Vienna
In search of kindred spirits: An Absence of Cousins, by Lore Segal, reviewed
When Ilka Weisz, a young refugee from Vienna, accepts a teaching post in smalltown Connecticut, she struggles to make friends in the close-knit academic community
Hero and villain: The Two Loves of Sophie Strom, by Sam Taylor, reviewed
A Jewish teenager is the victim of a Nazi arson attack in 1933. Alternative scenarios see him joining the French Resistance, and being recruited by the SS
In defence of the EU
Eastern Europe is the graveyard of empires. Rome failed on the Danube, Napoleon on the Dnieper. The epic struggle between…
The many lives of George Weidenfeld, legendary publisher and ladies’ man
Born in a poor quarter of Vienna, the refugee took London by storm, married four times, survived financial ruin and died eulogised the world over
Love in the shadow of the Nazi threat
Florian Illies describes the charged atmosphere of Europe in the early 1930s, as people grew increasingly desperate to celebrate their last chance of freedom
Was it murder?
In a beautifully told novel, O’Callaghan focuses on the mysterious death of the footballer Matthias Sindelar in 1939 – possibly as a result of defying Hitler
The trouble with Austria's vaccine passport plan
Are vaccine passports being used in other countries in an attempt to cut Covid infections – or to try and…
Waiting for Gödel is over: the reclusive genius emerges from the shadows
The 20th-century Austrian mathematician Kurt Gödel did his level best to live in the world as his philosophical hero Gottfried…
There’s no better sonic hangover cure: New Year’s Day Concert reviewed
The best moment in the Vienna Philharmonic’s annual New Year’s Day Concert comes after the end of the advertised programme.…
The forgotten female composer fêted by Mozart and Haydn
Selina Mills on Maria Theresia von Paradis, the gifted but forgotten 18th-century composer, whose story will finally be told in a new chamber opera
An elegy for Vienna
Vienna Somebody once described Vienna as a top opera performed by understudies. The remark was unquestionably witty, but utterly false…
A brilliant, unrevivable undertaking: Tom Stoppard’s Leopoldstadt reviewed
History will record Leopoldstadt as Tom Stoppard’s Schindler’s List. His brilliant tragic-comic play opens in the Jewish quarter of Vienna…
Wonderful, overwhelming, once-in-a-lifetime display of Bruegels – get on a plane now
‘About suffering’, W.H. Auden memorably argued in his poem ‘Musée des Beaux Arts’, the old masters ‘were never wrong’. Great…
The singing made me seasick: ETO’s Don Giovanni reviewed
One of these days I will probably see a production of Don Giovanni set in a research station in the…
Did Hans Asperger save children from the Nazis — or sell them out?
Simon Baron-Cohen wonders whether the humane Hans Asperger may finally have betrayed the vulnerable children in his care in Nazi-occupied Vienna
Some good came out of the negotiating chamber this week, but it concerned Iran rather than Greece
As an occasional lecturer on the abstruse topic of the efficacy of sanctions in conflict resolution, I find myself much…
Pliny the Younger on Fifa
In any huge enterprise (like Fifa), where does the rot begin? Pliny the Younger mused on this question in a…
Spectator letters: Why not vote like Belgians?
Bees vs Belgians Sir: To answer Rory Sutherland and Glen Weyl’s question: yes, everyone should vote and no, just because…
Neither London nor New York will be livable in ten years’ time
A recent column in the FT made me mad as hell. The writer, Simon Kuper, calls Vienna a backwater, which…
Vienna is a crossroads of the world again – but something’s missing
People get the wrong idea about Vienna and I blame Johann Strauss. His plinky-plonky waltzes have become the soundtrack to…
The Nazi origins of the Vienna Phil’s New Year’s Day concert
Vienna’s New Year’s Day concert is still tarnished by its Nazi origins, says Norman Lebrecht
Egon Schiele at the Courtauld: a one-note samba of spindly limbs, nipples and pudenda
One day, as a student — or so the story goes — Egon Schiele called on Gustav Klimt, a celebrated…
Fischer’s is like visiting Vienna without having to go to Austria (thank God)
Fischer’s is Austria made safe for liberals, gays, Jews and other Untermenschen riffraff, because it is a restaurant, not a…
