How could I have missed this?

6 Sep

In taking out my Fodor’s to check the information about the bomb damage in the State Opera, I re-discovered an excellent article at the back on Austria’s wines, written by an Englishman named Nicholas Allen, whose day job it is / was to tour Austria with an English-language theater group.

No doubt the entry will need some updating, as 1987 was pretty soon after the international “Weinskandal” (yes, that means exactly what you think it means), but the 1987 article still gives a very good overview of the various regions and varieties, including a mini-glossary of wine terms.
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The Austrian wine scandal: When it was discovered that some (although only very few) Austrian winemakers were adding anti-freeze (as I heard it) to their wines to, I’m sorry to say, improve the flavor.

Austrian wines have come a very long way since then!

News from the State Opera in Vienna

6 Sep

There are over two pages in today’s Kurier about the decision of the Music Director of the State Opera, Franz Welser-Möst, to step down, with comments from the current General Director, the former General Director, the head of the holding company for the national theaters, and the Ministry of Culture. There is even a message of solidarity to the General Director from the chairman of the Vienna Philharmonic, saying that the orchestra, from whose members the Vienna State Opera Orchestra is assembled, will do whatever it can to make sure that performances go ahead as planned. Not excessive, I think, in a city where, I have read, the Viennese, even those who had never set foot inside, stood in the streets in tears watching the Opera burn after it was hit by a bomb on 12 March 1945, so ironically close to the end of the war.  According to my 1987 Fodor’s guide, “… the Viennese made it one of their first priorities … to rebuild their beloved Opera.” Vienna, Fodor’s goes on to point out, “… is a city where opera is taken very, very seriously. “

Freud’s Vienna

31 Aug

I’m not a compulsive seeker of Freud’s Vienna, but I do find articles and books interesting that address Freud’s complicated relationship with this city, so imagine my surprise to find the following lengthy article in the weekend edition of the International New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/31/travel/freuds-city-from-couch-to-cafes.html

Without doing any extensive fact-checking I can correct a few points:

– The university campus with the outdoor cafés Stephen Heyman writes about was, until about 15 years ago, the General Hospital. Freud would not have known it as a campus. The university as Freud knew it was centered around the building on the Ringstrasse, formerly on Dr-Karl-Lueger-Ring now on Universitätsring, a change of name rich in Viennese history.

– The “Narrenturm” on what is now the campus was revolutionary in its day (late 18th century) for its humane treatment of psychiatric patients. As I overheard one guide telling a group, many people who were treated in that facility would, before the “Narrenturm” existed, for example, have been burned at the stake as witches. Granted, psychiatric patients did have it somewhat easier after Freud and his pupils brought in their revolutionary theories, but it is all relative.

My favorite source for a quick fix of Freud’s Vienna is Frank Tallis. He is a practicing psychologist in the UK who has created a fascinating detective team of a Catholic detective inspector in the Viennese police and a Jewish pupil of Freud’s. Together they solve mysteries around opera singers and freemasons in turn-of-the-century Vienna, and when they are not solving crimes they are making music together. In the tradition of the day, the psychoanalyst is an accomplished amateur pianist and the police inspector has a lovely baritone voice.

See: http://www.franktallis.com/

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“The Third Man”

30 Aug

Do you immediately hear the zither music when you read that title? If so, you can look forward to some interesting trivia (as well as one person’s reminiscences of a long relationship with the film).

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you can discover a quintessential film about life in Vienna right after the war (WWII, as one must specify in this city which has so much history).

Ah, “The Third Man”. Black and white. Based on the book (do we really believe it was a novel?) by Graham Greene. Directed by Carol Reed. Produced by David O. Selznick. Starring (a still young and relatively slender) Orson Welles as the elusive Harry Lime. Starring still more the city of Vienna c. 1947–“bombed about a bit,” as the English narrator tells us in the beginning. World premier: 65 years ago, on 31 August 1949.

My mother showed it to me when it was clear that I was moving here. Above all, she wanted me to experience the landlady played by Hedwig Bleibtreu because “you might end up with just such a landlady”. (In broadest Viennese dialect she said things like, “Das ist ein anständiges Haus. Hier hat sogar früher ein Metternich verkehrt” Translation: “This is a respectable house. In the olden days, even a Metternich [member of an old aristocratic family] came to visit.”)

My mother had forgotten, though, a treasured line (one of my favorites) from another great Austrian actor, Paul Hörbinger. He played the concierge in the house where Harry Lime lived.  When tired of and scared by questions about Harry Lime’s death, he says he won’t answer any more and adds very gruffly indeed, “Und jetzt gehen Sie. Sonst verliere ich meinen Wiener Charme.” (“And now leave–otherwise I’ll forget my Viennese charm.”) Even writing it down like this makes me laugh.

There are far too many such moments too relate here, and I don’t want to ruin any surprises for those who haven’t experienced it yet. If you are interested in Vienna, I simply encourage you to see it. If you’re in Vienna, you can catch it in the late show on weekends at the Burg Kino. For the time being, I’ll simply pass on some facts that were printed in today’s Kurier.

Part of what people remember best are the music (by great good fortune done by a zither player, Anton Karas, at the last minute when the budget was more or less exhausted) and the chase scenes through the sewer system of Vienna. To this day, you can take “Third Man” walking tours of Vienna including, indeed, a look underneath the commendably clean streets of the city.

First bit of trivia, over 100,000 people have already taken that tour. I’m assuming the tour does not cover all 2,400 kilometers of that system, especially since only 25 meters were used for filming. This year Tom Cruise, who just finished filming in Vienna, took it.

“The Third Man” won the Academy Award(R) for “Best black-and-white picture” and was nominated for two others. Apparently in 2012, film critics named it the “Best British Film of All Time”.

That may have made worthwhile to Reed and Selznick that they apparently only slept two hours per night for the seven weeks they were filming on location. The Kurier reports that they kept themselves awake by taking a drug called dexedrine, better known as speed(!).

The unfortunate Anna Schmidt (Harry Lime’s paramour) was played by Alida Valli, an actress ironically descended from  an old Austro-Italian aristocratic family, possibly as important as the Metternichs ;-). She died in Rome in 2006 at the age of 84.

Five years ago was the first talk of a re-make, which supposedly would star Leonardo DiCaprio as Harry Lime and Tobey Maguire as Lime’s faithful friend Holly Martins. I’m not a fan of re-makes, but I think those two would be well cast, at least. Don’t know what they’ll do about the City of Vienna, though. Most of the bombed out bits have been re-built in the last 65 years.

The famous music was #1 on the U.S. charts for weeks in 1950. The next Austrian artist to achieve this feat was Falco in 1986 with “Rock Me Amadeus”.

To give you a bit of a taste, here is the opening scene, with fantastic running commentary from Major Calloway, the devastatingly attractive if unattainable British narrator, played by Trevor Howard:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fja9kwTl_jU

For people who have already seen the film, here is the unforgettable cuckoo clock speech:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WS-JcaPFzp4

With thanks to Bernhard Praschl of the Kurier, who wrote the article from which most of these tidbits were drawn.

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The ingenuity of city dwellers

28 Jun

I arrived very early for a course I’m attending today which gave me some time to take a look at this park. It was almost certainly carved out of a space created by a bomb in the Second World War. Klein aber fein, as one says in German. Small but fine.

image

Poisoning pigeons in the park ;-)

9 Jun

There are some new signs in the park. The ones exhorting dog owners to clean up after their pets have–temporarily, I imagine–been replaced by signs telling people that “Those who feed the pigeons are feeding the rats.”

don't feed the birds_modern

Interestingly, the fine is the same as if you don’t clean up after your dog–EUR 36.

There are permanent signs with the same message. They just aren’t as catchy–even if they are, in fact, more severe–and apparently needed some help to get the message across.

don't feed the birds_standard

The text (in my very inelegant translation): “No feeding the birds! (Prevention of rodent pests.)”

Another holiday in Austria

9 Jun

There is a period in May and June in Austria when almost every week seems to have a holiday in it–Easter, May 1st, Ascension, Whitsun or Pentecost, and Corpus Christi. Today is Pentecost Monday (so one more to go :-)) and Mylo and I are in the park. Gradually we have been joined by the women, mainly from Hungary this time, who live rent-free in the miniscule porters’ lodges in the gracious old buildings around us in return for cleaning the stairwells, halls, and pavements in front of the buildings. I write this not out of speculation, nor because I am able to eavesdrop in Hungarian. They are women I have seen in action, wearing their cheap house dresses in synthetic materials, wielding their buckets and mops. This could almost be Vienna of 100 years ago, at the tail end of the monarchy.

Behind-the-scenes Vienna

3 Jun

I caught the behind-the-scenes Vienna this morning, taking Mylo out for his walk. A few steps out of our house we passed a street cleaner in his bright orange uniform using an elaborate, clawed implement to pick up trash from the sidewalk and gutter. Upon seeing Mylo he gave us a big smile and said “Guten Morgen!”–a good start to the morning, indeed. Then, in the park, we saw the little (electric?) truck going along, one man driving and the other one walking along emptying the contents of the trash bins–considerable at this time of year as picnic season has begun–into the back of the truck. So that is why Vienna looks so clean. There is a crew backstage setting the scene just so.

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Karlheinz Böhm, 1928 – 2014

31 May

I went into the Trafik as usual this morning to pick up my Saturday Kurier to read at breakfast and saw on the front page of every Austrian newspaper a large photo of Karlheinz Böhm and his dates. This news led me to break my otherwise firm habit of starting the Saturday paper at the back of the supplement and working my way forward and then starting on the last page of the newspaper itself and working my way forward. I turned immediately to pages 17 and 18 to read more.

Who is Karlheinz Böhm and why so much news coverage of his death? What follows is a very personal response to that question. The short version: Karlheinz Böhm was a dashing actor who became famous playing the Emperor Franz Josef (second to last emperor of Austria) to Romy Schneider’s Empress Elisabeth (“Sisi”) in the “Sissi” films of the 1950s. Thanks to genuine acting talent he was, miraculously, able to move beyond this role and later even played the part of a serial killer with success.

At some point he was on vacation in Kenya with friends and was appalled by the gap between the relative wealth of the tourists and the poverty around them. He decided to do something and changed his life completely. On a famous German TV show “Wetten, dass …?” (more or less “Do you want to bet …?”) he expressed the bet that not even one-third of the viewers (an estimated six to seven million people) would give one Deutschmark (this was a long time ago!) or one Schilling (for the Austrian viewers) to alleviate hunger in Africa. He won that bet, but enough people gave that over a million marks came in and he was able to start an aid and development project in Africa, ultimately in Ethiopia.

There’s an interesting story about how the country was chosen, if you were wondering why Ethiopia when he had the idea in Kenya. Apparently, he went to the Kenyan government first, but they did not want to accept his terms (he wanted full say in how the money was spent) so he carried on from one country to the next. The first government to agree to his terms was the government of Ethiopia and his organization “Menschen für Menschen”  (“People for People”) was born . He gave up his acting career and devoted the rest of his life to helping people in Ethiopia.

His way of using the money from “Wetten, dass …?” He went from village to village with an interpreter and sat down, literally, on the ground with the people in these villages and asked them what they most needed. Everything Menschen für Menschen does–and they’re still around after 30 years–is based on the answers he got.

Some of what the short version above leaves out is that, on top of being a famous actor himself, he was Karl Böhm’s (the world-famous conductor’s) son so he was brought up with considerable privilege. The short version also leaves out why Menschen für Menschen (MfM) is one of the few charitable organizations I contribute to on a monthly basis. First of all, I love the picture of this man leaving behind a career with the kind of success most of us would give our eye teeth for and going and asking what people need and then doing his best to deliver it. In addition, by focusing on one country MfM can apply an integrative approach to development very effectively. That means they don’t just focus on clean water or education or more productive farming techniques or making women more independent or health care. They work on on all these aspects at the same time to increase the impact of what they are doing in each area. And, as well as focusing in an ongoing way on making people independent from their support, they are also there quickly with help when there are natural disasters.

Austrian TV is, of course, in addition to the commemorations of Karlheinz Böhm’s life and life’s work, showing all the “Sissi” films over the next week or so. So please forgive me if I leave you now to go watch them one more time. But first I need to go and increase my standing donation to the work that meant so much more to him.

Words Germans (and for the most part Austrians, too) think are English

19 May

This applies for the most part in Austria, too. We don’t talk about “Open Airs” as far as I know, but probably tomorrow I’ll see it on a poster here or hear it in a conversation.

http://www.dw.de/13-words-germans-think-are-english/g-17619951

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