Vienna (AFP)

A handful of spectators dispersed in its vast hall, the Vienna Opera bowed to the rule drastically limiting the audience of the concerts, with a touch of bitterness but relieved that the music resounds again as a "symbol".

A first night in the prestigious lyric house, it is usually the froufrou of long dresses, the selfies in the large central staircase, the clinking of glasses at the bar.

None of that Monday evening for the reopening of the institution after three months of closure imposed by the coronavirus pandemic. As refreshments, spectators were offered disinfectant gel, before crossing, protective masks on their faces, the vast building with the air of a deserted ship.

With a tonnage limited to one hundred spectators per performance, there is no risk of jostling in the locker room or in the hall with 1,700 seats.

"It is very frustrating to present singers of this quality in front of only a hundred spectators," concedes the director of the Staatsoper, Dominique Meyer.

Frustrating or even a little unfair, he slips, given the crowds on the café terraces or in the recent anti-racism demonstrations that have brought together thousands of people in the Austrian capital.

If the establishment has reopened, without increasing the price of seats, it is therefore for "the symbol": "It is important that culture, which has been somewhat forgotten by politicians around the world, recalls that it counts ", underlines the Frenchman who will hand over at the end of June after ten years at the head of the Vienna Opera.

- "Beauty of sound" -

A feeling shared by the director of Konzerthaus, another renowned hall in the capital which has reopened with the same constraints.

"The current configuration is obviously absurd from an economic point of view but we do it anyway because we are at the service of the artists on stage and the public", confides to AFP the director Matthias Naske.

"We had to cancel 220 concerts during these 88 days off," he recalls.

Same artistic and financial sacrifice at the Opera, which usually sees 600,000 spectators per year, and found itself forced to cancel 120 performances.

In the absence of the effervescence of the usual representations or the warmth of applause, the spectators enjoy an unprecedented experience with an almost private concert, given by headliners of classical music.

After the opening of reservations, the 14 performances scheduled by the Staatsoper until the end of June were sold out in ... half an hour.

Austria, which has authorized cultural events since the end of May within the limit of 100 indoor spectators, will increase this gauge to 250 people in July and then to 500 in August.

Ulrike Grunenwald, a 57-year-old Austrian woman living in France, told AFP that she had even undergone a coronavirus screening test and drove for more than 16 hours to attend the Monday evening performance, a recital by the Austrian bass Günther Groissböck.

"It's wonderful. I'm so happy. If you like culture and you like to live it, you miss it so much," she says enthusiastically. Concert price: 100 euros.

The feeling of rebirth is identical for Luise Bertoli, a spectator met at the Konzerthaus. "I missed the music a lot," she says, "even if we have music recordings at home or listen to them on television, it's not the same."

"For us, the important thing is to be able to play," had previously said with emotion Daniel Froschauer, violinist and president of the Vienna Philharmonic, one of the most prestigious orchestras in the world, who replayed Friday for the first time since three months.

Dominique Meyer was among the hundred privileged of this concert directed by the maestro Daniel Barenboim.

"For three months I listened to music in a box like everyone else and when suddenly, the Vienna Philharmonic plays in real acoustics, its real sound, I could not hold back a little tear, it was extremely beautiful. "

© 2020 AFP