Opera returns to Vienna with hotel 'window concert'

Deserted by tourists, a hotel in Vienna gave itself a temporary one-night-only makeover, turning itself into an outdoor concert hall.

The guest bedrooms, which have stood empty during the coronavirus lockdown, were transformed into opera boxes for an evening, and the hotel courtyard into a stage to create a rare moment of joy in the city of music.

Two opera singers and a string ensemble were invited to play at the Hotel Zeitgeist.

Monika Medek and the Camerata Carnutum orchestra perform for guests of Zeitgeist Hotel during a window concert (Fensterkonzert) in Vienna.

As they performed in the courtyard, the spectators looked on from the windows of 40 or so rooms which they had rented for the evening.

And they approved, showering applause on to the head of the tuxedoed conductor and his elegant soprano Monika Medek.

Paid bookings for the "window concert" were sold out in three days, hotel director Andreas Purtscher told AFP.

Purtscher said the concert was intended to give the artists the opportunity to perform again and "to help people get out, to find a sense of normality in their contact with others".

He hoped it would "remove some of the fear associated with the period of restrictions".

Guests of Zeitgeist Hotel listen from their rooms to singers Monika Medek and Dagmar Dekanovsky and the Camerata Carnutum orchestra, during a window concert (Fensterkonzert) in Vienna.