Naschmarkt trip and mad cooking skillz: homemade bread, cheese from Cheese Land, cafe au lait with cinnamon. It's a beautiful morning on a day of somber memory. Nine years ago, MtMn drove off to his stressful law office while I stretched out my morning in similar fashion. Even as I think on the large events, results, and meanings of that day, I also think of breakfast, the simple beginning of every morning, the way we help each other through that and then through the days and nights.
Yesterday was a day of simple but meaningful triumph; work got done, results were obvious, no drama was attached. If every day contains this, something wonderful will be underway, something definitely worth a certain level of exhaustion.
Maybe because today is today, maybe because of the small steps forward, but probably just because of Mozart (and the mad skillz of the Wiener Sängerknaben), this is what brought unexpected tears to my eyes at work last night:
Bald prangt, den Morgen zu verkünden,
Die Sonn' auf goldner Bahn,
Bald muß die Nacht, die düstre, schwinden,
Der Tag der Weisheit nahn.-
O holder Friede, steig hernieder,
Kehr in der Menschen Herzen wieder,
Dann ist die Erd ein Himmelreich,-
Und Sterbliche sind Göttern gleich.
Soon the resplendent sun on its golden path will announce morning's arrival.
Soon black night must disappear and the day of wisdom draw near.
Oh beloved peace, come down and return to the hearts of men.
Then earth will be a heavenly place, and humans like the gods.
dkz
Yesterday was a day of simple but meaningful triumph; work got done, results were obvious, no drama was attached. If every day contains this, something wonderful will be underway, something definitely worth a certain level of exhaustion.
Maybe because today is today, maybe because of the small steps forward, but probably just because of Mozart (and the mad skillz of the Wiener Sängerknaben), this is what brought unexpected tears to my eyes at work last night:
Bald prangt, den Morgen zu verkünden,
Die Sonn' auf goldner Bahn,
Bald muß die Nacht, die düstre, schwinden,
Der Tag der Weisheit nahn.-
O holder Friede, steig hernieder,
Kehr in der Menschen Herzen wieder,
Dann ist die Erd ein Himmelreich,-
Und Sterbliche sind Göttern gleich.
Soon the resplendent sun on its golden path will announce morning's arrival.
Soon black night must disappear and the day of wisdom draw near.
Oh beloved peace, come down and return to the hearts of men.
Then earth will be a heavenly place, and humans like the gods.
dkz
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