TRAVEL ... with DAVID BRAY
No matter what the people of Salzburg, Vienna or Dresden tell you, it’s Prague that seems to have given Mozart his most deserved recognition during his short, sometimes troubled and brilliantly unmatched creative life.
Prague is a city of survivors, its history defined by invasion, cruelty and revolution. But it is also a music-lover’s dream destination. Not only for the kind of music your reporter likes, but also what he would, in his elitist way, describe as “popular”.
Night after night when we were there the big squares and main street intersections were as tightly jammed as Lang Park or the Gabba on big-match day, with scores of thousands rocking to live bands, big screens, huge amplification and swamping booze. (The Czechs are the biggest beer drinkers in the world, followed by the Irish. Forget Australia.)
But back to W.A. Mozart, hero to millions of the world’s music-lovers and to cinemagoers who enjoyed Amadeus, a good deal of which was made here in Prague by the expat Czech Milos Foreman. The composer’s work is everywhere, from nightly marionette performances of Don Giovanni in at least two theatres (of which we enjoyed one, where this great opera was treated as comedy) to music-making of the highest quality in Betramka, a museum in suburban Prague, easily reached by tram.
The house was built in a vineyard around 1700. It features a two-winged staircase. In 1787 it was the summer residence of a Mr and Mrs Dusek and those stairs were climbed by Mozart who had come to Prague to rehearse his new opera. It opened very successfully on October 29 and while still at Bertramka Mozart composed the concert aria “Bella mi fiamma, addio” for his hostess. In 1956 a permanent exposition devoted to Mozart and the Duseks opened at Betramka. Well worth a visit.
We went for a 5pm concert on a glorious May evening by violinist Ivan Zenaty and pianist Katarina Zenata. Blackbirds sang so enthusiastically that Mr Zenaty had to close the doors. I think Mozart might well have agreed with our opinion that the outstanding piece played was “Spiegel im Spiegel’’ by the contemporary composer Arvo Part.
Actually, we were in town for Richard Wagner’s monumental Ring cycle, four nights of pretty heavy stuff, done here for the first time in Prague at the Narodni Divadlo, the National Theatre – and to a very high standard, as good as any we have seen around the weird and wonderful world of Wagnerian opera.
Such is the level of music appreciation in this city that we were also able, at tourist-short notice, to hear Bach’s St John Passion with the Prague Virtuosi directed by Peter Schreier at the acoustically and visually superb Rudolfinum and the Dresden Staatskapelle conducted by Yakov Kreizberg in the Smetana Hall of the Municipal building.
In fact there are more concerts in churches and halls than even the most devoted music-lover could possibly have time to hear, some of them no doubt of lesser standards than the above starred events of the Prague Festival. Among the many things worth seeing is to be found on the first floor above a McDonald’s on Na Prikope.
Up a carpeted marble staircase, turn not right (to a casino) but left, to the Museum of Communism. Here are the facts and artefacts of daily life, politics, history, sport, economics, education, the arts, media propaganda, the People’s militias, the army and the dreaded secret police apparatus, a vivid account of Communism in Czechoslovakia and in Prague in particular.
One more thing: On the walk home from the National Theatre to the Elite hotel on Ostrovni we were able to call in at the Dog’s Bollocks. Noisy, smokey, good beer and edible tucker – e.g. sausages, bread and mustard, quiet a useable name and enthusiastically reviewed as recently as August, 2011.
GETTING THERE
Plenty of scheduled flights from Brisbane, some more direct than others. Suggest you check just how long your trip would be. Cheapest at time of writing was around $1500 return, on China Southern, which changes at Guangzho and Amsterdam. Emirates and Finnair come in at the cheaper end, too. Worth talking to a travel agent. Plenty of tourist advice at www.pragueexperience.com among many others.
