Opera Preview

The year before the Vienna Opera House was finished, in 1869, one of the architects heard one jape too many about his ornate creation and hanged himself. But no city ever loved its opera house more than Vienna. Under the Habsburgs, young aristocrats and the better-heeled bourgeoisie found it a home away from home, and its corps de ballet was famed for much more than dancing.

There was opera, too. Vienna had its operatic golden age (1897-1907) under Composer-Conductor Gustav Mahler, a perfectionist who, so legend has it, personally walked Bruennhilde's horse around the Ringstrasse before the performance of Goetterdaemmerung in order to prevent stage accidents. Vienna was never especially fond of innovations, but some became famous. When Soprano Maria Jeritza was rehearsing Tosca with a Scarpia who knew not his own strength, she landed flat on her face on the floor just before her big aria, Vissi d'arte. She sang it from there, and seldom afterwards did it any other way.

Affair of State. During World War II, musical Vienna continued to flock to the opera until all theaters were closed in 1944. Toward the war's end, the building was gutted by bombing. After liberation, one of the first decisions by a half-starved but undauntedly sentimental state was to rebuild the opera house.

Ten years and $10 million later, the repair work is almost finished, and Nov. 5 has been announced as the opening date. All winter, the ticket stampede was on: a total of 7,000 applications arrived for the 1,658 seats. From the U.S. came pleas backed by blank checks; others offered as much as $500 for one ticket. The problem of choosing the fortunate first-nighters became an affair of state. The Cabinet held special sessions. Finally, the question was settled in a fine, Habsburg-style compromise : the government decreed three "first nights." The first will be Don Giovanni, actually an open rehearsal for government officials, diplomats and Austrian representatives of the arts, admission free.

Next night, the formal Nov. 5 opening will present Beethoven's Fidelia, with tickets at a feudal 5,000-schilling ($192) top, to be followed by another Don Giovanni the night after that. Last week singers were rehearsing on the new stage, gilders were applying the last touches of gold leaf to the auditorium, and the occupying powers seemed to be doing their best to comply with Chancellor Julius Raab's special plea: please leave the country before opening night.

Affair of Heart. More than the music, the house itself will be the major attraction. The fac,ade remains practically the same. Inside, the building has been redecorated (in the old ivory, gold and red) and modernized: no gallery pillars to sit behind, earphones for back seats, air-circulation system concealed in the giant crystal chandelier. Part of the former imperial box now holds radio, TV and lighting controls. The new stage is the largest and best-equipped opera stage in the world. Complete sets can be rolled on, revolved, or lowered into a cavernous substage in a matter of minutes. Dressing rooms are wired for sound so that singers can follow the performance and await their cues in comfort.

To decorate its spacious social rooms, the opera ordered 13 new Gobelin tapestries. Not that there is a shortage of tapestries in Vienna--there are hundreds lying around in vaults--but museum officials refused to let any go. "First thing you know," said a grumpy museum spokesman, "people will be rubbing their cigarettes out on them." It hardly seems likely. For, in the words of the Metropolitan's Rudolf Bing, a Viennese himself, "The Vienna Opera means to the Viennese what women mean to Don Giovanni. It is the air they breathe, the food they eat, and the girl they love."

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