Places: Vienna: The Prater

In 18th Century Vienna, the Prater, a park in the Leopoldstadt, was the center of all sorts of social activities, entertainments, and gatherings. There were several coffee houses, restaurants, casinos, taverns as well as large expansive lawns and ponds with boats. Horse racing was a center attraction on the Hauptallee (the main avenue), as well as booths and pony rides during Winter Carnival. It was a favorite leisure attraction for both young and old, courting couples, as well as families. It was while Mozart and Constanze (his wife of only two days), were strolling along the Hauptallee, walking their little dog, that Emperor Joseph stopped and conversed with them and congratulated them on their recent marriage.

The following history is from Wikipedia:

The Wiener Prater is a large public park in Vienna's 2nd district (Leopoldstadt). The Wurstelprater amusement park, often simply called "Prater", stands in one corner of the Wiener Prater and includes the Wiener Riesenrad.

The area that makes up the modern Prater was first mentioned in 1162, when Emperor Friedrich I gave the land to a noble family called de Prato. The word "Prater" was first used in 1403, originally referring to a small island in the Danube north of Freudenau, but was gradually extended to mean the neighbouring areas as well. The land changed hands frequently until it was bought by Emperor Maximilian II in 1560 to be a hunting ground. To deal with the problem of poachers, Emperor Rudolf II forbade entry to the Prater. On April 7 1766, Emperor Joseph II declared the Prater to be free for public enjoyment, and allowed the establishment of coffee-houses and cafés, which led to the beginnings of the Wurstelprater. Throughout this time, hunting continued to take place in the Prater, ending only in 1920.

In 1873, a World Exhibition was held in the Prater, for which a large area of land was set aside, centered on the Rotunda, which burnt down in 1937. This land now houses the Messegelände (exhibition centre).

In 2004, major renovations to the Wurstelprater began, and a new underground railway line was finished and brought into service on May 11, 2008, which includes three stops along the Prater (see Vienna U-Bahn). The railway station Praterstern has been in operation for a long time and is only a few dozen metres away from an entrance to the park.

The overall area of the park has also been reduced by the building of the Ernst-Happel-Stadion (Austria's national stadium), the Südosttangente (Austria's busiest piece of motorway) and racecourse.


From Chapter 10 of So Faithful a Heart:

     The hot July sun bore down on the lawn as Mozart and his little family lazed under a large Linden tree near a pond at the Prater. The park was abuzz with activity: children playing games on the lawn, mothers pushing their infants in prams, couples sitting on blankets, eating Italian ices, roast chicken, fresh strawberries, and fresh mozzarella cheese with basil on sliced tomatoes, drizzled with olive oil.

     Constanze watched as baby Karl, who was a little over ten months old and who was already beginning to toddle, pulled himself up on the lawn and tried to chase the butterflies that flitted by, only to fall onto his backside when his chubby little legs couldn’t carry him fast enough. This was the indolent summer Mozart had promised himself and his family and he was enjoying it to its fullest with no guilt or remorse. As he lay upon the blanket in his stocking feet, having kicked off his shoes, he read, another luxury that he’d promised himself.

This is the Rondo movement from Mozart's Clarinet Concerto in A major. I chose it for this post because, to me, it evokes a cheerful stroll through the park.

Places: Venice, Italy: Teatro San Samuele

The Teatro San Samuele, Venice was one of opera 's most prestigious among those active in the canal city (seven in all), during the eighteenth century . It was built in 1656 on commission from the Grimani family and was primarily intended for dramatic productions, and later, during the following century, operas and ballet.

Destroyed by fire in September 1747, it was rebuilt by the Grimani family who moved serious opera productions to the new and more elegant Teatro San Benedetto (St. Benét), and reserved the San Samuele stage for the productions of the new, and more fashionable opera buffa (Italian comic opera). The theater was rebuilt in record time and reopened in May of 1748. The stages were reduced from six to five orders but the original structure remained unchanged.

In the fall of 1782, Nancy Storace arrived in Venice, where she performed primarily in opera buffa productions on the San Samuele stage. It was while she was engaged there, that she was discovered by an emissary of His Majesty, Emperor Joseph II of Austria, and was hired as the prima buffa (first comedienne), of the Hofburg Theater stage (The Burgtheater), in Vienna. Nancy's last appearance in Venice was in Antonio Salieri's La scuola de'golsi, in which she appeared as the Contessa, during Carnival of 1783. It was shortly after, that she arrived in Vienna, and premiered on the Burgtheater stage in another production of Salieri's La scuola de'golsi, directed by Salieri, himself. By this point she was regarded as the most popular and highest-paid performer of her kind in all of Europe.

The following is a list of productions in which Nancy starred during tenure at Teatro San Samuele.

La pescatrice fedele by Pasquale Anfossi at Teatro San Samuele, Venice during Winter 1782-Spring 1783
I puntighi by Felice Alessandri at Teatro San Samuele, Venice during Winter 1782-Spring 1783
Il filosofo immaginari by Giovanni Paisiello at Teatro San Samuele, Venice during Winter 1782-Spring 1783
Le vendemie by Giuseppi Gazzaniga at Teatro San Samuele, Venice during Winter 1782-Spring 1783
La scuola de'golsi by Antonio Salieri, starring as La Contessa at Teatro San Samuele, Venice during Carnival 1783


Ah sia gia de' miei sospiri - La scuola de' gelosi - By Antonio Salieri, Sung by Mezzo Soprano, Cecilia Bartoli

Places: The Viennese Cafe

In So Faithful a Heart, I feature a cafe that was popular among the theater goers called the Milano, where Mozart and Nancy, as well as their friends and colleagues go to relax and socialize after rehearsals and performances. The Milano was a very popular cafe, located on the Kohlmarkt, in the building which is now the popular Kaffeehaus and bakery, Demel.

The following history is from Wikipedia.

Legend has it that soldiers of the Polish-Habsburg army, while liberating Vienna from the second Turkish siege in 1683, found a number of sacks with strange beans that they initially thought were camel feed and wanted to burn. The Polish king Jan III Sobieski granted the sacks to one of his officers named Jerzy Franciszek Kulczycki, who started the first coffee house. After some experimentation, he added some sugar and milk, and the Viennese coffee tradition was born. This achievement has been recognized in many modern Viennese coffeehouses by hanging a picture of Kulczycki in the window. Another account is that Kulczycki, having spent two years in Ottoman captivity, knew perfectly well what coffee really is and tricked his superiors into granting him the beans that were considered worthless.

Vienna's first coffee house was opened by the Greek Johannes Theodat in 1685. 15 years later, four Greek owned coffeehouses had the privilege to serve coffee.


The new drink was well received, and coffee houses began to pop up rapidly. In the early period, the various drinks had no names, and customers would select the mixtures from a colour-shaded chart.


The heyday of the coffee house was the turn of the nineteenth century when writers like Peter Altenberg, Alfred Polgar, Karl Kraus, Hermann Broch and Friedrich Torberg made them their preferred place of work and pleasure. Many famous artists, scientists, and politicians of the period such as Arthur Schnitzler, Stefan Zweig, Egon Schiele, Gustav Klimt, Adolf Loos, Theodor Herzl, Alfred Adler, and even Leon Trotsky were constant coffee house patrons. In Prague, Budapest, Cracow, and Lviv (Lemberg) and other cities of the Austro-Hungarian empire there were also many coffee houses according to the Viennese model.


From 1950, the period of "coffee house death" or Kaffeehaussterben began, as many famous Viennese coffee houses had to close, perhaps due to the popularity of television or the appearance of modern espresso bars. Nevertheless, many of these classic Viennese spots still exist, and tourism and a renewed interest in their history have prompted a comeback.

Places: Klosterneuburg, Austria

Another one of the places featured in So Faithful a Heart is the estate of  Baroness Elisabeth Waldstätten , which was located just outside the village of Klosterneuburg, about five miles north of Vienna. Located in the hilly wine country, Klosterneuburg is home to a large Augustinian Monastery that was established in 1108.

Klosterneuburg was founded by Margrave Leopold III and developed in conjunction with its famous monastery. Leopold III and later Leopold VI (the latter only during part of his reign) had their residences there. From 1938 to 1954, it constituted the 26th district of Vienna. Today, it is a site of industry and a suburb of Vienna. The well-known Essl Museum of contemporary art is also on display in the town.

On a hill rising directly from the banks of the Danube stand the buildings (erected in 1730–1834) of the Augustine canonry, founded in 1114 by the Margrave (Saint) Leopold III of Babenberg, the patron saint of Austria. This order is one of the oldest and richest of its kind in Austria; it owns much of the land upon which the north-western suburbs of Vienna stand. Among the points of interest within it are the old chapel of 1318, with Leopold's tomb and the Verdun Altar, dating from the 12th century, the treasury and relic-chamber, the library with 30,000 volumes and numerous manuscripts, the picture gallery, the collection of coins, the theological hall, and the winecellar, containing an immense tun like that at Heidelberg. There are some excellent vintners in Klosterneuburg, but today the city is tightly linked to Vienna and houses some of the most affluent citizens of Lower Austria.

Information source: Wikipedia

I found a video on YouTube made by a couple traveling in Austria. It features some lovely images of the village and Monastery.

Places: The Michaelerplatz

The Imperial Square in Vienna, known as The Michaelerplatz, is where a great deal of the action takes place in So Faithful a Heart, for it was there where all of the government buildings and offices were housed, along with the Imperial Palace, known as The Hofburg, the Burgtheater (small building on the far right), and St. Micahel's Parish (which was the Imperial parish). Just across from the Hofburg, across the platz (square), was a small lane which housed all of the Imperial apartments, including the building which housed the apartments used by the Italian Opera Company, which is now 9 Herrengasse (Street of the Lords).

The original Burgtheater was built in 1741 by Empress Maria Theresa, and was the theater which Emperor Joseph II dubbed The German Theater, until he closed down the German Opera Company in 1783 in favor of the more fashionable Italian Opera Company, for which Nancy was hired as the original prima buffa (first comedienne). It was here that Mozart's Italian comic opera Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro), premiered on 1 May, 1786, in which Nancy sang the role of Susanna.

St. Michael's Church, dedicated to the Archangel Michael, is one of the oldest churches in Vienna, Austria, and also one of its few remaining Romanesque buildings. In the course of time, there have been many alterations, resulting in its present day aspect, unchanged since 1792. This church, close to the Michaeler wing of the Hofburg, used to be the parish church of the Imperial Court (it was then called called 'Zum heiligen Michael')

Over its long history, spanning more than eight centuries, this church has incorporated a medley of architectonic styles. The church is a late Romanesque, early Gothic building dating from about 1220-1240. There is a document, stating 1221 as the foundation date of the church, but this is most probably a 14th century forgery.

Number 9 Herrengasse was built from 1686 to 1689 for Count Mollard (Reichsgraf von Mollard). In 1760 it was bought by Count Franz Wenzel von Clary-Aldringen. Emperor Joseph II held his famous "round tables" here. It also housed the apartments in which some of the members of the Italian Opera Company resided, including Nancy Storace, Francesco Benucci (the original Figaro), and the Irish tenor, Michael Kelly.  Since 2005 it is used by the Austrian National Library and houses the Globe Museum, the Department of Music and the Department of Planned Languages and Esperanto Museum.




The following is a duet  from Act 1, scene 1 of Le Nozze di Figaro, which opened in the Burgtheater on 1 May, 1786.

Places: Mozart's music room in the Figarohaus

Of all the apartments in which Mozart resided while he lived in Vienna, the Figarohaus is probably the best-known. Originally known as the Camesina House, it was renamed the Figarohaus years later because this was the apartment where Mozart lived when he composed his famous and beloved Italian comic opera Le Nozze di Figaro.

The room that has been attributed as Mozart's music room had originally served as a small chapel for the noble Camesina family who originally built the house 300 years before Mozart. Years later, the building was sold and split into several apartments, cutting the chapel in half, but leaving the original marble walls and the ornate ceiling for which this particular room is famous.

Several scenes take place in this room in So Faithful a Heart, among them the scene where Mozart rehearses with Nancy for an upcoming Lenten concert performance of his opera Idomeneo, in which Nancy is to sing the role of Ilia.

     It was a frigged January afternoon as Mozart sat in the music room of his apartment at his fortepiano, rehearsing with Nancy, Ilia’s Act Three aria, in which she asks the breezes to carry her confession of love to Idamante, who has gone to battle the sea serpent. The warmth of Nancy’s voice seemed to soften the chill in the air which had invaded the room from outside, and he didn’t seem to notice the white puffs of steam that poured from her mouth as she exhaled.

     "Zeffiretti lusinghieri, Deh volate al mio tesoro: E gli dite, ch'io l'adoro, Che mi serbi il cor fedel." (Gently caressing breezes, fly to my beloved. Tell him that I adore him and keep him faithful.)

     “That’s it, Nancy! Smoooothly…yes…yes,” he coached as he raised his hand in the air. “Lovely…hold that now…crescendo…now let it trail off…yes!” He stopped playing and sighed, “Oh how I wish you could have been my original Ilia! How Munich would have adored you, Nancy!”

The Figarohaus stands now as one of the most popular museums in Vienna. If you ever have the opportunity to travel there, you'll definitely want to put it on your list of places to see!

Places: Scholss Laxenburg

One of the places featured most prominently in So Faithful a Heart is the Imperial summer estate of Laxenburg.  Located about ten miles south of Vienna, the palace and grounds were built and developed by the Empress Maria Theresa and served as the Imperial Family's summer home. Maria Theresa's oldest son Josef II, regarded it as his favorite of all the Imperial estates.

Schloss Laxenburg was a generous palatial estate in the countryside, several miles outside of Vienna. Of all of Emperor Joseph’s estates, this was his favorite because contained within it were his finest hunting grounds, several lush gardens dotted with pavilions, small forests, wooded paths, a large, picturesque, pond with row boats, picnic grounds, spas, and green lawns which were ideal for all sorts of outdoor entertainment. In addition to the grounds was the palace, which housed a small theater, ballrooms, a large banquet hall, casinos, and several estate rooms. It sat just on the edge of a tiny village that boasted many fine shops, cafés, wineries and taverns, all designed to accommodate His Majesty, his retinue, and his noble guests. Whenever the Emperor took his summer recess, he generally brought his opera company along with several other musicians and performers who were housed in a row of luxurious apartments not far from the theater, and while there, were given free reign of the grounds and use of all the estate had to offer. It was a place of beauty, relaxation, indulgence, sensual pleasures and delights for the enjoyment of the Emperor and his honored guests.

 When Steph and I were last in Vienna to be filmed for a documentary about Mozart for his 250th birthday, we spent nearly an entire day at Laxenburg, where we enjoyed the lovely grounds, as well as a picnic near, Diana's Temple, which is a large pavilion located about a mile from the main palatial complex. If you're ever in Vienna, take the opportunity to travel down to Laxenburg. It's not one of the more popular or well-known tourist spots, but it's well worth any trouble it might take to get there.