Day 89: Vienna

JULY 1 - Vienna is a bit overwhelming from the things-to-do perspective. It ranks up there with Paris, London, and Rome as a center of cultural interest. Just for art viewing, there is at least a week’s worth of places to go, just in the town center. And then of course it is known as the world’s capital of music. We are only here for three days. We pick the Weltmuseum this morning, the ethnographic museum that has a special exhibit featuring art from George Nuku, a Maori from New Zealand.

One is greeted these days in the Weltmuseum by large coronaviruses.

George Nuku’s work on display here is entitled Bottled Ocean 2122’. A rather depressing reminder that by that date, much of the world will be saturated with tiny bits of plastic, especially marine environments.

The musical instrument section had at least seven room with just pianos. This particular display features a glass harmonica, originally invented by Benjamin Franklin.

This amazing quetzal feather headdress came out of Central America sometime before 1590, and made its way to Vienna in 1878. The feather colors have been touched up, otherwise it is in incredible shape, the only such headdress known to have survived until now.

These woven grass gloves were particularly fascinating story for Odette. They are used in a rite-of-passage ritual for the Brazilian Sateré-Mawé people. The accompanying video, which we watched in full, showed how the village elders fill the gloves with stinging ants, then place them on the hands of boys undergoing the rite. The boys are obliged to dance around until the music stops, at which point they can remove the gloves. This goes on for four days, at which point is clear from the video that some of the boys are barely hanging on to consciousness.

In the Volksgarten.

Karlskirche (St. Charles Church), consecrated in 1737.

Burgtheater, to the west of Volksgarten. Now is playing a feature entitled ‘You Are Not Alone’.

In the late afternoon, we head quite a ways south and west, to Schloss Schönbrunn (Schönbrunn Palace). This immense palace and garden complex was a residence of the Habsburg royal line from 1569, with numerous add-ons by various monarchs since that time.

A view from the main palace across the gardens and fountains, to a hilltop structure (the Gloriette) that was built during a remodeling project ordered by Maria Theresa in 1770.

Statues everywhere.

We came to this palace partly to give Odette a viewing of ‘The Magic Flute’, an opera in two acts created by Mozart. In this version, it has been edited for viewing by children, with marionettes. Though it was all in German, Odette enjoyed it anyway.

The performance was held outside, with a small audience.

In this scene, the Queen of the Night asks Tamino for help to save her daughter, Pamina, from the Magician Sarastro. Mozart is the narrator of the story, and he stands to the right.

They did a great job with animal puppets, showing peacocks, lions, monkeys, birds, and a snake.

In this scene, Papageno, by chance, finds his love interest, Papagena, but she runs away before he can woo her. Then Mozart steps in for some narration.

After the performance, we head up the hill to the Gloriette and get a view to the palace itself. There was a big windstorm by this point in the evening, so we head back to the room.

Austria 🗺️Central/Eastern Europe (June-July 2022)