Window in Schönbrunn Palace, Vienna, Austria
Κατηγορία: austria
Cosi fan tutte, ossia La Scuola degli Amanti – Thus Do They All, or The School For Lovers
Mozart’s opera buffa is a perplexing one, and in spite of appearances, a very dark one indeed.
It is this mix of comedy and tragedy that attracts me, and led me to write this post.
Così was written quickly, over the autumn and winter months 1789 and premiered on January 26, 1790, on the eve of the Mozart’s 34th birthday.
Dramatis Personae
Fiordiligi: Lady from Ferrara and sister to Dorabella, living in Naples
Dorabella: Lady from Ferrara and sister to Fiordiligi, living in Naples
Guglielmo: Lover of Fiordiligi, a Soldier
Ferrando: Lover of Dorabella, a Soldier
Don Alfonso: an old philosopher
Despina: a maid
Synopsis
In a coffeehouse, Guglielmo and Ferrando, two soldiers, discuss with Don Alfonso,an old philosopher, the faithfulness of their fiances, Fiordiligi and Dorabella. Don Alfonso dismisses all that, and bets that he can prove within a day that Fiordiligi and Dorabella like all women, are fickle.
The two men will pretend they have been called to active duty, and they will leave (only to return in disguise). They announce the “bad” news ot their fiances, and they sail off to “war”. As they do, Don Alfonso, Fiordiligi and Dorabella wish them a safe trip: Soave sia il vento—”May the wind be gentle”
When left alone, Alfonso predicts that he will prove that all women are unfaithful: Oh, poverini, per femmina giocar cento zecchini? (Poor ones, (how stupid can you be) to wager 100 sequins on a woman?)
The arrangement is that the two men will return disguised as mustochioed Albanians and will attempt to seduce the women, swaping one for another. Ferrando will (attempt to) seduce Fiordiligi and Guglielmo will seduce Dorabella.
In the sisters’ home, Don Alfonso meets alone with Despina, the maid of the sisters, and bribes her to cooperate, as he is afraid that she will recognize the two men in spite of their disguise. Despina is fully part of the plot as the two “Albanians” enter the scene and offer to the two sisters their unlimited and irresistible charm.
The charm of the “Albanians” is not working and Despina asks Alfonso to take over. Extreme actions have to be taken. The two “Albanians” fake severe illness and Despina arrives disguised as a doctor to treat them. Eventually the two sisters succumb to the charm of the “Albanians” and the swap is done.
The four are now ready to be wedded, but in the “swap” mode. Despina now disguised as a notary presides over the event. Don Alfonso has won the bet! Women are fickle!
In a sudden change of the scene, the “Albanians” disappear, and the two soldiers return to find their beloved ones and confront them with the “contract” of their marriage to the “Albanians”.
In the finale, the men receal their “mixed” identities, and they all accept that life must be accepted with the good and the unavoidable bad times.
But of course it is not “life” we are talking about, the story is about people, and trust, and betrayal. And the moral of the story is that you cannot trust anyone! Unfortunately it is not only women who are fickle, everyone is fickle!
A Philosopher
What is a philosopher? What is philosophy? Definitions vary. I will quote some passages from Bruce Alan Brown’s article (included in ROH’s program of the 1995 performance).
…..Pierre Richelet’s dictionary of the French Lnaguage (1775) gives as its primary definition of philosophy “love of wisdom” or “clear and distinct knowledge of things natural and divine”; but other senses of the word are given as well, including “firmness and loftiness of mind by which one puts oneself above the accidents of life and the false opinions of the world”.
It is precisely this trait which so distinguishes Alfonso from his young friends and which moves him to explain to them that “[….] in ogni cosa /Ci vuol filosofia” (philosophy is necessary in all things) after both sisters have been proved to be unfaithful. A “philosophical” attitude implied a forgiving nature, as one sees at the end of COSI.
….. The entire opera is premised on Rousseau’s notion that experience precedes understanding. Alfonso cannot simply tell the soldiers that women are inconstant, or the sisters know precious little about love. If they are truly to learn his lessons, they must experience the pain that comes from being deceived of their initial notions. The cruelty for which Don Alfonso has so often been criticized is the same as that of the tutor in Rousseau’s Emile, ou De l’Education, whose pedagogy amounts to “a minutely organized and vigilantly executed conspiracy”.
….It is Despina, not Alfonso, who presents the most complete “philosophy” of love in Cosi fan tutte. The creed she recites just before the first finale is a mixture of proverbial folk wisdom and current “naturalist” philosophy, probably learnt second-hand. The taking of a second lover, she declares, is not merely prudence byt a “law of nature”.
Jonathan Miller
I was lucky to have seen Jonathan Miller’s 1995 production of Cosi fan tutte in the Royal Opera House, London. This was his debut in Covent Garden, and what a debut it was! It is a production that has already been staged seven times since. From the archives of the Royal Opera House I can see that the production has been now modified to adopt a modern set and costumes and devices: the singers are using iPhones!
Wings of desire – Der Himmel uber Berlin – A film by Wim Wenders (1987)
From the sea of Paros to the sky over Berlin!
Today I want to reminisce on the wonderful film “Wings of desire”, made in 1987 by Wim Wenders.
The title in German is “The sky over Berlin”, whereas for unknown reasons the title in English is the corny “Wings of Desire”.
The story is simple like a fairy tale. Two Angels, Damiel (Bruno Ganz) and Cassiel (Otto Sanders), go around Berlin listening to what people are saying, stand on high places and statues, medidate, think about the past. Ordinary humans cannot see them, nor can they hear them speak.
This film is shot in black/white and color. The Angels cannot see color. Therefore, when the shot is from the angels’ point of view, the shot is black and white (with a blue tint), and when the shot is from a human point of view, it is in color.
Damiel’s wanderings lead him to a small circus, where he meets Marion (Solveig Dommartin), a trapeze artist. Talented and lovely, Marion is also angst-ridden and profoundly lonely. She confines herself to her trailer after performances, dances alone to the live music of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, and drifts through the city, trying to fulfill her “desire for love, desire to love.” Yet she fails to connect with anyone.
Apparently, angels have similar existential problems. Being eternal, Damiel has neither a beginning nor an end, and therefore lacks definition. He wants the simple pleasures of a finite existence: to feed a cat, enjoy a meal, tell a lie.
Divinity has its purpose, but as Peter Falk, playing himself as a former angel, informs Damiel, there is nothing to compare to the sensations of the finite. Falk became famous in the US with his portrayal of Detectiv Columbo, the absent minded naive but very efficient police crime detective. 
Falk’s role also connects the film to history. He’s come to Berlin to make a movie about a private detective in WWII, and extras stand around on the set wearing Nazi uniforms and clothes marked with the Star of David. The past is alive and well within the city, and old newsreel footage is cut into Wings of Desire, seen from car windows, the ghost of memory. It’s another division between realms, one of many in the movie. Wim Wenders and cinematographer Henri Alekan (Topkapi), along with assistant director Claire Denis, create a vivid visual division between the heavenly and the earthly.
The angels and what they see are shot in crisp, cool black-and-white (restored here to a more silvery hue rather than the gold of previous DVDs) while the mortal experience is shown to us in full color, rich in tone and often garish. Humanity experiences the full spectrum, whereas the angels’ vision is limited. For all of their peeping in on our brains, the angels are confined. They can’t do anything else. This is the core of existentialism: choice is what makes us free. Our imperfections define us. The brightest light burns half as long.
At another level, Wings of Desire is about a world divided, about the line between the spiritual and the physical, the fanciful and the practical. Between the poetry of words and thought and the true poetry of life.
The screen play is written by Peter Handlke, the Austrian poet and play write. I came to know his work with “The fear of the goalie before the penalty kick”, and then with “Kaspar Hauser”.
In addition to the script, he wrote the poem “Song of Childhood” for the movie. Here is an excerpt:
“When the child was a child,
It was the time for these questions:
Why am I me, and why not you?
Why am I here, and why not there?
When did time begin, and where does space end?
Is life under the sun not just a dream?
Is what I see and hear and smell
not just an illusion of a world before the world?
Given the facts of evil and people.
does evil really exist?
How can it be that I, who I am,
didn’t exist before I came to be,
and that, someday, I, who I am,
will no longer be who I am?”
THE END
Dinner Party on the occasion of Despoinarion's Oscar Celebration and Awards
Today’s post is a celebration for Despoinarion‘s Oscar Awards.
The celebration is double in nature: we celebrate first the award for imagination given to Despoinarion by her friend Taste Advisor
and secondly the award that Despoinarion has given to some bloggers, including myself.
The guests are:
Despoinarion, Errikos, the Taste Advisor, So Far, Marizz, Gabriel, Roula, Orfia (aka Lena), Manolis, Yanna, Katerina, Natalia.
Yiannis Tsarouchis, Iannis Xenakis, Manos Chatzidakis, Karl Popper, Parmenides, Hoelderlin, Paul Celan, Paul Cezanne
Today’s dinner party is seated and the menu is a combination of dishes I have created, with dishes I have tasted in Italy, Spain, Turkey, the Basque country and Austria. The wines come from Italy, Austria, Greece and Spain.
To start, I will serve Amalia Brut by Tselepos, a fruity fresh sparkling wine, made the traditional way from moschofilero grapes in the area south of Tripoli, Greece.
Amuse Bouche: Pies with hot sudjuk (my creation)
Home made closed pies with a filling of hot sudjuk from Turkey, onions, peppers, sun dried tomatoes and spices.I imasgined this combination one day while I was tasting the hot sudjuk from Turkey and was wondering how to temper the fire and the heat without levelling it to something boring.
They are hot enough to get the human machine started, so that my guests will endure throughout the process.
Antipasto: Greek sushi – sardines with rice in vine leafs (my creation)
My Greek sushi uses vineleafs instead of sea weed, rice, and lightly marinated sardine fillets. I think it is one of the best antipasti because of the unique combination of the oily fish flavors’ and the vine leafs. The rice acts as a mediating agent.
Antipasto: Joselito – Pata Negra
Nothing can describe the taste of a slice of Joselito’s pata negra. Keep your eye lids closed, slip into your half open mouth, roll it a bit around without chewing, let it rest for a few seconds, and then open your eyes, and start the cheweing process. Unforgettable!
Vino: Albarino – 2006 Granbazán Ambar
The first wine I will offer is albarino made by Granbazan. Albarino is a wonderful grape, it produces a ehite wine with a good kick and a lot of acidity. I love it and hope you will love it too!!!
Primo 1: Sea urchin eggs with Bacalao Tripe (Ristorante Uliassi, Senigalia, Italia)
I now come to one of the absolutely fabulous dishes of the evening created by chef Uliassi. Frozen sea urchin eggs with cod tripe. What a pandemonium of tastes, aromas and all of them encased on the tender silky texture of the cod tripe!
Primo 2: Egg with grilled octopus (Restaurante Andra Mari, near Bilbao, Basque Country)
This minimalistic dish is absolutely stunning. One of the most unusual combination of tastes, married by the chef of Andra Mari in Vizkaya.
Secondo: Iberian Pig’s Tails with crayfish (Restaurante Mugaritz, near San Sebastian, Basque Country)
The humble tail with its skin intact and crispy combines with the white immaculate flesh of the crayfish in a never ending game of pure pleasure, amplified by jamon iberico crisps.
The flesh of the tail is surrounded by streams of fat, the best tasting fat in the world!
The contrast in the texture between the skin and the subliminally soft, almost creamy fat is unbelievable.
And when you get back to Earth after this excursion into extreme pleasure, the crayfish comes into play and with its soft flesh and sweet flavor takes you to the cool ocean of elevated joy.
A crisp of jamon iberico completes the palette of tastes and you find yourself asking the simple question:
“How could I ever taste something more satisfying than this?”
The Princess has danced with the Serf, the lights are off, and the Prince with the skull on hand walks by wandering:
“To be or not to be?”
He obviously didn’t manage to get even one bite!
P.S. This dish is on the menu of the re-opened Mugaritz Restaurant, near San Sebastian in the Basque Region, which was completely rebuilt after a fire destroyed the entire kitchen and a big part of the dining area on the 15th February 2010.
Terzo: Bistecca Fiorentina
The queen of meats could not be absent from this dinner. Bistecca Fiorentina, bought from my good friend Dario Cecchini, in Panzano, Chianti.
The meat is marbled, and it melts in your mouth dear guest, enjoy it!!!
Vino: Poeckl Admiral 1995
The Admiral, a cuvée of Zweigelt, Blaufränkisch and Cabernet Sauvignon, has been one of Austria’s great red wines for years.
My brother Manolis introduced me to this battleship of reds and I am enslaved by it ever since.
Dolce: Tiramisou (Ristorante Uliassi, Senigalia, Italia)
The tirami-sou, another creation of chef Uliassi, is deconstructed and absolutely fantastic! The mascarponeisintense and ever present, the cream golden and thick, the chocolate dressed in coffee chunky and bitter! A caramelized wet biscuit on top provides the necessary absorbing agent.No cake needed!
Dolce: Dark chocolate praline with campari sauce in the middle, accompanied by blood orange sorbet on the left and orange grog on the right.
And now the second dessert! The grog was mildly hot, and contrasted beautifully the cold sorbet (Restaurant Vestibuel, Vienna, Austria). What a wonderful way to end the dinner!!!
Vinsanto: Barone Ricasoli – Castello di Brolio
The Castello di Brolio Vin Santo, true to tradition, expresses one of the “historic” grapes of the area, Malvasia del Chianti.
It is silkyy, aromatic, and can stay with you for a long time. The aftertaste is memorable.
Restaurant Guth, Lauterach, Bregenz, Austria
“Lets go and have a nice meal, this is no weather for being outdoors”, said Manolis, when the snow started accumulating on the ground and the visibility was reduced to less than 50 meters. You have seen the pictures in the “white” post, now its time to get down to the eating and drinking business.
Restaurant Guth was around the corner, at the outskirts of Bregenz by lake Constance in the Austrian – German borders. In the map below, you can see Bregenz in the lowest right side of the lake.
Chef Thomas Scheucher is one of the most creative Austrian chefs and has created a modern environment to serve his creations.
The building is new, and the outside is austere in style. The inside is warm and with a beautiful garden view.
The chef’s menu was our choice, but Manolis asked for a swap. Instead of the soup, he asked for the tripe. Such a request would not be honoured in France, where you would be asked to order it as extra. Not in friendly, hospitable Austria, where the request was accepted with a smile.
The amuse bouche was a slice of foie with brioche and quince and pear marmalade, accompanied by scallop’s and musel’s hot beverage. Exquisite and multilayered in taste and flavours, this was one of the best amuse I have ever tasted! The philosppher of Atelier will offer his own views while he comments on the post, so I will not try to interpet him, which would in any case be sacrilegious!
Marinated tuna with horseradish mousse, accompanied by a pike croquette served on cubes of beetroot. The tuna was soft and sweet, the horseradish perfectly accompanied the oily flesh, while the croquette was like solid foam (a contradiction of terms and senses).
Sauteed tripe with herbs of the nearby forest. Never had this dish before, and it was worth the wait of so many years! A complete game with the senses this one, thin threads of tripe enveloped in the aromas of the forest, melt in the mouth and bless it with eternal memories of gastronomic pleasures.
Zander fillet with octopus, on a bed of fresh green beans. The dish of extreme lightness, attempted to supplement the memory of the mighty tripe with a presence of indelible subtlety and kindness to the palate.
Free-range beef fillet with mushrooms, celery and semolina crack dumplings (knoedel). The ultimate in meaty texture and taste, medium to rare, the knife was practically not needed to cut through this velvety flesh!
Hot chocolate desert, with fried bananas and bitter sweet foam. The perfect conclusion to a perfect meal. It took the chef almost 20 minutes to prepare the cylinders of delight, and was well worth it!
In the basement, you can find another source of pleasures, the wine cellar. We were served excellent austrian wines to accompany the dishes. More on austrian wines will come in a future post, they are the big discovery of the year for me!
Conclusion: When you get a chance, visit Guth, you will thank me for that!
P.S. For the culturally oriented, there is fantastic Opera Festival during the summer in Bregenz. Just imagine the immense combination of a beautiful opera performance accompanied by a meal in Restaurant Guth…..
P.S.2 Thank you Manoli for opening guth’s door for me!
P.S.3 Thank you Nature, for creating the unique Christmas images on the last day of November in the year of 2009.
P.S4 Thank you Romania, for having your National Day on the 1st December, which gave me the opportunity to visit Manolis and Guth and…
P.S5 At the time of the visit, the restaurant was recommended by the Michelin Red Guide as “one star”.
Gustav Mahler’s Rueckert Lieder: If you love for beauty
Today I want to share with you one of the songs that Gustav Mahler wrote to poetry by Friedrich Rueckert.
The poem is simple, almost childish, but the song is a masterpiece. Mahler has managed to condense in his lieder all the passion of his music, and the fact that he has not writen even one opera, being the Director of the Vienna Opera for ten years, testifies to his immense focus on lieder and song cycles. At this point it is pertinent to note that Mahler’ smusic was not played and/or recorded much, until the 1950’s. One of the conductors who “un-earthed” Mahler was Dimitri Mitropoulos.
My mother was studying in New York in early 1950s and was a regular at Carnegie Hall, where Mitropoulos was conducting. I owe it to her that this door of humanity and civilization was opened for me at a very early stage in my life.
Friedrich Rueckert : If you love for beauty (Liebst du um Schönheit)
If you love for beauty,
Oh, do not love me!
Love the sun,
She has golden hair!
If you love for youth,
Oh, do not love me!
Love the spring;
It is young every year!
If you love for treasure,
Oh, do not love me!
Love the mermaid;
She has many clear pearls!
If you love for love,
Oh yes, do love me!
Love me ever,
I’ll love you evermore!
Translation from German to English copyright © 1996 by David Kenneth Smith (dksmith (AT) geneva.edu)
The clip that follows features mezzo-soprano Angelika Kirchschlager, 
and is in my opinion of the best interpretations of the song.
Liebst Du um Schönheit Angelika Kirchschlager Gustav Mahler, Fünf Lieder nach Gedichten von Friedrich Rückert Live from the Rheinvokal Festival, Mittelrheinhalle, Andernach, 19.06.2009
Restaurant Steirereck – Vienna, Austria
Introduction
Today I continue with my second gastronomic experience in Vienna, the first being in the Restaurant Vestibuel, reported a couple of days ago.
After a rather long meeting and under very wet conditions I found myself in the comfort and warmth of the Steirereck Restaurant in the middle of Stadtpark in Vienna.I selected it after reading the Michelin Red Guide, which has awarded two stars to the restaurant and is overall very enthusiastic about he place.
I will start with the food, and finish with the wines.
Part I: The Food
The first bite came compliments of the chef. Trout with onion and yellow ginger. Succulent and full of aromas, a nice way to start the meal.
Gillardeau Oysters with buttermilk, glass pasta and pea shoots. This is the first dish in the 5-course set menu of the chef. The dish evolves around the oysters and magnifies their taste and flavors. A subtle and discrete dish.
Braised “Oxheart” Carrot with fillet, milt and marrow from Styrian beef. When I first read the menu, I thought that this was the heat of the ox! Wrong! Oxheart is a type of carrot, named so because its shape is like the heart of the ox! The braised carrot was served on top of raw Styrian beef fillet sliced paper-thin, and topped with a very light vinaigrette with marrow. The sticks you see on top are a type of rich bread with majoram.
Gilt Head Bream and Moscardini, with black radish, rocket and parsley. The fish was pan fried to perfection, its fresh firm and juicy. And -as always- the skin was the best bite of all! The bream was served on top of a angel pasta bed and was accompanied by one moscardino in vinaigrette, and paper-thin black radish, which was delicious! I must say that I somehow lost the flavors of the moscardini, this iwas rather neutralized. But if you exclude that, everything else in the dish was perfect.
Pheasant breast with chevril root, chanterelle mushrooms and yellow dates. What a wonderful dish! The breast was cooked to perfection, succulent, full of flavours, accompanied by the mushrooms and the dates. But the real taste booster was at the bottom. The skin of the bird was served with a semi sweet and savoury sauce, and this made the difference!
Cheese selected from a trolley with 60 different cheeses from Europe (mainly France and Italy). My only comment on the cheese is that next time I visit the restaurant, I will ask to have a five course cheese menu!
Part II: The Wines
I now come to the wines of the evening (wine maker, grape, year):
1. Prager, Gruener Veltliner, 2008. Very young, fresh, a superb introduction to the menu.
2. Hiedler, Riesling, 2008.
3. Emmerich Knoll, Riesling Kellerberg, 2007, Smaragd. A knock-out! ? Never had a riesling like this, and I have already had quite many! Intense fruity aroma, pepper aftertaste, full body! It stood up to the strongest and most mature cheeses like the best brunello! Totally unbelievable!
Epilogue
Value for money: We were a party of three, and the bill for all of this, which lasted exactly 4 hours with immaculate service, was 140 EURO per person.
Style of cooking: This is the type of cooking that builds on the tradition, but is not blinded by it. Especially in the oxheart dish, I felt that all the centuries of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, were somehow encapsulated in the dish. Hegel would be very proud of this dish, as it more or less excemplifies his concept of history as eternal progress through time.
P.S. At the time of the visit, the restaurant was recommended by the Michelin Red Guide as “two stars”.
Restaurant Vestibuel – Vienna Austria
This is a hot report, I have not even digested the food yet, but there is a burning desire inside me to report immediately, as if I could this way relay to you some of the magic I have experienced tonight in Vienna.
I am here for a meeting and I arrived shortly before dinner time. I stay in the historical center, and found the “Vestibul” from the Michelin Red Guide, where it has been awarded a “Bib Gourmand” citation, meaning best value for money.
In any case, I walked the one kilometer in a very mild night and arrived at the restaurant.
It is across the boulevard from the Parliament, in a quiet corner of the Burg Theater.
The decoration inside is 19th century “fin de siecle”, as you can see from the bar photograph.
I was greeted by Veronika Doppler, who kindly showed me to a smoking table near the bar.
The friendly waiter recommended the house specialty for a starter, and I obeyed.
The dish arrived in the hands of the chef, Christian Domschitz, who explained that it is crunchy gabbage, lightly treated in salt and vinegar, served to accompany the lobster in its butter sauce. This was a first course, and it had in it almost half a lobster! Tender, juicy, divine!
This dish is a poem to the contrast of textures and the divinity of the lobster’s fragile mortal flesh.
If mortality is so beautiful, I am happy to be mortal!
The main course was my choice. black truffle with beef marrow, served on a “sponge” of crispy white bread. This is beyond description! I have never before tasted such a sweet, buttery substance, that melts in your mouth with overpowering you, while at the same time the truffle infuses the liquid with all the aromas of the woods.
This orgy of a dish was accompanied by a fiery red wine made by Triebauer.
And now the dessert! Dark chocolate praline with campari sauce in the middle, accompanied by blood orange sorbet on the left and orange grog on the right.
The grog was mildly hot, and contrasted beautifully the cold sorbet.
Mamma mia!
Veronika, Christian, thank you!
I will be back!
Mit herzlichen gruessen!
P.S. At the time of the visit, the restaurant was recommended by the Michelin Red Guide as “petit gourmand”.