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My Audition for Operklosterneuburg, an Austrian Summer Opera Festival

In January of this year, I auditioned for the Operklosterneuburg, a very important summer opera festival in a town called Klosterneuburg, which is approximately twenty minutes outside of Vienna in a northerly direction with the regional train.  They were looking for singers for the Donizetti opera, Don Pasquale and I thought that the role of Norina would be well-suited to my voice (though perhaps not quite fully yet to sing it in a large opera house- therefore I auditioned for this program which serves also as a sort of a 'final-step' for emerging opera singers).

I have nothing but wonderful things to say about the entire experience actually, although in the end I was not chosen for the role.  Therefore I will bore you with details of how my own audition went since you already know the result (ha!) but instead I'll give you a brief synopsis of how it was for me to travel there, so that you too can get an idea of what might be awaiting you if you plan on auditioning.

I took the train actually from Dortmund to Vienna (which took approximately 10 hours) and stayed overnight in Vienna.  Then I woke up the next morning (I can recommend the A&O Hostel near the Westbahnhof, for those of you who were wondering where I stayed), ate a wonderful breakfast (courtesy of the A&O- yay them!) warmed up in my room a teensy bit (aka- hummed for 20 minutes) and then took the regional transit train to the town of Klosterneuburg, where the Kloster (Convent) is located and where the audition was being held.

Upon arriving in town it's easy enough to spot the convent hanging on the side of a large hill, sort of precariously it seems, when viewed from the angle of the train tracks, and I made my way by foot in that direction.  It took me only about 10 minutes to walk there from the train platform, via a steep inclined path which led me through a huge wrought-iron door and an old archway onto the Kloster grounds.  There was no one really around outside (it was a super cold day- of course! lol...) and so I walked around a bit admiring the buildings' grand statuesque gothic architecture while trying to find someone to ask for directions to the building where the audition was taking place.

I finally ran into someone who looked like he was in a hurry to get somewhere (a.k.a.- "He knows where he's going, therefore he must know where I should be going too", was my reasoning) and I asked him for directions.  He pointed me in the direction of a town square which was adjacent and abutted the Kloster property toward the east, and I exited the official Kloster grounds and entered the town square approaching the building he showed me.  Upon entering, it reminded me instantly of a high school auditiorium lobby: low ceilings, pseudo-1960's-esque wood paneling on the walls, stone floors.... and I made my way to the office and found one of the coordinators of the program and the auditions and he informed me that there were rooms to warm up in downstairs.  I had arrived there approximately an hour early (because I was in the habit of doing that since I had learned it was better than being rushed for me psychologically) and so I proceeded in a leisurely way to go to the practice rooms downstairs (which turned out to be two huge halls, actually, so that was awesome!) and warm up and change my clothes for the audition.

After about 40 minutes I was finished warming up, and I went upstairs because I was technically (according to the email invitation I received) due to be singing in 10 minutes.  So, I found out that the audition room was directly next to the entrance through which I came earlier that morning (with the wood paneling) and so I waited there, with a Baritone colleague who had also showed up around the time I had, and who was also there to audition.

He was called into the audition room first, so I waited in an adjoining room off of the opposite side of the entrance lobby so that I didn't have to listen to his singing through the door (which I really don't like to do when I'm mentally preparing for an audition and am about to go on--it psychs me out somehow and I can't focus as well...).  He was in there for about 15 minutes and then they called me in to sing.  There were only two people in the Jury- one was the Intendant of the program and the other I'm still not sure of (drat! darn you Google for not having a photo of everyone and their mother available to me to search through....) and the pianist actually upon seeing him I felt that I had seen him before somewhere but couldn't quite place his face (sadly).  I began with the aria I always begin with (I unfortunately did not have time to prepare Norina's aria "Quel guardo il cavaliere" for the audition even though I knew that they were auditioning for Don Pasquale, so although they asked if I had brought it with me I said that I hadn't and said I'd be offering something else and they seemed okay with it) and I think it went really well.  The pianist was terrific (who was he!? Man oh man that's going to kill me....) and I felt as if I was really totally free to interpret my aria like I wanted to acting-wise and vocally-speaking, and not have to concede to less-than-stellar piano playing (like is often the case here in Europe, I've found) and I was really glad.  So, after the audition was finished (I only sang my one aria- it's relatively long so they didn't ask for a second) they asked me what drew me to apply for the program, and then that was it.  Although I was heartened by the one nameless Jury member who ushered me out of the room and assured me that I sang "really very well" (said in German, of course) and I thought to myself "you know, for being on a train 10 hours a day ago, it's really awesome that I did so well today".

And that was it!  I wish there was more to tell, but honestly I just walked to the train station there in Klosterneuburg, arrived in Wien (Vienna) and then waited around for my train.

JUST KIDDING! There IS more to tell.  Though, if you don't want to read about my touristy experiences in Vienna, you can stop reading here.  Otherwise, proceed!

So, after getting back into the center of Wien with the regional train, I had 5 hours to kill before my train left from the Westbahnhof (West train station) and so I thought to myself "Heck! I'm not going to waste my time in Vienna waiting around in the train station! Especially when I've had such a great day thus far.  Therefore.....what can I do which I haven't done before when I was here last October?"  And that was how the plan was born to visit the Prunksaal (Showroom) of the Nationalbibliothek (Viennese National State Library)!

I actually had a heck of a time finding the place....it took me about 20 minutes of walking around downtown near the Reitschule (Riding school) of the Lippanzaner Stallions (which is located near the palace where Kaiserin Elisabeth lived, a.k.a. "Sissi") and then a few wrong turns and some direction-asking until I found out that it was located in the building attached to the Kaiserin's palace, but not connected to it via any sort of hallway, etc.  They are simply two buildings smushed onto one another with no way of entering either except for exiting both.  (Yea...tricky, huh? Ah, those Viennese!!)  So, I walked into (finally!) the building where the Prunksaal was located (it's actually not on the ground floor of the building, which surprised me, but rather on the second floor which is also kind of cool- considering it's a multi-story room itself!) and I was somewhat shocked by its rather spare white marble appearance.  For the entryway to something called the "Prunksaal", literally translated that means "Pagentry/Pomposity/Grandiosity Hall" it was rather less pageant-like and more.....nice-lawyer's-office-like.  But, ah well......I proceeded to purchase a ticket (4 Euros for students- not bad--perhaps one of the cheaper things I've done in Vienna to be honest---everything else is really quite expensive- even with a student discount, I might add) and I ascended the large (again, white marble) staircase.  There was a guard who was checking tickets at the top of the stairs right in front of the doorway to the Prunksaal, so I handed him my ticket and entered the Saal.

Man oh man!  If there was a reason why everything else in the building was so minimally decorated, I'd wager it was because nothing else could compare to the splendor, and dare I say it, "pagentry", of this room.  It was simply the most amazing and wonderful room I've ever seen (and let me tell you, I have seen some great rooms- I've been to Versailles, Schloss Belvedere, Schloss Charlottenburg, Schloss Sans Souci, Schloss Neuschwanstein, Schloss Mirabell, Schloss Schönbrunn, the Hofburg....and probably others I can't think of right now) and I really cannot remember ONE single room which I thought to be so splendid as this library/hall.  I actually wondered as I wandered (cheesy Christmas song lyric reference!) through the hall (which was actually the private library of the monarchy at the time of the Kaisers' rule in Austria) if it was the room which the Disney animators of Beauty and the Beast used as a model when they drew the library in the Beast's palace, because it was SO similar to that in terms of design and feel.  It was a two-story hall where every wall was lined with built-in bookshelves which stretched from floor to ceiling and were filled with old, precious leather-bound books containing the first editions of important literary works and the details of important discoveries of historical, biological and every other kind of significance.  Truly a collection of books fit for kings and queens, to be sure.

There was also a really cool exhibit on display of the original lithographs of an Austrian biologist who had been the first to document in drawings with color the appearance of several different species of animals- and had put together basically the first field guide to identifying these animals by sight (but, I have to say, the drawings that were on display were SO gorgeous, we'd consider them nowadays worthy of an art gallery and less-so a biology text book, even though they were also accurate depictions of these animals).

I actually found myself wishing that libraries today still looked like this (though I do have to say that Columbia University's East Asian Library does look similar to this--it's two stories and has those book ladders but is not nearly as large, has as cool books or is nearly as full of "pagentry" as this place was) and I was really starting to look around for a comfy chair to settle into and simply admire the beauty of this place, and what do you know!?  There were chairs designated for that very purpose situated at different locations all over the hall!  So.....they really did think of everything, those Austrians.  To say the least, I was impressed.

Then, after I had soaked up as much of the knowledge of the past as I could after gazing upon leather cover after leather cover of that library's treasure trove, I made my way, tired, but happy, toward the Westbahnhof and the train back to Dortmund.



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