Yes it looks like we'll be making it back to Salzburg for the 2013 edition of the Pfingstfestpiele. Its been a bit touch and go the past few weeks - are we going or are we not? I won't go into the sordid details except to say that the procedure at the Heart Institute last week determined that I do have a heart and that it is functioning, after a fashion, and should I follow a programme of exercise, diet and medication will for awhile yet.
Now I'm not sure if the schnitzel at Triangl, Bazartost at Cafe Bazaar or Salzburger Nockerl at Hotel Bristol are on that diet but we shall have to see. But I'm sure that a climb up the Kapuzinerberg and a stroll through Hellbrun Palace are considered exercises. And the programme that Cecilia Bartoli has created for this year's festival is sure to be as soothing and healing as any medication a doctor could prescribe. So I'll just look on this as following the doctor's orders.
Actually this trip was planned almost a year ago - the tickets for the Whitsun Festival go on sale a day or two after the current festival ends. In a gesture of mad optimism - and let's be serious about this you have to be optimistic to book these things a year in advance at my age - I booked tickets for a rather full Whitsun weekend (more about that later). As the months progressed the vacation plans became more elaborate with each passing week until we had a full two weeks of traveling in Germany as well as five days in Salzburg.
If things had been going according to plan this morning we would have gone to services at Dresden's Frauenkirche and about now we would be entering the Semperoper for a performance of Halévy's rarely performed La Juive - yes David I know another bloody French grand opera! And tomorrow we would be boarding a paddle wheeler for lunch at the Meissen Factory. However the "best planned lays of mice and men" often go up the tubes - to mix and mangle my metaphors. As it stands now tomorrow evening (Monday) we will be heading to either Frankfurt than onward to Munich or London and onward to anywhere in Germany where we can catch a train to Munich. Such are the vagaries of travel on airlines passes.
We'll be traveling with our little buddy Sidd and he's been given strict instructions to have me write a bit about our experiences at this year's Festival. So hopefully at his urging I'll be posting another edition of Salzburger Zeitung.
May 12 - 1754: Franz Anton Hoffmeister, German composer and publisher of the works of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Clementi and Von Dittersdorf, was born.
3 comments:
Glad to hear Sidd is going along on your holiday. Now, a nice newspaper article about you and Laurent is all well and good but for gawd's sake, keep your antics out of the tabloids while you're there!
A special Salzburg performance of Zemlinsky's Der Zwerg is being mounted starring the immortal Sidd.
Now, how DID you do that newspaper article? I know you never answer your comments, so I'll probably never know...
David, I know but I cannot tell, I am just the fateful companion. But let's just say he really worked at it for a long time. Clever fellow.
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