Museum der Stadt Wien and my voice teacher's recital

So, I got to sleep in this morning (God I love Wednesdays!) and I went to IES with Jess at about 10:30 to drop off my computer and head over to Karlsplatz to meet half of my AA&A class to tour the Museum der Stadt Wien. It was really fun...the museum is fairly small, and everything in it is from Vienna....they have some roman stuff that was dug up in the first district (the former site of the fortification of Vindibona), some stuff from the migrations (the dark ages) and gothic stuff (mostly from St. Stephens....some original stained-glass windows and some statuary)....no romanesque stuff, though.....I don't know why, particularly....they must have stuff from the Babenburgs....whatever. Upstairs there was later stuff......Renaissance and following, but we didn't go there today (we're going back, apparently) Dr. O had neat things to say about all the stuff down on the first floor, especially the gothic stuff. I won't go into it all here, but it was fun. After that I went to work, was there for a couple of hours, and after that went straight to class.....Music History was interesting, but nothing ground-breaking. After that I went home, had a simple dinner, and then took the U-bahn back to IES to get the address for the recital I went to tonight.....Michael had told me that our vocal coach, Michelle Friedmann, was giving a recital on Währingerstrasse in the 9th district, so I thought I should go to support her (and to hear her). Of course, when I looked on the map, I realized that Währingerstrasse is a main street that goes from the Ringstrasse to the Gürtel, and since I didn't know the address I figured I better go back to IES and look at the flyer to figure out how to get there. (I called reception in the hopes that I wouldn't have to make the arduous trip down there, but they had already closed...) Seeing how close it was, I decided to walk there from the institute....it was a nice walk through the northwestern part of the first district, which I haven't been to before. It was really cool, and the weather outside tonight was GORGEOUS, which made it that much more fun.

The recital itself was at Le Institut Français de Vienne in the (aptly-named) Salon Rouge. The main piece on the program (comprising the whole of the second half) was a song cycle (in fact, the only song cycle) by Lili Boulanger, Nadja Boulanger's younger sister who died when she was 25. It was fairly interesting.....certainly cool because it's hardly ever performed, and parts of it were hauntingly beautiful. Also on the program was a song cycle by Hans Pfitzner (I've never heard of him either.....) which was OK, but some of the songs were a bit too out there for me. She ended the first half with two pieces by Poulenc, which were very good. The second of the two ("Fétes galantes") she also used as an encore...it was a really really fast piece....I've never heard anyone sing that fast in Frence in my life.....the whole recital was really cool. She has a really good voice....I don't know enough about stuff to give it a label, but she kind of sounds like Judy (Townsend) but a little bit lighter on the top. (according to the program her opera roles are Blondchen, Olympia, and Gilda, if that gives you more of an idea....) Before she even sang, however, the first thing I noticed was her beautiful black and red floor-length dress, the red of which was perfectly coördinated* with the red in her accompanist's tie and also the red of the room. The effect was great, and she got many snaps for it. After the concert we all said hello to her, and by we all I mean the four IES students that are taking lessons with her that came to the concert: me, Mike, Laura, and David (not percussionist Dave from upstairs, amazing tenor David) She seems incredibly nice, and I can't wait to have a lesson (my first is one week from Thursday). After that we all went home, and now I'm going to do some reading and hopefully finish Dr. Scheier's presentation!

*Oh yes, I went there. (Vielen dank, meine Schatzie)