On the Town

I was just thinking what a boring sod I was becoming, girlfriend, work, colleagues, that sort of thing, when “Something spectacular is coming to Vienna” landed in my inbox. It was a “VIP” invitation to the newest club in town. The place was called “Alpha”: the daring candour admirable, I thought at the time, in admitting such a commonplace pretension.

“But we’re on the VIP list,” the girl protested, the black points of her eyes locked accusingly onto the doorman through the night.

Early music musicians are often far more than mere instrumentalists. They are historians, archivists and sleuths, musicologists, music theorists and improvisers. They are conversant in lost tongues and read illegible scripts.

Utopia GESAMTKUNSTWERK at the re-opened 21er Haus, is the first exhibition to be staged in this remarkable building – rusty red frame outside, white girders inside, a big, industrial-chic place with vast windows letting in the Schweizer Garten view and whatever light can be conjured out of a V

Sometimes the truth about national character is easier for a foreigner to see than a local.  It was with this in mind that, years ago, I put some hours of careful study into a little book called the Xenophobes Guide to the Austrians, by one Louis James, part of an engaging series of revelatory tomes intended as cultural “user’s manuals” for the bewildered traveller. 

The perennial “high fog” of Vienna’s winter weather calls for a powerful antidote! So here are some shops in cheerful colours offering a wide selection of tempting goods from the luxurious to the sensuous for all ages and all pocketbooks.

For me, it was love at first sight: the Rochusviertel. It’s quiet, green and so varied. Just ten minutes to the Prater, five minutes to the highway, and ten minutes home from the 1st District. The Rochusviertel is the area surrounding the Rochusmarkt.

A hush went over the large room as the British Ambassador Simon Smith took center stage, welcoming the guests to The Residence extraordinaire that is his home. It was opening night of Rough Crossing, at Vienna’s English Theater, a play by Britain’s finest Tom Stoppard, and Simon congratulated the cast of six, and ended by proclaiming there would be no cognac. Everyone chuckled: This had been a running gag in the show and still had a bit of staying power.

When you venture away from the Ring in search of a new restaurant, you enter a strange mixture between fascination and fear. Stumbling on Mraz & Sohn in Brigittenau in the 20th District one Wednesday evening, we found a bit of both. 

The name Tom Stoppard usually means philosophical theatre – works like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, The Real Inspector Hound, or Travesties. And perhaps that was what theatre-goers at Vienna’s English Theatre expected when they bought their tickets for Stoppard’s Rough Crossing. But – surprise! – they are met with a delightfully airy musical comedy instead.