Mozart Wrote Figaro Here

You are standing on the forecourt of the Vienna State Opera, on Herbert-von-Karajan-Platz, looking up at the main facade on the Ring. This is where our walk begins. The house was built as the Court Opera by the architects Eduard van der Nüll and August Sicard von Sicardsburg, in a Neo-Renaissance style. The foundation stone was laid on 20 May 1863, and the theatre opened on 25 May 1869 with Mozart’s Don Giovanni. After the end of the monarchy it became the State Opera, the name it still carries. Five arches open in the loggia above the entrance, and the Opernring in front of you is part of the Ringstrasse, the boulevard laid out when the old city walls were taken down. You may hear trams and traffic; this is still a working junction. The building you see is in part a reconstruction. On 12 March 1945 a bombing raid burned the house down to the main walls and the grand staircase on the Ring. The auditorium and the stage had to be rebuilt. After the war the company played at the Theater an der Wien. The rebuilt opera reopened on 5 November 1955 with Beethoven’s Fidelio. Both architects died in 1868, before the opening. Van der Nüll took his own life on 3 April 1868. The unfinished building had been widely mocked after the new Ring raised the street by a metre, and the city records that he was already seriously ill and depressed. Sicardsburg died about ten weeks later. Guided tours of the house are ticketed and are not part of this walk. The forecourt around you is public, and it is free. When you are ready, walk north along Operngasse, on the west side of the opera, for about 330 metres. In a few minutes you will come out on Helmut-Zilk-Platz, the square beside the Albertina. Stand on the square, off the sculptures. That is our next stop: the Monument against War and Fascism.

You are on Helmut-Zilk-Platz, beside the Albertina. The sculptures in front of you are Alfred Hrdlicka’s Monument against War and Fascism. They stand on the open paving of the square, with the palace terrace rising to one side. The City of Vienna commissioned the monument. It was unveiled, still unfinished, on 24 November 1988, and formally handed over on 21 June 1991. The square was named for Mayor Helmut Zilk in 2009, a year after his death. A plaque in the pavement states that the Philipphof stood here and was destroyed in a bombing raid on 12 March 1945, and that hundreds of people who had taken shelter in the cellars were killed. The monument is dedicated to all victims of war and fascism. It has four parts: the Gate of Violence; the figure of a Jewish man forced to scrub the street, which recalls the public humiliations of Jewish residents in Vienna in March 1938; Orpheus entering Hades, for those who died in the Philipphof; and the Stone of the Republic, carved with part of the provisional government’s declaration of independence of 27 April 1945. Please treat the square as a memorial, and keep off the sculptures. The Albertina, the palace on this square, was built from 1742 to 1745 as Palais Taroucca and later belonged to Duke Albert of Saxe-Teschen, who founded the graphic-art collection that still bears his name. The museum is ticketed. If you go in, Dürer’s Hare is in the collection, but the original is shown only at times; a copy is often on display. A tourist information office stands at the edge of the square, on Albertinaplatz. When you are ready, walk west into the Burggarten, pass the Palmenhaus, and come out onto Heldenplatz. Stand on the square in front of the Neue Burg, about 500 metres from here. That is our next stop.

You are standing on Heldenplatz, in front of the curved facade of the Neue Burg. The terrace over the main entrance, on the central risalit, is the one you can see from here. The two equestrian monuments on the square are associated with the sculptor Anton Dominik Fernkorn. The monument of Archduke Charles, nearer the outer gate, was unveiled on 22 May 1860. The monument of Prince Eugene, closer to the Neue Burg, was unveiled on 18 October 1865. This square was laid out after French troops blew up the fortifications in front of the Hofburg in 1809. The Neue Burg is the unfinished south-east wing of a much larger Imperial Forum, designed by Gottfried Semper and Carl von Hasenauer in 1869 to 1871. Construction started in 1881. When the monarchy ended in 1918, parts of the interior were still a shell. The open lawn and the curved facade are what remain of that unfinished plan. The museums and the Haus der Geschichte Österreich inside the Neue Burg are ticketed; this stop is the square. The Imperial Apartments, the Sisi Museum and the Treasury, reached from the inner courts, are also optional and ticketed. On 15 March 1938, Adolf Hitler spoke from that terrace and announced, in his words, “the entry of my homeland into the German Reich.” A large, organized crowd filled the square. The Leopoldine Wing of the older Hofburg, on this same complex, has been the official seat of the Federal President since October 1946. Since 2013 the square has also hosted the Fest der Freude each 8 May, on the anniversary of the end of the war in Europe. When you are ready, walk through the Hofburg, across the inner court called In der Burg, and out through the Michaelertor onto Michaelerplatz, about 405 metres. Stand on the circular square, beside the excavation in the middle. That is our next stop.

You are on Michaelerplatz, the round square at the city entrance to the Hofburg. The great concave facade is the Michaelertrakt. Joseph Emanuel Fischer von Erlach designed it for Emperor Charles VI, but it was only finished between 1889 and 1893, after the old Burgtheater on this site was pulled down. Heroic figures frame the gateway of the Michaelertor, the passage you have just come through. In the middle of the square, under the glass and steel, are excavations left visible in a design by Hans Hollein from 1992. Work in 1990 and 1991 uncovered Roman houses of the second to fifth centuries, with floor and wall heating and wall painting, and later foundations, including those of the old Burgtheater. The city archaeologist Ortolf Harl described the Roman remains as part of an entertainment quarter of the legionary camp Vindobona. Stand on the paving beside the excavation, not in the pit. Across the square, at number 3, is the Looshaus, built from 1909 to 1911 by Adolf Loos for the tailors Goldman and Salatsch. Its bare upper storeys caused a public row. The city records that Emperor Franz Joseph called it the house without eyebrows, and that Loos had to add window flower boxes before the building could be finished in 1912. On the east side stands St. Michael’s Church, one of Vienna’s oldest parish churches. According to the city’s tourist board, Mozart’s Requiem was first performed there. The Spanish Riding School has its visitor entrance off this square; it is ticketed and is not a stop on this walk. The next street, the Kohlmarkt, has long linked the palace to the Graben. When you are ready, walk up the Kohlmarkt, the short street that runs from this square to the Graben, about 370 metres. Stop beside the tall baroque column in the middle of the Graben. That is our next stop, the Plague Column.

You are on the Graben, standing beside the Plague Column, also called the Trinity Column. Look up at the gilded group of the Trinity at the top, the clouds of angels, and, lower down, the figure of Emperor Leopold I, who kneels on the monument. The column stands on a balustraded base; stay on the pavement, off the steps of the monument. Leopold vowed a column during the plague of 1679. A temporary wooden column stood first, and the permanent stone monument was put up after the epidemic had passed. The foundation stone of the marble column was laid on 30 June 1687, and it was consecrated on 29 October 1693, Trinity Sunday. It is about 21 metres high. The sculptural programme was drawn up by the Jesuit Franciscus Menegatti. Matthias Rauchmüller, Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach, Lodovico Ottavio Burnacini, Paul Strudel and others worked on it. The coats of arms of Austria, Hungary and Bohemia are on the base. Period reports of how many people died in the 1679 plague do not agree, so we will not give a single number. The Graben is now the main pedestrian street of the inner city. The name means ditch: this line was once a trench in front of the old wall, later filled and turned into a street, and then into a market and a place of display. The palaces and shops along it still follow that widened course. From here the Graben runs in a straight line toward Stephansplatz to the east and back toward the Kohlmarkt to the west, the way we have just come. As you walk east, the street opens into the square, and the cathedral tower comes into view. When you are ready, continue east along the Graben for about 240 metres, onto Stephansplatz, and stand west of the cathedral, in front of the great door called the Riesentor. That is our next stop, St. Stephen’s Cathedral.

You are on Stephansplatz, looking at the west front of St. Stephen’s Cathedral, Vienna’s landmark. The two Romanesque towers on this facade are known as the Heidentürme, and the great west door in front of you is the Riesentor. That west front dates from the mid-thirteenth century. A parish here is first recorded in 1137. Duke Rudolf IV, often called the Founder, laid the foundation of the south tower in 1359, and the tower was finished in 1433. The City of Vienna gives its height, including the cross, as 136.44 metres. From this side of the square you also see the lower north tower, to the left of the west front as you look at the door. Look up at the patterned roof of glazed tiles. On 11 April 1945 a fire destroyed the timber roof, and the old Pummerin bell was lost. The roof was rebuilt in steel, with help from all the Austrian federal states, and the cathedral reopened on 26 April 1952, the day the new Pummerin arrived in Vienna and was consecrated. The north tower was left unfinished and later given a cap; the new bell has hung there since 1957. The patterned roof is easiest to see if you take a few steps toward the south side of the church, which is also our way to the next stop. Mozart and Constanze Weber were married in this church on 4 August 1782. His body was blessed in the crucifix chapel on 6 December 1791, before burial at St. Marx Cemetery, outside the old walls. He was not buried in the cathedral. The rear of the nave is free to enter. The front of the nave, the south tower, the catacombs and the lift to the Pummerin are ticketed; the south tower climb is 343 steps and is not step-free. Check the current rules on site if you want to go in. This stop is the facade and the square. When you are ready, walk around the south side of the cathedral into Domgasse, about 260 metres, and stand in front of number 5. That is our next stop, Mozarthaus Vienna.

You are in Domgasse, a tight lane just behind the cathedral, standing in front of the tall, narrow facade of number 5. This is Mozarthaus Vienna, and it is the only one of Mozart’s Vienna apartments that still stands. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, his wife Constanze, and their household lived here from 1 October 1784 until 24 April 1787, longer than at any other address in the city. The rooms were in the Camesina house, also known as the Figarohaus, at what is now Domgasse 5 and Schulerstraße 8: four rooms, two cabinets and a kitchen, on an upper floor of this house. Mozart wrote the opera The Marriage of Figaro here, and several piano concertos. The opera was first performed in Vienna in 1786. The doorway under the arch is the public entrance to the museum. His father, Leopold, stayed in the house from 11 February to 21 April 1785. Joseph Haydn visited in February 1785. A memorial room was later made in the apartment. Since 2006 it has been part of the museum Mozarthaus Vienna. If you go in, you can see the rooms of the apartment. The museum is ticketed, and you do not need to go in for this walk; this stop is the facade. The city’s tourist board notes that Mozart lived at a dozen Vienna addresses. This is the one that survives, and the street in front of it is public. Schulerstraße, the other face of the same house, runs along the far side, toward the south wall of the cathedral. After the crowds of Stephansplatz, this lane is often quieter. When you are ready, walk back toward Stephansplatz, then north-west via Brandstätte and Jordangasse to Judenplatz, about 650 metres. This is the longest stretch of the walk. Stand on the square, off the concrete memorial, and keep your voice down. That is our next stop.

You are on Judenplatz, in front of the closed concrete library in the middle of the square. Please keep your voice down, and stay off the memorial itself. This is the memorial by the British sculptor Rachel Whiteread, unveiled on 25 October 2000. It is often called the Nameless Library. The shelves face outward, but the spines of the books are turned inward, and the door does not open. It was built by the City of Vienna after an initiative associated with Simon Wiesenthal, a Holocaust survivor who pressed for a memorial in this city. The inscription on the base, in German, Hebrew and English, is in memory of the more than 65,000 Austrian Jews murdered by the National Socialists between 1938 and 1945. The names of the camps and other killing sites are cut into the plinth. The memorial stands on the site of Vienna’s medieval synagogue. Before 1421 this square was the centre of medieval Jewish Vienna. The synagogue was destroyed in 1421, during the Wiener Gesera, when Duke Albert V had the city’s Jewish community expelled, forcibly baptized or killed. The memorial was shifted by a metre so that it would not sit over the bimah, the reading platform of the old synagogue. The excavated remains of the synagogue can be seen in the Museum Judenplatz, at the edge of the square, which is part of the Jewish Museum Vienna. The museum opened on the same day as the memorial. It is ticketed. In the Misrachi House on this square, the Documentation Centre of Austrian Resistance presents names and facts about those who were murdered. This stop is the square and the memorial. When you are ready, walk west for about 165 metres to the open square of Am Hof, and stand near the Marian column in the middle. That is our next stop.

You are on Am Hof, one of the oldest squares in the inner city, a wide cobbled space with a bronze column in the middle. The name comes from the Babenberg court. When Duke Henry II Jasomirgott moved his residence from Regensburg to Vienna, he built a palatinate here from 1155. It remained a residence until 1280 at the latest. After that the Habsburgs used the Hofburg, and this square became a market. The palatinate itself has gone; what you see are later houses, the church, the armoury and the column, on the ground of that first court. In the same year, 1155, Henry also founded the abbey we will see at the last stop. The column in the middle is the Marian column, the second on this site. Emperor Ferdinand III vowed a marble column in 1645 if the Swedish army was held off in the Thirty Years’ War. That first column, consecrated in 1647, was taken down in 1667 and re-erected at Schloss Wernstein am Inn. Emperor Leopold I had the present bronze column, by the gun-founder Balthasar Herold, set up on 8 December 1667. It was moved to safety in 1939 and reconsecrated on 30 May 1946. The church on the square is dedicated to the Nine Choirs of Angels, often called the Kirche am Hof, and its wide facade faces the paving. On the north side are the old civic armoury, the Bürgerliches Zeughaus, which once stored the city’s weapons, and the headquarters of Vienna’s professional fire service, whose station doors you can see from here. From the column you can already see the opening of the Heidenschuss, the short passage west toward the Freyung. When you are ready, continue west along the short opening called the Heidenschuss, about 215 metres, onto the Freyung. Stand on the square, beside the fountain, not in the basin. That is our last stop.

You are on the Freyung, an irregular open square in front of the Schottenstift, the Scots Abbey. The abbey church stands on one side, with palaces around the paving and a fountain in the middle. Duke Henry II Jasomirgott founded the abbey in 1155, when he made Vienna his seat, and gave it land here that then still lay outside the old wall. He brought monks from the Scots monastery in Regensburg. The Schottenstift is still a living Benedictine abbey. Vienna’s tourist board calls it Vienna’s oldest abbey. The name Freyung comes from an immunity granted in 1181, which freed the monastic precinct from municipal jurisdiction. Maria Theresa later abolished the asylum privilege that went with it. The fountain beside you is the Austriabrunnen, the Austria Fountain, put up in 1846. Around the square stand palaces: Palais Harrach, Palais Kinsky, built by Johann Lukas von Hildebrandt between 1713 and 1716, and Palais Ferstel, built from 1856 to 1860, which contains the coffee house Café Central. Going into the café is optional and is not part of this walk. The abbey’s museum, when it is open, is ticketed. Look back at the church facade as you stand by the fountain; the pale walls and the tower mark the abbey whose immunity gave this square its name. The historic centre of Vienna, including this square, has been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 2001. You can retrace the walk, or take the U-Bahn from Herrengasse or Schottentor. This is the end of the walk. You have come about 3.5 kilometres, from the State Opera to this square. Herrengasse station on the U3 is about 150 metres from here, and Schottentor on the U2 about 400 metres. If you still have a few minutes, Minoritenplatz and the Minoritenkirche lie a short walk to the south; that is an optional look, not part of this route. Thank you for walking with us.