Today’s choice is a rather obvious one, for which I make no apology, as we need to finish the year on a high. For the ultimate New Year jollity, there is nothing to beat Strauss’s Die Fledermaus. As my one…
Del31st December 2016
Or at the side of the holy church, as temples didn’t feature on our morning perambulation, whereas a church is easy to find as you’re never far away from one in Vienna. Today’s choices are two magnificent pieces from La…
Del29th December 2016
Today we’re off to the underworld, which means we can add four tracks to the playlist thus filling in some of those gaps. Jacopo Peri (1581 – 1633) was an Italian, who wrote the first opera ever, so he definitely…
Del28th December 2016
An endlessly intoxicating night of ecstasy eh? The night is still young … I’ve chosen Nuit d’ivresse d'extase infinie for today’s track on the opera playlist because it is simply exquisite. This version sung by Angela Gheorghiu and Roberto…
Del27th December 2016
Boxing Day and that British tradition - the meet of the hunt. I have no idea where we are in terms of the legislation on this, as there are so many loopholes, exceptions and workarounds, as well as artificial trails…
Del26th December 2016
No, not me … but Maddalena. I’m dedicating today’s post to my Dad - we still miss him so much. His love of opera was instrumental in the acquisition of my own passion for the genre. When he lived in Vienna,…
Del25th December 2016
I realise that if I’m going to get the playlist finished by the end of the year, and if it’s going to be representative of opera through the ages, then I might need to start adding more than one track…
Del24th December 2016
Following on from yesterday’s post … The miserable Friedrich is going to punish anyone who participates in the carnival, all part of his plan to ban fun. And a bit of word association soon gets us from carnivals to masks…
Del23rd December 2016
Today’s track is from a little known opera by Wagner. The purists dismiss it as trivial, but being a trivial sort of person, I don’t mind admitting I like it; in fact, I like it a lot. The justification for…
Del22nd December 2016
As it is the shortest day, I had intended to add something from the shortest opera to the playlist. Research shows that the honour of writing the shortest opera belongs to Peter Reynolds and his four minute opera The Sands…
Del21st December 2016
I always feel terribly excited when I see the first fall of snow. I don’t know whether the excitement is rooted in childhood memories of sledging and snowmen or whether it’s just how different the world looks - there’s often…
Del20th December 2016
‘Richard Strauss’ and ‘comic’ are not normally heard in the same sentence, but when it comes to Der Rosenkavalier, they are. There isn’t really a back story to today’s post, apart from the fact I love this trio. And I did…
Del19th December 2016
I did say yesterday that despite transport and heating problems, life had not been one complete operatic like misery this week and promised the highlight in today’s post. Well, here it is ... This is my deliciously scrumptious wonderful cake,…
Del18th December 2016
As the last part of the novel is based in Vienna, I was looking for a framework as an excuse for the heroine to flit around various places in this wonderful capital – apart from the obvious reason of being…
Del29th November 2016
One of life’s many disappointments has been the refurbishment of the Walther König Buchhandlung in the Museums Quartier. This has traditionally been one of my first stops whenever I come to Vienna because of the array of interesting and unusual…
Del28th November 2016
Another rainy night … or at least, it looks as though it’s going to be. But it won’t be raining in my heart, as Budy Holly didn’t say, as I shall be amongst chums for the vernissage of Wir Sind…
Del27th November 2016
Today’s blog post is mainly about me … and Zeljko. We spent a most pleasant afternoon hanging Wir sind am Ziel at Zeljko’s restaurant-bar, Sixta (Schönbrunnerstr., 21, 1050 Wien). Wir sind am Ziel is a series of images from around…
Del25th November 2016
The plot, the pen and I are now in Vienna getting ready for Sunday’s kleine Ausstellung (more on that tomorrow) and the grand finale to the novel. Last time I was in Vienna, the European Month of Photography was just…
Del24th November 2016
Actually, as the sharp-eyed amongst you will note, there is only one monkey ... although I guess you can’t see any monkeys unless you know that the cheeky little hound is called Monkey – but there is no prog track…
Del23rd November 2016
Thanks to my good friend Dee, our heroine Madzi manages to find gainful employment. Not giving too much of the game away at this stage, but it involves glassware, tableware and an oyster bar called Oberts, although it might not…
Del21st November 2016
When was the last time you received a personal letter that was hand-written and just full of news, gossip, chit-chat and a pleasure to read? I’ve discovered that the letter is an excellent device for changing the plot, introducing a…
Del20th November 2016