One year is not a lifetime, and yet one year can seem like a lifetime in its power of shaping and molding a young mind. Moments carve their marks into the psyche until the self emerges as a different sculpture, a variation on the original design. I was twenty-three, making my way fiercely through the training required for my dream career in opera, searching for secrets, answers, and unknowingly, the story of an altered self an ocean away from home. Home at the time was White Plains, New York, another ocean-length away from my birthplace in Bucharest, Romania.
Schönbrunn Palace
So, with all the ocean-crossing and its possibilities, why did I choose to spend a year in Vienna? Because with my American B.A. in languages and music in hand, I had left the United States and returned to Bucharest to study opera, and through my voice teachers, met a Romanian voice teacher who had set up a vocal studio in the Austrian capital. I moved from Bucharest to Vienna and eventually auditioned for the University of Music and Performing Arts where I was accepted for one year as a visiting student.
Stephansdom (St. Stephen’s Cathedral)
That was when life in Vienna began. And it wasn’t the life I had expected as a student of opera. Yes, that was part of it, but the core of it, its unmistakable center of gravity became the relationship between a young woman and a city. A duet between two very different temperaments who found common ground through humor and contradictions. Of course, I did my touristy stint, camera, maps, and audio guides in tow. Like a conscientious student of travel, I covered the well-advertised paths through palaces like the Hofburg, Schönbrunn, and Belvedere, the landmarks such as Stephansdom (St. Stephen’s Cathedral), museums, Schubert’s, Beethoven’s, and Freud’s houses, Hundertwasserhaus … too many attractions to enumerate without sounding like a travel brochure.
The Einspänner coffee
I sampled the Wiener Schnitzels, and Apfelstrudels, the Sacher and Mozart cakes, and ah, the coffees; my two favorites being the Einspänner (espresso topped with whipped cream and served in a glass) and Wiener Mélange (espresso with steam milk but not a cappuccino). In my first weeks, I did it all by the book.
Hundertwasserhaus, an expressionist landmark house
But then I forgot “the book” and daily life became its own map of surprising interactions. My first impression: formality reigned supreme. It even permeated every voice lesson at the University of Music, which was somewhat entertaining considering the discussions about various anatomical parts such as the tongue and tonsils possibly interfering with the optimal production of sound. And it all happened in the formal “you,” the German “Sie” form. Commands that meant “squeeze” and “suck it in”—referring to the abdominal support system of the voice—were framed by the delicate politeness of “bitte” (please) and “Sie,” which prompted me to tease my American singer friends with the linguistic hybrids “Bitte squeezen Sie und sucken Sie it in!”
Inside Sigmund Freud’s house: his office with the famous psychoanalysis couch
Yet underneath that Viennese formality lurked a sarcastic, melancholic, dark, mischievous, and somewhat twisted sense of humor that revealed worldliness and a rejection of optimistic illusions. From the bespectacled, short-haired owner of the grocery store across from my dorm building in the 7th district to the building’s long-haired, smirking superintendent to many others, I found the people of this fairy tale city strikingly realistic, bordering on a cynicism that seemed to mock itself. They made fun of sex, as though clones of Freud’s ghost were permanently perched on their shoulders and instigated them, and they were always ready to insinuate potential affairs between people, while judgment of human flaws seemed, for the most part, absent. There was no illusion or romance in those veiled remarks, but no indictment either. People were people, and human nature a fertile material for topics of discussion, delicate hints, subtle sarcasm, and psychological exploration. Getting to know the Viennese was like taking a bite of a dark chocolate with chili pepper powder. The chocolate’s velvety sober refinement proves deceptive in its first impression as it eventually unveils a surprising spiciness.
The Vienna State Opera
Then there was the Wiener Staatsoper—the Vienna State Opera—and its cheap standing-room tickets that gave me access to the greatest voices and performances in the world as I stood huddling with the rest of the student-artist types or extremely frugal ticket-buyers in the last rows of the upper balcony. Until I got to know some of the singers and often ended up in the artists’ box or backstage, developing friendships and experiencing encounters I would never forget.
Staircase inside the Vienna State Opera
Once the professional opera universe opened its arms to me, my life in Vienna became a whirlwind of contrasts: from the reality of school, vocal practice, and daily life to the dreamlike experiences and relationships of a world of music, drama, and illusions. There, the Viennese elegantly cynical realism met the egomaniacal melodrama of backstage and pulled me into an alternate reality. I became a spectator to the drama of various love affairs whose protagonists could not often tell the difference between the stage and real life.
The Danube passing through Vienna
Still, Vienna itself reigned as the star of the show. Open to the force of the coolly sophisticated, intimidating city, I welcomed its avalanche of impressions and encounters. Vienna swept me off my feet and led me along its cobbled streets, along its corridors of history and graceful traditions, along its labyrinths of social puzzles, along the ever-watching Danube in its languorous all-knowing rhythm, whispering tales of the mysteries it had witnessed. Every narrow street, every lazy, caffeinated yawn of old café doors opening to reveal glimpses of muted colors in fluttering scarves and stylish ties, every social sequence of utterances that led to unexpected consequences, every lurking possibility of unpredictable encounters added layer upon layer of fascination for the girl who had unknowingly stopped being a student of singing and had become a student of life.
I marveled at Viennese contradictions. Such as, on one hand, people’s lack of easy smiles and their silent appreciation of elegance, cloaked in a rigid, uninviting demeanor, and, on the other hand, their uninhibited comfort with their bodies, nude and barely wrapped in towels in the saunas and steam rooms at the gym while never abandoning formality in addressing each other with “Herr Doktor” (to those with PhD), “Frau Magister” (to the Masters-degree holders), and “Herr Generaldirektor” (to general directors).
Carriages and cobbled streets
Gradually, I learned that playing tennis can incorporate the art of courtship more elegantly than any sequence of dates. That the dance instructor at the studio where I would take classes once a week can explain samba steps like mathematical algorithms in heavy Wienerisch—the Viennese dialect—yet dance with the volcanic passion of a Latina, punctuated by Viennese waltz-like gestures. That ordering “zehn deka Schinken” (one hundred grams of ham) and “Fritattensuppe” (beef broth with strips of pancake) is a linguistic art where the right word order is crucial and must always be accessorized with “bitte” and “danke,” particularly if it is said in an accent that reveals foreign roots. Otherwise, the coldness of the seller will cut like a surgeon’s knife. Just like the mutterings of “Ausländer” (foreigner) will pierce the air when undisciplined pedestrians, clearly not Viennese, do not wait for the light to turn green to cross the street, even though there is no car to be seen for miles. Or when they do not stand properly on the right side of escalators to allow room on the left for those in a hurry. Being late will cut deep too, like that split second when the airport bus closed the doors in my face because it was exactly 7:45 am, the listed departure time, and the driver did not care that I had just sprinted maniacally toward the bus and was smiling pleadingly at him, hands plastered on the closed doors in desperation.
A slice of the original Sacher Torte
Then I also learned how the harshness of that rigidity sweetens into hushed voices and coffee aromas, subtle clinking of spoons and the singing of taste buds aroused by delights like the Sacher Knödel (sweet dumplings that seemed to be discontinued as, on later trips to Vienna, I never found them again on the Sacher Café’s menu). Whenever I dug a spoon into the Sacher Knödel, nutty, rugged and seemingly dry on the outside, a dark chocolate liquid poured out all over the plate, surprising in its existence, in its silky intensity. Dig into life in Vienna and the surprises will not stop. And they would never stop. Like a masterful puppeteer of circumstance, Vienna lurked in the shadow of my many unanswered questions, ready to throw just as many puzzling answers at me.
Empress Elisabeth (Sisi) monument in Volksgarten
But the visiting student year at the University did come to an end. I remember making the decision to return to the United States while I stood still in Volksgarten, an oasis of roses, one of my favorite Viennese parks. I stared at the monument dedicated to Empress Elisabeth of Austria, nicknamed Sisi, for a long time. The sculpted Empress sat, hands folded, contemplative, resigned to time. What else could she do, this seemingly timeless entity of stone? What else could I, human and timebound, do? It was good-bye, Vienna. It was picking up the heartbreak of that good-bye and wrapping it gently in the veils of experience that the magnificent Austrian capital had woven for me and with me. Veils that today still flutter delicately during certain actions I take and decisions I make, as perpetual echoes of a young woman’s one-year duet with a city.
Years later, a friend took me to the Neue Galerie, the museum of Austrian and German art located in Manhattan at 5th Avenue and 86th Street. My taste buds rejoiced as well in the museum’s Café Sabarsky with its assortment of Viennese and Austrian specialties. We wandered around the museum, getting lost in the art, and when we settled in the elegant café, I closed my eyes taking my first sip of an Einspänner in what had seemed like an eternity. And I forgot that 5th Avenue was right outside the window. All I could feel and hear were memories of Vienna singing throughout my mind and soul, my own personal opera, co-composed with Vienna in its tonalities of wonders, refinement, and contradictions, that still sings to me from across the ocean, luring me to return. “Bitte kommen Sie zurück.” Please come back. One day…
All photos courtesy of Maria-Cristina Necula
Top photo: View over Vienna from St. Stephen’s Cathedral
