VIENNA'S CULTURAL CHOCOLATE

VIENNA’S CULTURAL CHOCOLATE

By Charles E.J. Moulton


Opposite the Vienna State Opera, in the world’s cultural capital Vienna, there is a hotel that probably deserves its’ fame as the top hotel among the traditionalists. Its’ cakes are renowned, the service is examplary and the rooms are decorated to the maximum.
It is called Hotel Sacher.
As I sat in the restaurant there, one Christmas a many years back, I recollected just crowning my return visit to Austria’s capital with a brilliant performance of Verdi’s Don Carlos. My now deceased, dear mother joined me in hearing the soothing tones of Herman Hupfield’s As Time Goes By. As these tones waltzed into my ear and into my heart, the food that we enjoyed was topped by a delicious cake named after the hotel itself. I was in heaven.
Memories of yesteryear made me dwell in bliss.
At least until I received my bill.
Luckily, my employers paid me handsomely for my work. All in all, though, I had knew a city really well that really not only in culinary terms was and is cultural chocolate. More often than not, the city’s architecture has been compared to a creamy vanilla pie or chocolate fudge cake. The Waltz-King Johann Strauss shares his nick-name, Shani, with the outdoor café-gardens, the Shani-Gardens, and that culinary detail must mean something: Vienna is and always be high-class cultural chocolate.
Indeed, the Sacher Torte is a symbol for Vienna. It soothes the nerves, most of the time. I had the joy of working for numerous people who kept my work interesting. I had the joy of living there for sixteen years, enjoying the food and the drink, the music and the culture and the life style. In my free evenings I went to see concerts, musicals, plays, operas, ballets and art workshops. My parents lived there, I was educated there, I was part of the Viennese music-scene. I myself sang, performed, started my career as an artist.
My wonderful life in Germany and the creative success in multiple areas was cultivated in the inspiring city of Vienna. My parents, actor Herbert Eyre Moulton and operasinger Gun Kronzell, made sure I cultivate these characteristics. Vienna was certainly the place to cultivate artistic skills.
Vienna is a pearl. Vienna is fun. Art is the language that the Viennese artistic elite speak and this art sparkles like a diamond. That makes her, because the city is a lady, fun. But this wit, of course, has a dark side. The moody depressive side comes out when the elderly locals complain about the government or their health. The black humour is found in the selfdepricating wit. A famous joke, that the Viennese themselves enjoy telling, includes the city’s largest cemetary.
“The Zentralfriedhof,” so they say, “is half as big as Zürich in Switzerland, but twice as fun.”
This morbid sense of humour is Vienna’s dark side, but this darkness makes the light shine more. Vienna is more than just one thing. It is old and new, black and white, east and west. The surplus population over 60 that once was is shifting toward a younger and more hip crowd, one that is computer and commuter-oriented.
Vienna’s history is just like the famous cake: it is cultural chocolate. Founded as a Roman colony, the city had all the chances to work itself up to become a melting-pot of ideals and races. Initially a Roman camp named Vindobon, trade grew to a considerable extent by the 11th century. The Babenberg dynasty flourished. When the Habsburg empire florished, kick-started by a young man that really in every way was the ultimate self-made-man, the Roman city Vindobon turned into a cultural giant.
In 1278, Rudolf I esablished the Habsburg rule.
The subsequent history is a career tale beyond comprehension.
Berlin can brag with its’ Unter den Linden and when you saunter through St. Paul’s Cathedral in London you can almost hear Christopher Wren shout through the archades. Vienna rivals all that. The city breathes history.
The imperial palace Hofburg is crowned by the Heldenplatz, the square of heroes. We have some very controversial history here. Vienna’s best boy Prince Eugen de Savoyen drove out the Turks in 1683 and received his most prominent place here. His palace Belvedere was a centre of art and culture and even today graces the works of Klimt.
However, Heldenplatz also welcomed people like Hitler. A half million Austrians raised their hands here after the famous Anschluss on 1938. He spoke to the Viennese citizens on the ides of March that year. If it was only a coincidence we will never know, but Caesar was killed on that day 44 B.C. On March 15th 1938, Hitler almost killed the dream of a peaceful, multicultural Europe.
To contradict this bad vibe, project artist Andre Heller organized a spectacular show that premiered on June 16th 1992. His motivation was that Vienna needed to eliminate the old memories and make new ones.
As one shuffles on through the inner city, one sees the Schatzkammer. The treasure museum holds the Habsburg treasures and are only rivalled by the British royal orbs.
Josef the Second was Mozart’s patron, but also his foe. Feet away from the Habsburg treasures we find his own square and if we go on from there the Spanish Riding School train their horses.
The most impressive historical landmark, however, can be found at the heart of the inner city. Stephansdom has been and always will be the soul of Vienna. The gothic cathedral has a history that goes back to 1137 and Rudolf IV actually was the one that prompted the boost that turned this into one of the world’s leading cathedrals.
The list goes on and on. Mozart, Schubert, Haydn, Beethoven, Schumann, Brahms, Schönberg: all of the classical legends worked and lived here. Not to mention the theatrical world. The Burg Theatre has the German-speaking world’s most impressive list of performers on its’ list.
What really is extraordinary about this city is that it is cultural history that was is and always will be. One actually feels the great emperor Franz Josef walk the streets. He has never left home.
Which does not mean that the city sleeps. Germans are famous for being enviously stingy about Vienna, but they miss is that Vienna is turning into a computer capital. Its’ main railway station is becoming the biggest in Europe.
All in all, Vienna is like its’ buildings: decorated to the top and full of life. Like the Sacher Torte, we are reminded that the city carries a reminder that whoever leaves this capital never will forget it.
Vienna is eternal.