We had just enough time for the "Sweet Happy Hour" (pastry & coffee or tea for $3.50 per person) at the Astoria Hotel before the 6 p.m. curtain. Thom decided he was tired of posing for pictures.
Our route took us past a busy barber shop.
Hungarian men ain't bad.
We had tickets for Spartacus. If someone had told me I wouldn't doze off during a three-hour ballet, I would have said nonsense. Who knew there would be dozens of gorgeous dancers camping it up in loincloths in a setting that can only be described as sumptuous?
Franz Joseph didn't tell the architects the opera's interior couldn't be more beautiful than the one in Vienna, his hometown.
Ornate gold carvings separate the box seats.
We got photo bombed
. . . and enjoyed flutes of prosecco at both intermissions, too.
A pair of Finnish balletomanes stood in front of us at the bar. When I remarked how odd that one of the very white corps appeared in blackface, something that NEVER would happen in New York, the bald one replied, "Oh, but don't you know? In some places in Europe now it's very chic to have at least one African performer." His comment left me speechless.
We quickly turned our attention to audience footwear.
Audrey Hepburn could not have enchanted us any more than this chic opera goer who was seated in the box just above us. When we described the bare midriff beneath her coat to Chris in Vienna, he said "She's probably Russian." We all traffic in stereotypes, don't we?
The building looked just as beautiful at night. It was Franz Liszt's anniversary.
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