Wagner in Vienna and a confession

The second weekend in December brought me to Vienna to write about Haydn. 2009 will mark the 200th anniversary of his death.  My weekend included Eisenstadt and the Schloss Esterhazy and trip to the

 wine town of Rust to sample the sort of wines that Haydn would have drunk.

Vienna was disappointly rainy but I took consolation in the opulent Princess Elizabeth suite of the Hotel Imperial.  The hotel is right next to the Musikverein so everyone you can name in music has stayed here - including Wagner who has a plaque in his honour to the right of the entrance. He stayed here for two months in 1875 while productions of Tannhauser and Lohengrin were being put on at the Vienna State Opera. Concierge Michael Moser tells me that his suite would have been just a few doors down from mine.

This weekend, Gotterdammerung is being performed. The Vienna Tourist people tell me I have a ticket that I can pick up at the ticket office. But when I go, an unsmiling ticket agent tells me that I owe them 192 Euros. This is beyond my budget and I scuttle off feeling guilty and found out even though I'm officially a guest of Vienna.

Then I feel a sense of relief. I won't have to sit through Act One! I love the Ring and have seen a dozen versions over the years. I love Twilight of the Gods but that first act demolishes me.  The Norns are great, Siegfried's Rhine journey phenomenal, Waltraute's appearance on the rock heart-rending when she reminds Brunnhilde of how much Wotan misses her. But then, for me, it all becomes too, too much. I'm ready for a glass of wine and a pee. I need to stand up, move, talk but here comes Siegfried pretending to be Gunther or Gunther being Siegfried like some lumbering teutonic version of a Whitehall farce, and I lose the will to live.

So the mean agent at the ticket office had liberated me. I could do what I really wanted to do- go to the Christmas market at Schonbrunn, eat a kartoffelpuffer (potato pancake but I love that word) drink some gluhwein, then amble back to the opera sure in the knowledge that Act one will have claimed a few victims and that, if I stand by the cloakroom, one of them will totter out and hand me their ticket for the remaining two acts. 

In the event, I'm given two "stehplatz" standing seats by an American couple headed for dinner. I take the tickets and head to the back of the orchestra stalls. I find myself in the place where my opera adventure began in 1982. Twenty six years ago, devotees (and standees are always devoted) would tie scarves to mark their place. Respectful Viennese would never remove them. I tied my scarf, saw Tosca and my life was changed forever. Twenty six years later, I'm tying my scarf again when a young man says, "You're Janette - you're Janette Griffiths". I blushed as other standees turned to stare. "You don't remember me. I'm Nicholas Legoux - a bass. We met in Covent Garden ten years ago. I read "The Singing House" and loved it." 

Oddly enough, I had thought fleetingly just a week earlier of this young fan and felt sorry that other opera novels hadn't followed. "We will have dinner at the Cafe Mozart", said Nicola as we settled in for Act 3. 

Michael Moser, the concierge at the Imperial had told me that 'the production is beautiful - simple and quite moving. I won't give anything away but the final moments moved me to tears."

They moved me to tears too. Vienna's Gotterdammerung uses video to excellent effect - swirling waves as the Rhine maidens reclaim their gold and, as the great achingly beautiful final theme sweeps over us,  in the back of the stage, barely visible,  a lone couple embrace - Adam and Eve?  Cleansed, we begin all over again.

At the Cafe Mozart, Nicola tells me of his travels singing Leporello and Figaro as far away as Japan. Vienna State Opera hasn't yet called. "It's so difficult to get an agent," he sighs. I know about this and also reflect on his enthusiasm to stand through a  5 hour opera . I can think of several professional Wagner singers  who would have always prefered to stay home in front of the tv but Nicola is there leaning on the barrier listening with love to Mozart, Wagner and Verdi. "I have  recommended your book to so many of the standees," he tells me. 

I go back to the Imperial full of kartoffelpuffer and gluhwein, and fall asleep serenely happy. Life has tied itself together in one of those rare and lovely bows - 26 years ago I discovered opera in Vienna, over a decade ago, a young man in Covent Garden discovered my book. And on a chill winter's night just before Christmas, as Wagner's great myth took us from the end of the world back to the beginning, we met up again -books and opera, words and voices and music all elegantly tied together over a quarter of a century.