Old Postcard Wednesday on Mozart's Birthday--Wien Staatsoper (Vienna State Opera)

Happy Birthday, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who is uniquely and forever a part of the Vienna State Opera!

For many, it is the greatest opera house in the world: 300 evenings a year, the Vienna State Opera offers excellent productions with a programme that changes daily. . .

. . .When the old opera theatre next to the Kärntnertore proved too small for the majority of 19th-century operas, it was decided to build a new, larger opera house on Vienna’s Ringstrasse, then in the process of being widened into a magnificent new boulevard. Eduard van der Nüll and August Sicard von Sicardsburg were the architects commissioned to carry out this project. The new the opera house on the Ring opened on 25 May 1869 with a performance of Mozart’s Don Juan. . . ~ Wiener Staatsoper website (info on the new Vienna State Opera Museum)

The Staatsoper website offers so much, including a 360 degree panoramic tour of the opera house and fascinating background on the building - in part:

Exterior view

Looking at the building from the Opernring, in other words from the front, the historical part from the original 1869 building is visible. The façade remains in Renaissance arched style and the loggia on the Ringstrasse side underline the public character of the building.

Interior of the former opera house

Entering through one of the main doors into the box office foyer, which has remained in its original form, gives an immediate impression of the interior of the former opera house which was mostly destroyed on the 12th of March 1945 shortly before the end of hostilities in the Second World War. Remaining in its original form is the entire façade and main foyer, the central stairway (known as the ‘celebratory stairway’), the Schwindfoyer and loggia as well as the Tea Salon on the first floor.

This postcard was sent to me sometime around 1963 by my girlhood pen pal, who, since an earlier post, I still have not located.....and so am including the back of the card in the off-chance that it might stir up information concerning the well-being and whereabouts of Rosmarie Gugler. What a joy it would be to find her after so many years.

And to my friend, Francessa, in Vienna.....let's be sure to put the Staatsoper on the list of must-see places when I visit you one fine day in the future. 

My life would be complete if I could hear any of Mozart's compositions at The Staatsoper. That would pretty much be heaven for me.

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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart born this day

I immersed myself in Mozart's music in my first year of sobriety. With his music, and reading everything our library offered on Zen, my soul began the healing process. I honor his birthday each January 27 with reverence and gratitude.

Salieri gets a look at some original compositions of Mozart, shown to him by Mozart's wife. And he is simply astounded. A brilliant scene from a Best Picture Winner.
(Scene description by LazyLightning66, who posted this - one of my favorite movie scenes - at YouTube.)

Mozart at Greenbelt
for Niki and Sarah

We lie upon the grass on God's good earth
and listen to the Requiem's intense,
long, love-laden keening, calling forth
echoes of Eden, blessing every sense
with brimming blisses, every death with birth,
until all passion passes into praise.

I bless the winding paths that brought us here,
I bless this day, distinct amidst our days,
I bless the light, the music-laden air,
I bless the interweaving of our ways,
the lifting of the burdens that we bear,
I bless the broken body that we share

Sanctus the heart, Sanctus the spirit cries,
Sanctus the flesh in every touch replies

© Malcolm Guite

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