ecbinvienna

A quarter past three on a mid-November afternoon in the Vienna Woods. The nights are closing in …

… has conveyed his deepest condolences and solidarity with the Mayor and people of Paris. A black flag is flying at half mast at the Vienna City Hall today.
https://www.wien.gv.at/rk/msg/2015/11/14001.html

In memory of that night, exactly 77 years ago, when synagogues and other Jewish properties were systematically destroyed and 400 people were murdered or driven to suicide under the Nazi regime.

Not 60 years since they first opened their doors, of course, but 60 years ago today the Staatsoper re-opened their doors after the terrible bomb damage of the Second World War had been repaired. They played “Fidelio” on that evening in 1955, if I remember correctly.

http://www.wiener-staatsoper.at/Content.Node/home/spielplan/Spielplandetail.en.php?eventid=965143956&

My Vienna. The trams, etc., are running more often on this the national holiday of All Souls Day so that even people without cars can make without too much trouble the traditional pilgrimage to the cemeteries where their loved ones are buried.

https://www.wien.gv.at/kultur/religion/allerheiligen.html

The Konzerthaus in Vienna needs just a few more “likes” on Facebook to reach 15,000 to celebrate the start of the new season. Just saying …

It isn’t often that 126-year-old mysteries are solved, but that is what I opened my Kurier to discover this morning. Although almost everyone has accepted the version of events that said Crown Prince Rudolf’s death with Mary Vetsera in a hunting lodge near Heiligenkreuz on 30 January 1889 was a “double suicide” (in the words of the Kurier), there were a few holdouts like Paul Hofmann in his fascinating, and sadly out-of-print, book The Spell of the Vienna Woods. He pointed out there was some suspicion that, in fact, the two had been murdered–perhaps by Mary’s uncles–and the whole thing was made to look like suicide. Now Mary Vetsera’s suicide notes to her mother, sister, and brother have been found. They were hidden for decades along with other Vetsera papers in a safe deposit box at the Schoeller Bank on Renngasse in Vienna.

I’m surprised at how intensely interested I am in this fact. My sympathy has always been with the less romantic–but harder working and more effective–Hapsburgs, like Empress Maria Teresia and Emperor Franz Josef. Perhaps it’s just the idea that something I never, ever expected to learn for sure in this life, I have now suddenly and with no effort found out. I just opened the newspaper. Perhaps next week they’ll publish proof that Salieri really did murder Mozart!

The article itself (in German, of course) can be found here: http://kurier.at/lebensart/leben/mary-vetseras-abschiedsbriefe-entdeckt/144.528.774

Some faithful soul has once again put a rose on the Vivaldi memorial to remind us that Vivaldi died in Vienna on this day in 1741. I am grateful.