Saturday’s tours were to Schonbrunn Palace and the Opera House. Schonbrunn is the summer home of the Habsburg family built in the 1600s. It has 1400+ rooms and extensive gardens and other buildings. Because of timing we only had a chance to tour the Imperial Palace – the living area of the family. We were due to sing outside at noon and up until about 10 minutes before concert time it was drizzling rain. It looked like it might stop eventually so we lined up and began our first song, thinking that if it continued we would call the buses and leave for downtown. The first song was Rise Up My Love, one line of which says “the rain is over and gone” – which it was! The sun came out and the rest of the day was quite nice.

The bus took us downtown where we had time for a quick lunch and then we were off to the Opera House. What a beautiful building. Originally built in the late 1800s it was bombed during the war and was closed for 10 years while it was rebuilt. From September to June they perform over 300 performances usually of about 50 – 60 different opera/ballets. There are 1700 seats and room for about 600 standing patrons. The intermission rooms are around the outside of the building and are all decorated in different eras. We also saw the Emperor’s private lounge where he entertained guests. It’s still decorated with the original furniture. The Vienna State Opera House had the distinction of being 99% full over all performances last year. 51% of their budget is provided by the state. I guess when you are a musical country you have a lot to live up to!

After a bit of down time and dinner we were off to a Mozart Concert at the Muzikverein – a large concert hall in downtown Vienna. Imagine our surprise when we arrived to find that our seats were actually on the stage! Evidently this is quite common in Europe. It was certainly a different feeling to listen to a concert sitting beside/behind the orchestra. The only drawback was that we couldn’t see the soloist’s faces but we didn’t have any trouble hearing them. Interestingly enough the program included a flute concerto and a selection of pieces from The Magic Flute, which of course we had heard last week at the Marionette theatre.

We arrived back at the hotel just before 11pm – a tired but happy crew.