Linz, Austria

Painting of Linz, Austria by Stephen Gould

Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.
~ G. K. Chesterton (1874 - 1936)

My brother, Stephen, is a classical opera singer, a Helden tenor. He will be in Bayreuth, Germany for the next two months performing at the Bayreuth Wagner Festival. When he first went to Europe, he contracted as a house tenor with the Linz Opera and performed there for three years.

Linz is an old European town where German with an Austrian accent is spoken and very little English. Everyone goes to the opera; small children in flowered dresses, grandmothers with old hats and crocheted shawls, women in formal attire, men in casual jeans, and teenagers, some in slinky spaghetti strap dresses and others in black leather with metal studs and bare midriffs.

They know their opera, the stories, the music and they come to adore their performers. The smiling usher could only speak broken English, but he bowed and grinned and kept trying to say, "Stephen, brother, we love, great singer" as he clasped his hands together in the universal symbol for "bravo".

The town is beautiful, old with angled rooftop lines and narrow cobblestone streets. The Danau (Danube) River runs through the town and hills and mountains are noted in the distance. This is only a portion of the painting which is a view from the Linzer Schloss Museum.

Submitted to Macro Day as entry for "Art".
(Click to see larger version of full picture)