John Sailer: Gallerist of The Austrian Avant-Garde
Saturday, 15 March. It was just after 15:00, when I pushed open the door of Café Sperl and felt a blessed gust of warm air. After a few days of a spring tease, the weather had turned on us with a slap, sending everyone back to the closet for hats and scarves. So it was [...]
Timna Brauer: Songstress on A World Stage
The first thing you notice about Timna Brauer is the hair, a massive voluptuous mane of curls, barely restrained by a pin here or a clip there. The second thing is her smile. It’s one that reaches clear across her face, fun loving and generous and, one imagines, one that would be very hard to [...]
Auer Borea & The Kreisky Forum: Solving Problems Through Dialogue
Given the roster of leading thinkers who cross her threshold, it’s surprising how many are unfamiliar with the name of Gertraud Auer Borea d’Olmo, since 2005 the General Secretary of the Bruno Kreisky Forum for International Dialogue in Vienna. But she prefers it that way. “It’s not about promoting me, it is about promoting ideas,” [...]
Klaus Maria Brandauer: The Outsider as Insider
The cobalt blue lights of the Gartenbaukino glow seductively against the night sky as the crowd converges for the Viennale premiere of The Strange Case of Wilhelm Reich, a new film by Austrian director Antonin Swoboda, and starring Klaus Maria Brandauer. Opening 18 Jan., it is the first Brandauer has made in three years, and [...]
Ari Rath: Israel’s Loyal Opposition
Veteran newspaperman Ari Rath was in mid-flight, talking animatedly on his cell phone as he waved me to join him in a back booth at Café Korb. It was early October, and the Vienna-born former chief editor of The Jerusalem Post had been swept up in a whirlwind of readings and interviews to promote his [...]
Eric Lomas: Theatre in Two Worlds
Actor-Director Eric Lomas is something of a phenomenon even in a theatre-obsessed town like Vienna. Born in Styria to an Austrian father and English mother, he left for England at 16 to train with the Westcountry Theatre Company, in Torquay; at 19 he launched a youth theatre called Frontal Theatre in his home town of [...]
A Woman’s Life Written in Music
Composer Nancy Van de Vate came through the door of the Café Museum and looked to both sides before catching sight of me in the back corner. Here we could talk undisturbed. We had met before, but I am never fully prepared for the impact of this gracious, high-energy woman with the razor-sharp mind that [...]
Siegfried Beer: Tracking Spies in the Archives
East German Spies in Austria!: The cover story of the Viennese weekly profil of 21 May jumped off the newsstand. Spy stories are hard to resist. This latest was about the one-time proprietor of Gutruf, a cigar chewing bon vivant by the name of Rudi Wein, code name “Procurer”, who re-surfaced recently in some newly-released [...]
Carl Djerassi: The Poet of Progressive Science
Chemist, novelist and playwright Carl Djerassi arrived at Café Schwarzenberg by tram from his apartment on Reisnerstrasse in the 3rd District. Although an injury six years ago requires him to walk with a cane, he goes where he wants, still a commanding presence at 88, with thick, snowy white hair and sharp eyes that miss [...]
