Back to my midterm week. After I got home from Budapest, midterms got started. I was a bit overwhelmed by midterms simply because it means I am halfway through with my semester abroad, and this is unbelievable. At times I feel like I have been here forever, but then it also feels like I have been here no more than 2 weeks. It's a weird paradox.
My classes though are wonderful. They are incredibly interesting. One of my favorites is Austrian Womens Literature. Pretty much all of my classes are focused on Vienna, or its surronding countries (My other lit class is Eastern European Literature). I really like this...I think just having lived most of my life in America, the things I learn are mostly American or British related. It makes sense, and I love the things I learn, but it has been neat to focus on authors, and other subjects from a part of Europe I never have looked into indepthly.
I am quickly becoming a fan of Austrian literature, and especially their music. In my music class we study the classical music of Vienna. I love it, and I have become a big fan of the Opera. Mozart is by far my favorite composer, and my favorite Opera singer, of today, is Anna Netrebko. She starred in one of my favorite operas a little while ago, Le Nozze di Figaro, and it was brilliant. I love to rewatch scenes from it on youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEH9D5eQPF4&feature=related
Just before midterms, my roommate and I got tickets to a preview for Anna Netrebko's upcoming Vienna Opera, Anna Bolena. I tired to get tickets to the actual opera (which premiered April 2nd) two months ago, and every single show for the month of April was sold out. Anna Netrebko is understandably a huge deal in the opera world, and since she doesn't stay in one city long, its a big deal when ever she does a show--especially in Vienna.
The preview we went wasn't the entire opera, but they told about the history of the opera, and interviewed cast memebers, the conductor and the director... Anna Netrebko's understudy preformed a song. The preview just made me even more sad I din't have tickets to the actual opera... but a little bit is better than nothing! We had the most amzing seats also. We sat in a box, in the first column on stage right--the second row up. In these pictures you can see behind me the mirror image of our box from the outside.
The opera is going to certainly be one of the things I will miss most about Vienna when I leave, but I am glad I have found a new art form to enjoy when I am home.
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