-=- Intense Melody -=-

Last week the annual world renowned Viennese competition, Hans Gabor Belvedere, completed it’s final round with some dramatic results.
The 28th international Belvedere opera competition received around 3,000 singers for the qualifying rounds that took place in nearly 50 cities around the world. This has been whittled down to 143 singers for the Vienna finals.
Pretty Yende [...]

With only one exception in 2010, Thomas Hampson has decided to no longer perform in Austria: a country that has been his home for some years now. Both his apartment on the outskirts of Vienna and his office near the Vienna Staatsoper were sold recently. “My career interests for the United States have been increasing [...]

Japan’s first opera house (Bunka Kaikan in Tokyo) is sold out with some tickets as high as 500 euros for the 97th Vienna State opera’s Japanese performance. The 100th performance will be celebrated with Fidelio conducted by Seiji Ozawa. Next to the Austrian flag in the foyer hangs an enormous photo of the Vienna State [...]

The opera-movie world premiere of La Bohème (see previous article about this movie here), like every opera-centric event in Austria these days, has been an orgy of VIP’s and hype abound. Finger food was served by caterers dressed like the title roles. The star role tenor, Rolando Villazón, was only able to make it to [...]

No my blog isn’t becoming political all of a sudden.  But this article struck a chord.
“I talk a bit too much about politics, right?” – No, of course not. But it’s a bit unusual, on the occasion of an operetta premier interview, more than half of the time to talk about politics. “Yeah I am [...]

Every season the Wiener Staatsoper (Vienna State Opera) house changes its stage curtain to a new abstract artistic rendition.
When I first moved here in 2006 we had a curtain designed by the Thai artist Rirkrit Tiravanija with the saying “Angst essen Seele auf” (“Fear eats away at the soul”) over the familiar television SMPTE [...]

“The biggest danger I see today is with ‘Netrebkoismus’” said the Vienna State Opera director Ioan Holender in an interview with Bühne magazine. “It is all about the events and what’s around them. We see what is playing out in Salzburg.” Mr. Holender went further to say that theater managers are increasingly more interested on [...]

Opera as bloodsport? The Viennese opera singer Alejandro Gallo (age 38) was stabbed in the face by a dagger during a Romeo and Juliet production staging rehearsal in Malta (National Theater Teatru Manoel). The dagger had travelled through his nose into his brain. The injuries were life threatening, and after a risky surgery, his career [...]

It all started when my Italian girlfriend introduced me to “La Bella Figura – A Field Guide to the Italian Mind” by Beppe Severgnini. A comical book written by an Italian journalist who’s lived outside of Italy long enough to view his own people from an outsider’s perspective, and explain the differences. Such as, why [...]

Vienna is an amazingly clean city for its size of nearly 2 million people. However, it does have a problem with dog piles. Coming from NYC, I’m used to seeing threatening signs of clean after your dog or else a hefty fine. Here they went a different route. Vienna installed posts recently with the above [...]