Trip to Prague ( 布拉格之旅 ) 1 – Music Festival

I went to Prague with a friend recently. It’s fortunately in the timeframe of Prague Autumn Music Festival, a newer event comparing to the well known Prague Spring Music Festival. Although the later is a much bigger one and has been running for long time, Prague Autumn Music Festival has begun to draw more attentions in recent years, and also began to have many International presents.

I’ve attended a performance by Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra. I booked the ticket months ago online. My friend decided to join the trip later, but the ticket were sold out after we arrived at Prague, which is rare, since there are so many cencerts going on each night in all concert halls and churches. VRSO has been recognized as one of the most versatile orchestras in Austria. It performed symphonic fantasia From Italy, op. 16 of 1887 by Richard Strauss that night. This piece is new to me, and I liked it for its variations in passionate outburst and quiet beautiful story telling. There is man vocal soloist singing in this piece as well. It’s performed by Wolfgang Holzmair. He is new to me, and relevant new to the field as well, who has a full and beautiful voice. I should say his voice combines high quality and rich emotion, which is quite enjoyable and touching. He plays in recital around world since 2003. The performance was in Rudolfinum concert hall, as illustrated in following pictures.

There are about 90 people in the orchestra that night, where I recognized 9 oriental female players, mostly in strings, no oriental male recognized though.

We’ve also attended an opera performance in State Opera, i.e. German Opera. It is the most beautiful opera house in Prague, as illustrated in the following pictures. The 1^st two pictures are downloaded from Internet. What performed that night was Rigoletto by Giuseppe Verdi. Although the major pieces singing by the leading male and female characters are very familiar (singed frequently by Pavarotti and Sutherland), this is the 1^st time for me to hear this whole opera, and realize where these songs were coming from. This opera has been performed in Venice, Italy about one hundred and fourty years before staged around the world in recent years. It’s performed by Prague State Opera that night, and I’m very impressed by the performance. Especially, both of the leading male and female characters have outstanding voice, which are not comparable to the opera performed here. I guess the reason may be that music and opera are part of peoples’ life in Prague, they live and breathe them, so to be the perfectionists on them.

  





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The following picture was taken in front the Theatre of the Estates, one of the three opera houses in Prague. I didn’t get chance to attend a performance in National Theater (another opera house) this time, though I’d love to.

As suggested by other folks, we went to Black Light Theater to see the authentic local form of art. The Black Light Theater spreads out in many locations across Prague/>/>, usually have an entrance on street, not too fancy like opera houses or concert halls. We saw the show named Fause, which is a combination of musical, dance, comedy, high tech light effects, and old stories. It uses the contrast of dark and light creating visual effects for the most characteristic elements in the performance. Following is one of its photos downloaded from Internet.