The Sound of Music

The past few days have been full of Music! From two musicals in London, to Bach Baroque concert, to a ballet to hundreds of street performers. Originally in London I had planned on going to see one play, Les Miserables (because it was the one I hadn't seen yet). But almost everyone else in my group signed up for two plays, and most of the sites I wanted to see were closed because we were in England the day of the Royal Wedding (yes we watched it in a little souvenir shop in Salisbury with some of the locals). But I decided I would go to the discount ticket office and see if they had any good shows that I could attend that night.....THEY HAD TICKETS FOR PHANTOM OF THE OPERA! So I ended up seeing two shows in London! Both were absolutely wonderful, it was funny hearing them with French and English accents.
Last night in Vienna we saw a Bach concert. It was beautiful and enjoyable to listen too. At first we were the back row and I was stuck behind an incredibly tall gentleman, but I guess they didn't realize that there was an intermission because they never came back! So even though I was in the back row I had a full view of the stage with the musicians.

Bach Concert

Vienna does an interesting thing, they have what is called the standing room at the Opera theater. It is where you pay a smaller fee and can stand under the balconies and boxes to watch a show. So instead of paying a huge sum for a seat we paid 4euros and were able to see the show. This is so everyone, even the lower class in the old days or us poor traveling college students can still experience the beauty of music and culture. We went to the opera house and got in line early, and found that we weren't actually going to see an Opera....but a ballet! I was so excited. We weren't planning on staying for the whole Opera, they can run up too 3 hours and we weren't sure we could handle standing for three hours watching an Opera in German. But the ballet was so wonderful! The beginning was a more modern/contemporary ballet (it was very interesting, but I enjoyed it), then there was a more classical with beautiful storylines and then a more comic act. Its fun because you go early, save your spot by tying a scarf to the railing by where you will stand and then we left and got dinner (Bratwurst) and then returned for the show! It was a wonderful experience and we had a blast! (I think we may go again tomorrow because its show cheap and there will be a different show tomorrow, we'll see if we have any better ideas). Well thats the music experience I've had for the past few days, it has been so much fun.


Oh just a random fun story for music, we were walking in the subway in London. One of the street performers started to play Mama Mia by ABBA, and us crazy LDS kids started singing all through the subway...even when you couldn't hear the musician anymore. (Ya we got some crazy looks) :P

Also they play a lot of American music on the radio, so we sing on the bus all the time.



                   
            How many of you recognize this???
                 Yes I've been there!!!