(Don't be fooled by his take-me-home-to-meet-your-parents smile. He's a playa!)
From Heldenplatz to the Hofburg Neue Burg to the Burggarten to Stephansplatz to Kartnerstrasse, they plague and stalk tourists as high potential cash-cows. They are the dreaded Vienna Mozart-men. Like how dogs and bees smell fear, the Vienna Mozart-men can sniff-out tourists from a mere trace of sweat alone.
I don't know how they do it -- these magic Mozart-men -- judging your tourist status from a subtle turn of the cuff, or a minimal sweep of hairstyle, or the make of a shoe. But they know instantly that you just tumbled from your high-thread-count Hotel Sacher piume comforter, and they race after you spewing more languages then you ever knew existed. If captured, their goal is to convince you into buying tickets for the Wiener Staatsoper, or any other secondary venue event for your visit. I usually beat them over the head with a rolled-up copy of my Kleine Zeitung.
For the WIENER MOZARTJAHR 2006, which marked the 250th anniversary of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's birth, twenty-eight well-known filmmakers living and working in Austria (entire list here and here) were commissioned to create one-minute films on the subject of Mozart. The output was diverse, and Opera Chic caught one of these "Mozart Minutes" during a screening of the documentary "Shadowing the Third Man" at the Burg Kino cinema on Opernring.
However, to my horror, just when I thought I had escaped those crafty Mozart-men stalkers in the safe darkness of the theater, there they were! Looming on the screen as part as one of those pre-feature commercial segments!1!!!!!11!!! omg!
The "Mozart Minute" playing on screen featured a mélange of nine of those ubiquitous Mozart-men relaying their names (Limani Mozart, Amari Mozart, Jordansky Mozart, Alin Mozart, etc.). Titled lol "Die Mozarts" lol ("The Mozarts"), the one-minute segment was created by "Deutsch.Schimek", which is a combination name of both Vienna-born, 60-something filmmakers Gustav Deutsch and collaborator Hanna Schimek. From the website comes the description of those crafty Mozart-men:
"Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - the advertising icon for the country of Austria - is brought to life in Vienna’s urban space every day by a multiethnic group of actors. Sellers of concert tickets in historic costumes and wigs stand around St. Stephan’s Square, at the State Opera House, at the Mozart monument, in front of the Burgtheater, trying to convince passing tourists to buy one."
Opera Chic was there for her readers (even before she had any)! On-the-fly, I captured the segment, and uploaded it to YouTube. Enjoy!