The first thing you need to do when attending the Salzburg Festival on the back end of a round-the-world trip is just ignore the disapproving looks from the Austrians because you're not decked out in evening wear. Entschuldigung, mein herr, but the tuxedo and the gown just didn't make it into the bags!
What we were supposed to be wearing:
Or better yet, a dirndl:
The second thing you need to do is sit back and let the music envelope you, because it's spectacular. Two nights ago we got the traditional all-star heart of this festival - the Vienna Philharmonic and the Vienna State Opera Chorus - doing Rossini under the baton of Ricardo Muti. As I mentioned to a friend on Facebook, it's hard to believe Ricardo is 68 years old now, given that our first memories of him are when we were in college at Penn and he had just succeeded Eugene Ormandy at the Philadelphia Orchestra. Then he was the hot young Italian conductor; now off that post and a long stint running La Scala, he's turned into a distinguished eminence grise, with still only a sprinkle of gray in the mane. (For all we know, he's dyeing it, of course - he's certainly vain enough to hide the fact that he wears glasses, not putting them on until after he's taken his bow at the podium, then turned his back on the audience to face his musicians and singers.)
Rossini's Moise et Pharoan is one of his lesser-known works, but just as filled with beautiful melodies as The Barber of Seville or The Thieving Magpie. Sometimes a little too beautiful - there's nothing really bouncy about the Jews plight in Egypt, but he can't help but give you that sort of song.
Last night was a guest appearance by the London Symphony Orchestra, under Valery Gergiev, who is quite the character, and as with Muti, it starts with the hair - in his case, a monkish bald spot fringed by long straight gray hair, with bangs that he must continually wipe from his eyes while he's trying to coax maximum emotion from his orchestra. No baton and lots of wrist and even some extensive fluttering of the fingers in his directing style. Really a perfect match for the emotion of Debussy's La Mer and the Shostakovich 8th Symphony. I think I even heard him singing along with the music at times during the Shostakovich.
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