Don Giovanni
Recently, N and I went to Europe on our honeymoon. We gallivanted about Germany, Austria, and the Czech Republic, proving everyone who was dubious about those locations for a honeymoon wrong as we took a succession of increasingly gorgeous photos of the Alps in the autumn. Being fans of classical music (although mostly big, heavy Romantics, not puny waltzes), we included Vienna in our many stops on said trip.
In Vienna, poor bastards are forced to ramble about in period dress, trying to sell seriously over-priced tickets to Mozart and Strauss concerts to idiotic tourists. Firstly, if you ever go to Vienna, don’t buy these tickets; the student-priced tickets for crappy seats were like 30 euro a person (which is about 50 bucks, if you speak ‘merican) for two solid hours of Strauss waltzes, including the Blue Danube….with repeats (it’s like 15 minutes long that way, which is HELL). Second, there is nothing funnier than a guy wearing a cloak that looks like it was stolen from the set of Amadeus texting. I’m not even making this up. This is a photo we took on the sly while running around outside the main square.
Yes. That is a dude dressed as Mozart texting. There's a guy behind him wearing a cloak that seriously looks like Salieri's Don Giovanni/Leopold costume. Oh, Vienna.
But in Vienna, this makes a modicum of sense. It’s like the High Culture version of people running around New York dressed as various characters and whatnot. It’s still silly enough for me to laugh at, but at least you know that it’s where Mozart premiered some of his greatest works.
This guy was in upstate New York. He is not a Devious Salieri Trying To Ruin Mozart. Nor is he DON GIOVAAAAAAAAAAAANI.
Who wears an 18th century cloak to go CD shopping???? I mean, out of date outfit + out of date technology kind of works, but not really.
I kind of love it, even though I think it’s completely absurd. It takes balls to think
“Yes, I will wear my CLOAK out in public instead of a coat or a jacket or something.”
I admire his attempt to bring it back.
But I think, along with the CDs he’s shopping for, the days of the Salieri cloak are long past.
Written by Lea Coffman of BadFadsBlog