I'm going to Vienna for a long weekend with my wife in December for her 30th birthday. She enjoys watching opera, but I'm not too keen as I tend to get bored by it! However, the Volksoper is doing &quot;Die Fledermaus&quot; which I have seen and enjoyed in English.<BR><BR>However, I can't seem to find any way to book tickets - at least, nowhere that will tell me how to do it in English! Can anyone help?

Hi Keith,<BR>Try<BR>http://www.volksoper.at/Content.Node2/home/eninfo/2222.php<BR><BR>Remember, the play will not be in English. <BR><BR>There is a CD by the Volksoper that comes with the libretto in English and German that might be helpful.

I have seen Die Fledermaus in Vienna at the Volksoper twice. Unless you know the plot very well, you will not follow it in German. All dialog is spoken in German, and all singing is in German. <BR><BR>The most enjoyable of the light operas is, in my experience, Die Lustige Witwe.<BR>Carmen, which of course is a traditional opera, is also an opera lover's delight. <BR><BR>The schedule for December, of the best bets, is as follows:<BR>Don Giovanni 2, 8<BR>Fledermaus, 3, 10, 28 and 31.<BR>Carmen 5, 11, and 16<BR>Countess Mariza 15, 18, 20, 30 <BR>The performance on the 15th is the premiere -- for the season, not for the operetta of course.<BR><BR>The best way to order tickets in my experience is via email, or call the box office. Email: [email protected] <BR><BR>I ordered tickets for 4 performances. The tickets were waiting at the door. <BR><BR>Too bad you understand so little of opera, because you are denying yourself considerable enjoyment. I think you should consider this an opportunity for your wife and let her select the performance. Why limit yourself so severely?<BR><BR>If you have no interest in diversifying your interests, you could go elsewhere that evening and not spoil her fun by going and complaining about it. <BR><BR>Also, I don't know why you could not find the material in English.<BR>Go to http://www.volksoper.at/Content.Node2/<BR>And a caption that says English Information is in the upper right section of the screen.<BR><BR>Not all of it is in English, so it helps to read German. But the essential information is in English, and the box office staff in my experience can handle English.<BR>Most educated Austrians have had 8 years of English. And most of them understand French, too.<BR>We are the linguistic ignoramuses of the Western World. <BR><BR>

Thanks, Ira and Bob. I'm trying to read this at work and thanks to our internet security systems some pages can be slow or not show at all - I think that's what happened here!<BR><BR>The reason I chose &quot;Die Fledermaus&quot; was that it was an operetta which I was vaguely familiar with, having seen it in English some time ago. I have tried to get interested in opera several times - watching companies as varied as local amateurs, Scottish Opera and the English National Opera - but each time I found myself fiddling with the programme by the interval! In the case of the ENO, it didn't help that the performance was in English - I didn't figure this out until about midway through the first act of &quot;La Boheme&quot;, although perhaps this says more about the singing than anything else. I'd love to love opera and get involved with the emotion of the music, but, to put it in popular music terms, I think I'm more of a &quot;Miss Saigon&quot; rather than a &quot;Madame Butterfly&quot; kind of person. <BR><BR>I did do German along with French at school, and although the French has mostly stuck with me the German is more or less gone!

To Bob Brown: Thanks for the email address for tickets in Vienna. I will give this info to my husband as he orders all opera, symphony etc. tickets in our family. <BR><BR>I love classical music too, but he is an even greater lover of the classics than I am. I surprised him when I won a contest for a trip to the Salzburg Music Festival last summer which included tickets to three concerts. We are still on a &quot;high&quot; from that trip.<BR><BR>We hope to go to Vienna, Praguge and Bratislava next September or October mostly to hear great music.

Keith, 'Die Fledermaus' is a wonderful opera to see for not-yet-opera-buffs. It takes place in Vienna, which makes it even better to see it in Vienna (like seeing 'Tosca' in Rome), though the Viennese accents used may be lost on you; no matter. The important thing is to read a good synopsis of the story - and preferably a translation of the libretto as well. You can find the former easily with a search engine (try Fledermaus story libretto ). If you get bored - and even opera fanatics get bored *sometimes*, look around you, see how people are dressed, how they react to the singers, watch the conductor, etc. If you can't access the Volksoper website in English, why don't you call them? I bet you can charge tickets (you probably have to pick them up 1 hr or maybe a half-hour ahead of time) and have them waiting for you. GO!!!

www.operabase.com<BR><BR>and then click on Europe, Wien (Vienna), and Volksoper to get all sorts of information.

If it's any comfort, Keith -- I love classical music, listen to it constantly and attend several concerts or recitals a month, and have had many years of classical music training myself (and used to play as accompanist for a professional ballet company) -- and I do not like opera much, either and get bored sitting through it. It's a very dated, unnatural art form IMO, and just because someone doesn't like it does NOT mean they are a Philistine, are ignorant or have a bad attitude, or are denying themselves anything. I think it's wrong to tell someone that if they don't enjoy the exact same things you do (especially something as unusual as classical opera performances) something is wrong with them.

jenviolin - I hadn't thought of doing a search for the English libretto on the internet - brilliant idea! I think the idea of seeing Strauss in Vienna is justone which I can't pass on.<BR><BR>Christina - a friend of mine from the US is exactly the same, and she was a music major at college and is now a music teacher! I love individual songs from opera, like &quot;Nessun Dorma&quot; from &quot;Turandot&quot; (despite - or maybe because of - its association in the UK with football.) In fact, try listening to some of the chants from a British football match - many of the come from opera (eg &quot;Funiculi Funicula&quot; from &quot;Carmen&quot

Keith,<BR>We saw &quot;Die Fledermaus&quot; at the Opera House over New Year's and loved it (my husband who is not an Opera fan even had a great time). The opera now has individual teleprompts at each seat that allow you to follow along in any language so you don't need to practice your German.

If indeed the performance is at the Volksoper, then you will NOT have the advantage of an individual language tele-prompter - only the Staatsoper has these devices.

Keith, Funiculi Funicula is not from an opera; maybe you're thinking of <BR><BR>Toreador, don't spit on the floor<BR>Use the cuspidore, that's what it's for!

jenviolin - I stand corrected! Shows how much I know about opera ;-)