Rick's Ramblings: Vienna Opera

So before my Vienna trip, a friend of mine told me “you must see an opera in Vienna, it’s THE thing to do in town, so you put on your fabulous-ness and arrive there and watch it for fun even though it’s so not me and honestly, I don’t think 90 per cent of the people even get it. Though they just pretend to so that they can be la di dah, but now that I’m here, I thought, let me give it a shot, I’m not the kind of person to say no to a new experience and a new experience it was.

I went to the biggest opera house in the city and said, ‘Hello, I would like a ticket for a performance please’. The snooty old lady, who looked like she was there since the emperor built the building in the 1500s, looked at me like I was Julia Roberts from Pretty Woman and said, “Well, we are booked for six weeks, it’s Mozart you see and it’s a very high-end cultural evening so you can imagine opera lovers from all over the world pre-book it, even the Europeans themselves. Anyway only standing area tickets are available and even for that, people come three hours in advance and stand in queue to get a ticket. Well, you can try it tomorrow or day after, but I doubt you will get it, there are opera lovers from all over our city that come to experience it you see.”

So first I was like, ‘what, you sarcastic little racist old bat, who you looking down upon? We’ve got bigger musicians in India that can kick your Mozart or any other western musician’s a**. (Well, no offense to Mozart sahab I hear, he was quite fabulous)’. Anyway even though she was so damn annoying, rude and condescending, I decided to be civilised or at least my version of it anyway so I channelled my inner Cookie Lyon (and I’m guessing, you know who she is) and said, ‘Look lady, I won’t stand in a queue for three hours even if Tom Hardy was at the end of that line, get it (okay, in case Tom was actually there I just might, but I’m never standing for three hours in a queue to stand for some more inside), I don’t do standing so that ain’t happening, I might have wanted to see it for the experience of it, but this ain’t worth the trouble.’ Also, forget me, my fur coat and my gold pants (that I planned on wearing for the night) even they are too fabulous to stand so you can give your precious standing tickets to some old-a** European opera lover, thank you very much! I’ll spend my time better by drinking, eating dessert and partying my a** off. That’s my kind of high-end cultural evening. (Snapped and walked away).