True Tales from the Mad, Mad, Mad World of Opera by Mansouri Lotfi; Burnett Carol; Hernandez Mark

Author:Mansouri, Lotfi; Burnett, Carol; Hernandez, Mark
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dundurn
Published: 2012-09-11T16:00:00+00:00

Horsing Around in Vienna

For most people, “If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere” evokes thoughts of New York City. But for the longest time these lyrics made me think of Vienna. My obsession was fuelled by two of my greatest artistic influences, both of whom had deep ties to that city. Vienna was where my voice teacher, Tilly Zweig, had sung Sophie (to Lotte Lehmann’s Marschallin) in Der Rosenkavalier under the baton of Richard Strauss. And Vienna was where my mentor, Dr. Herbert Graf, had been born and raised; his father was the city’s leading music critic for years, his godfather was none other than Gustav Mahler, he started his career as an assistant to Max Reinhardt, and as a child he had been analyzed by Sigmund Freud. You could hardly be more Viennese than Dr. Graf! I had heard all of the stories and I wanted to be part of that long and glorious heritage. As I built my career, my dream was not only to work in Vienna but also to become a major success there. It didn’t quite work out that way.

Vienna’s two opera companies — the Volksoper and the Staatsoper — are among the best known in the world. The former is considered more populist, offering lighter fare like the operettas of Franz Lehar and Johann Strauss, while the latter is older and more prestigious. In 1971 I debuted at the Volksoper with Showboat produced by Marcel Prawy, who was actually affiliated with both companies. Prawy had made it his mission to introduce classic American musicals to Vienna, all sung in German-language translation. Thanks to him, local audiences first experienced works like Carousel, Porgy and Bess, and Kiss Me Kate (or, as it was billed, Küss mich Kätchen). Prawy had assembled a terrific group for my Showboat, including designer Oliver Smith and choreographer Todd Bolender. Leonard Bernstein, who was in town to work at the Vienna Philharmonic, hovered around my rehearsals and I was terribly flattered — until I realized he was only interested in my handsome German ingénue, a young man who turned out to be less of a singer than a hustler.

As it happened, my time in Vienna coincided with the Staatsoper’s annual Opera Ball, which is a combination of cotillion, carnival, and all-around upper crust to-do held in the opera house itself. Marcel invited a number of us from Showboat and, considering the price of admission (up to several thousand dollars), we otherwise would have had no chance of attending. There was a strict dress code, though, which for men meant the old-style “soup and fish” (tuxedo with white tie and tails) — attire that none of us had. Coming to our rescue, Marcel sent us to the Volksoper’s production facilities where we were outfitted with costumes from The Merry Widow. We had no trouble fitting right in. It was the only time in my life that I wore tails.

Going to the Opera Ball was like going back in time a century or two.

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