:)
Posted on 01/09/2006 9:01:20 AM PST by kiriath_jearim
Last Updated: Monday, 2 January 2006, 08:21 GMT
Mozart birthday fever grips Austria
By Bethany Bell BBC News, Salzburg
Austria is celebrating the 250th birthday of one of its most famous sons - the composer, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
Salzburg, the city of his birth, is hoping to cash in with a mixture of kitsch and high culture and its Mozart industry is going into overdrive this month.
An enterprising local dairy has developed a new Mozart yogurt and a Mozart dessert drink - flavoured with chocolate, hazelnut and marzipan.
The yogurt is one of hundreds of new products being developed for the composer's 250th birthday on 27 January.
As well as yogurt, you can buy Mozart sausage, Mozart baby bottles and Mozart perfume. Traders here are hoping for a bumper year.
Some Austrians think it all too much, including Kurt Palm, himself the author of a new book about Mozart.
"The new slogan for 2006 is not sex sells, but Mozart sells. If Mozart could see what happens now only in Austria, in Vienna or Salzburg this year, he would either only laugh about it or he would be disgusted," he says.
But for Salzburg, Mozart-marketing and tourism brings in the money. The city's mayor Heinz Schaden says the composer is one of the city's most important sources of income.
"It's probably difficult to calculate it in euros but if you make an opinion poll with all the tourists who come to Salzburg, many would say I want to see the city where Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born. Salzburg is hard to imagine without Mozart. He put this city on the map."
'Exciting'
But amidst the kitsch, Salzburg has not forgotten what really matters about Mozart: his music.
This summer there will be a chance to see every opera that Mozart wrote. For the first time, the famous Salzburg Festival is staging all 22 operas in five weeks.
Suzanne Staehr from the Salzburg Festival says it is a huge logistical and artistic challenge.
"Normally we show five or six operas in a festival season. Next season we will show 22 operas. But when should this experiment be done except in the anniversary year - and where else but Salzburg? The city of his birth takes on this challenge," she says.
World-famous musicians and conductors will be performing Mozart including Simon Rattle, Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Riccardo Muti.
It is a prospect that even excites jaded Salzburgers.
"For real Mozartians there can never be too much Mozart and in any case there is going to be a lot of Mozart, we perhaps haven't heard so much before and that's going to be exciting, discovering the undiscovered Mozart," a shopper in central Salzburg says.
"Mozart is a very famous citizen of Salzburg and we are proud to have him and we enjoy celebrating his 250th birthday," says a local civil servant. "We hope many people come to Salzburg - the more often they come the better it is for us."
In the ice rink in Salzburg's Mozart Square, there is even the chance to go skating to the strains of the Queen of the Night aria from The Magic Flute.
All this Mozart may be too much for some people, but Salzburgers know when they are on to a good thing.
Probably a 'minor' event.
:)
LOL!
I celebrate Tom Hulce's birthday instead.
Do you know if they ever confirmed through DNA testing that Mozart's skull was in fact his skull?
Merchandising, merchandising, where the real money from the movie is made. Spaceballs-the T-shirt, Spaceballs-the Coloring Book, Spaceballs-the Lunch box, Spaceballs-the Breakfast Cereal, Spaceballs-the Flame Thrower.
For some reason, for the past week, I have felt compelled to load all of my Mozart CDs into my new iPod.
Now I know why.
Hee hee. I can't pronounce the German version so that's what I call 'em, too :)
FYI
Recent skull discovery has been debunked. There is DNA on file from Mozart's grandmother (I think she was dug up some time ago) and his niece (a daughter of sister Nannurl).
The DNA of the skull did not correlate as being a family member of these other two sources.
There is no evidence of an absurdly crazy life. Your data is incorrect or at the least, unsupported.
When travelling he wrote to his wife every day. The letters are in the historical record.
His use of vulgarity in letters has been attributed to a desire to keep them out of a collection of letters his father intended to publish for money. His relatives' letters never remark on any vulgarity by him in person.
The Amadeus portrayal of him as a drunkard wild man derives from those letters, but recent discovery of Leopold's notes in which he discussed such a book with a publisher has put a n entirely new light on Wolfgang's life. There is simply no evidence of infidelity.
The Governor of California should send flowers...(g)
Just in case anyone is interested:
There will be the first 24h round the clock TV day dedicated to Mozart on his birthday January 27. On TV channel TW1 either:
europe-wide via Astra 1H digital Satellite with a digital receiver (e.g. set top box) Transponder 115, polarisation horizontal, Downlink frequency: 12,66275 GHz
or
directly in the internet via http://www.tw1.at/livestream.htm
The full programm listing you'll find here:
http://www.24hoursmozart.com/index.php?start_en〈=EN
Don't forget: the timetable is based on Central European Time.
Amongst other highlights you will be able to listen to live music on Mozarts very own violin and piano at his birthplace.
ping
Dear Cyclopean Squid,
Thanks for the ping!
I guess this month's pings are going to be All Mozart All The Time. LOL!
Classical Music Ping List ping!
If you want on or off this list, let me know via FR e-mail.
Thanks!
sitetest
Thanks for the info!
I forgot about pinging you, sorry...should have done it that way.
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