Travel tips for opera lovers – Vienna and Gioachino Rossini

Rossini in Vienna

The series about historical places of opera art & culture. Get to know exciting excursion and travel ideas for opera lovers. This time:  Rossini in Vienna.

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Rossini in Vienna

Rossini visited Vienna in 1822 and triggered a huge “Rossini frenzy” in the imperial city. Schubert wrote two overtures and even Beethoven composed a small canon in honor of the Italian. Within a few weeks, 8 different operas by Rossini were given in about 60 performances, mainly in the Theater am Kärtnertor, whose director had shortly before been nominated the Italian Barbaja, Rossini’s impresario in Naples. The Kärtnertortheater has not existed since 1870.

During this visit of Rossini to Vienna, there was also the legendary meeting with Beethoven (see below).

TO THE FULL ROSSINI BIOGRAPHY

To the travel guide VIENNA for classic and opera fans

Destination Landstrasse 60 Beethoven’s apartment

Rossini lodged in a hotel at Seilergasse 14 and visited Beethoven in his apartment at Landstrasse 60. The communication between the two so different people turned out to be difficult, because Beethoven had become deaf in the meantime. Rossini reported: “… As I climbed the stairs to the poor house where the great man lived, I had some difficulty in controlling my feelings. When the door opened, I found myself in a rather dirty and terribly untidy little room. Above all, I remember that the ceiling, just below the roof, had large cracks through which the rain must surely have poured. The portraits of Beethoven with which we are all familiar give his physiognomy, on the whole, fairly faithfully. But what no engraver could ever express is the indefinable sadness that emanates from his face, while under the dense eyebrows, as if in deep sockets, the eyes, though small, seem to pierce you … Then he raised his head and said abruptly to me in a quite intelligible Italian: Ah Rossini, are you the author of the Barber of Seville? I congratulate you, it is an excellent opera buffa; I read and enjoyed it with pleasure. As long as there is an Italian opera house, it will be performed. Never try to do anything but comic opera; to try to succeed in any other genre would be to force your fate.”
If you go to the road 60, you will not notice anything more of this event, it is left to your fantasies to imagine this encounter. For inspiration, here is an old photo from Vienna around 1860: