if you trust your rebel heart, ride it into battle

I'm feeling better, but I went to the doctor's office and to the pharmacy and to the store this morning and afterwards I was absolutely wiped.

Too tired to catch up on chores just yet, but I can start catching up on reviews, at least.

Three weeks ago, friends and I went to see Maria Theresia the musical at Ronacher. I rarely go see musicals in Vienna; the last one was the Falco musical in the same place around 1-2 years ago, both of them premiered there. I enjoyed "Rock Me Amadeus" more than expected, so I was very curious about a new one about empress Maria Theresia. A key figure of Austrian history; I only remembered bits and pieces of what I learned about her at school and during museum visits etc, but I briefly looked at her Wikipedia page beforehand just in case.

I had a good time! The beginning was the weakest part imo, but then it picked up the pace and focus. Of course they took plenty of liberties with historical facts but that was inevitable. I liked the music (not especially memorable but I am also not great at remembering music in general tbf) and staging, and especially some of the things they did with the lights. I found Falco too loud in places, but not this one, possibly because we sat further back.

( Spoilers )


Afterwards I was in the mood to read a book about the Habsburgs, and the only one currently available as an ebook from the library was one about "scandalous love affairs of the Habsburgs," by Hanne Egghardt. Fortunately a quick stop to any romanticizing of the Habsburgs through sheer, hm, mundanity. It features several scandalous affairs throughout the centuries, from the wife of the emperor falling in love with and almost certainly having an affair with her sister-in-law, to Napoleon's widow having kids with a general sent to look after her, to several archdukes falling in love with "commoners" - with varying degrees of happy endings that all showcase why such relationships were viewed with much skepticism.
It was often mentioned that these nobles had allowances of specific sums of money that all sounded like a lot, but I have no context how much so-and-so thousand guilders were worth back then so I couldn't say whether they were extremely rich or just moderately wealthy for their station.