Day 8 – Vienna

We came into town this morning on the subway, getting out at Karlsplatz. The Karlskirche has got to be my favorite building in all of Vienna. We walked to the Cafe Schwarzenberg, where we people watched for a while and looked up the options for the evening. “Abduction from the Seraglio” was at the Opera, but the only seats available were not so great, but there was an English-language production of a new play based on “The Master and Margarita” at the Burgtheater, so we opted for that. We got on the bus tour out to Schönbrunn, but the rain started so we didn’t get out to tour the grounds, instead listening to the recorded guide’s history of the Habsburgs. When we returned, we went to the Burgtheater to buy tickets for the evening’s performance, only to find they had to be bought at the Museumsquartier, since it was part of Wiener Festwochen. On the steps of the theater a group called “Wir Sind Wien” was holding what appeared to be a poetry slam, which attracted a crowd of about a couple dozen bemused onlookers. After getting our tickets at the MQ, we went back to the Opera to take another bus tour. While waiting, I had to go through the remaindered items that the music store there always has outside. Not finding anything, I ran back just as John was getting on the bus.  After this tour, we walked back to the stalls of the Steffls Kirtag, where I picked up a traditional dress for Kate. It had been more than 12 hours, so we went and got some ice cream before heading to the hotel to change. We then walked to Schweizerhaus in the Prater on Viswa’s recommendation of their Schweinstelze and real Budweiser…that was some good stuff! We walked through Prater amusement park, particularly enjoying watching a little boy go through one of the fun houses with his mom, on our way to the UBahn to go to the theater. The show, performed by a British troupe called Complicite, was absolutely spectacular! I had never seen a production of Master and Margarita, only read the book, but the sheer imaginativeness of the staging, the incorporation of live video, and the talent of the actors, designers, tech crew, and director made for one of the most stunning pieces of theater either one of us has seen. We ambled back to St. Stephen’s, which was having concerts until about 1am; we just missed the Schubert Mass in A minor, but a soprano was just starting some songs of Hildegard von Bingen. The interior was lit with all kinds of strange light. We peeked in for a bit, then hit Zanoni & Zanoni one last time before heading to hit the hay.