Night at the Opera

As a birthday present, our landlady Eric and her son Csaba treated us to the Mozart opera Don Giovanni performed about 10 miles away in a Roman rock quarry in St. Margarethen. Here is a view of the stage as we descend into the quarry. This is the oldest quarry in Europe and the largest natural outdoor stage in Europe. Sandstone from this quarry build many of the buildings in the center of Vienna.

Here is the "lobby."

You can see that it was rainy when we were there. The performance was interrupted three times for torrential downpours. The start was delayed until 9 and the opera didn't end until 1 a.m. because of the delays.

Csaba and some of his friends had bit parts. That is Csaba standing by the corner of the building in the middle. You can see here how the sets moved around on rails to change the scenes. On the side you can see where they projected German subtitles in case you don't understand Italian. The music was kept the same as the Mozart original but the staging and plot were updated to take advantage of the outdoor setting. We were soaked by the end but the performance was spectacular

They have a larger second stage that they use this summer for a "passion play" on the weekends.