Day 3 in Vienna: Visit of the Belvedere and the highlight of our trip: ‘Aida opera’ with Anna Netrebko.

Spread over 90,000 square metres in central Vienna and including 60 cultural institutions, the MuseumsQuartier in Vienna is one of the largest districts for contemporary art and culture in the world. The sky is the limit at the ‘MuseumsQuartier’. Historic architecture meets contemporary design. High culture meets subcultures. The spectrum ranges from fine art, architecture, music, fashion, theater, dance, literature, street art to design and photography. They even have a game culture in Vienna. (My son would be happy!) The good news is that everything is within walking distance from Hotel Beethoven. Since it was a beautiful and sunny day, we decided to walk to the Belvedere.

The Belvedere Palace is one of many art museums in the city, but perhaps one of the most beautiful. We only visited the upper Belvedere where you can admire a large collection of works by the famous Viennese artist Gustav Klimt as well as Egon Schiele who was a protégé of Klimt’s. If you are a fan of art, and especially of expressionists like Egon Schiele, Oskar Kokoschka or Claude Monet, then you should definitely plan a visit there. The Belvedere is simply stunning. Since it was Saturday, there were lots of people, but we still managed to tak in all of the beauty.

The real highlight of the day was of course the reason for us coming to Vienna: The premiere of Aida with superstars Netrebko, Kaufman, Garancia & Salsi. We booked the tickets in May last year and the theater was packet. The premiere was sold out! You could see people with signs looking to buy last minute tickets. I hesitated a bit to exchange my ticket (with a profit of course) for a possible next trip, but then I heard that it was chance of a lifetime to watch those 4 topsingers perform together, so I decided against it. I did not regret it for one second!

Last time we saw Anna Netrebko was in 2021 in Verona. That was before the Ukraine war. As the superstar is Russian and she did not speak out against Russia, lots of operafans criticised her. She was even shunned from several opera houses. Knowing that Netrebko is an instagram-age diva, constantly checking her status, she found herself in a difficult position. So, she came onstage … calculating, making sure that she was delivering what her fans expected of her. This prima donna, for whom each new role is one more shot at the spotlight. Boy did she deliver! When she exploded into “Ritorna vincitor,” slipping without a glitch from high peal to feline snarl. Aida is in an impossible position, daughter of a king enslaved by another, in love with the warrior whose job it is to slaughter her people. Netrebko slaps down her emotional cards — anger, jealousy, passion, and pessimism — then assembles them into a winning hand. Later, in the famously unforgiving aria “O Patria Mia,” in which she longs for the “green hills and fragrant streams” of her native Ethiopia, she suspends a luminous high C above the stage and lets it hover there, weightless and bright. Tears come to my eyes….this is a really emotional moment – being in Vienna with my 82-year old mum, watching these great stars perform in the opera Aida. Memorable