Dance of the Vampires

Musical by Jim Steinman 

It was a sunny morning in May, when a group of four musical enthusiasts set off on a trip to Vienna. The purpose was to see Dance of the Vampires aka Tanz der Vampire, a world famous German musical. In the end we decided to go by car. The starting point was Prague and our driver was a real hero of the day, because she made the journey there and back within 24 hours. Nearly 700 km in one day - Bravo! Arrived in Austria's capital in early afternoon, we had some time before the evening show, so we went for a short walk around the city center. We visited St.Stephen's Cathedral (Stephansdom) - the most significamt church in Vienna, St.Charles Church (Karlskirche) - an enthralling baroque church reflecting itself in the fountain in front of it, the majestic gothic City Hall (Rathaus) and the Mozart Monument (Mozart Denkmal) a tribute to amazing W.A.Mozart, whose presence is still obvious there. After seeing a bit of Vienna's history, we had delicious dinner - Viennese schnitzel served with special Viennese potatoe salad and Viennese coffee - unconditional musts when you are in Vienna. And suddenly there was the long expected evening! Ronacher is a beautiful and cosy theatre with unique atmosphere and fully dedicated to the performance just shown. At that time it was tastefully decorated with atributes of vampires like sharp teeth, blood and scary things like that. We walked in, sighed in awe, found our seats and waited excitedly for the performance to start. And three hours of continuous amazement followed. The performance was absolutely breathtaking, all the singers were brilliant, the music was splendid, the scene was great and last but not least there were spectacular costumes including spooky vampire teeth. Drew sarich as Counf von Krolock was the best performance i've seen so far. Tanz der Vampire was an unforgettable experience and one of my dreams has come true. I hope I will be able to see more musicals abroad. See you again soon, Vienna.