Austria will celebrate the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth next year in what promises to be an extravaganza for souvenir hunters.
”The ‘Mozart’ brand is one of the best known in the world,” said Arthur Oberascher, head of the Austrian National Tourist Office, estimating its value at about €5,4-billion.
”No wonder we are seeing such a profusion of by-products,” such as T-shirts, baseball caps, beer mugs and even golf balls, before the celebrations revolving around the January 27 birthday, he said.
The wealth of available merchandise, especially on the internet, includes of course re-releases of old recordings and new interpretations of the Austrian composer’s pieces.
A Dutch record company, Brilliant Classics, has started selling for €99 the ”complete works of Mozart” in a 170-CD box set. Thousands of copies have already been sold in the Alpine republic, according to its Austrian distributor.
The musician’s bibliography, which includes about 12 000 books since his death in 1791, also counts a few new titles. The Viennese musicologist Gernot Gruber has begun a ”Mozart encyclopedia” due to come out next summer, while a Mozart for Children and at least eight other biographies are in the works.
The target audience: the 77 ”Mozart societies” around the world, including 25 in Germany, 13 in Italy, six in Austria and three in France.
Shops are bristling with umbrellas, watches and cups featuring Mozart’s portrait as well as ashtrays, commemorative plates, beach towels, handkerchiefs, diaries, pencils and baby bottles stamped with the image of Salzburg’s musical prodigy.
”The ‘Mozart bear’ which, in period dress and wig, plays A Little Night Music when hugged [and] is very popular with Japanese tourists,” said Angie Messner, owner of Mostly Mozart, a souvenir shop near Vienna’s Opera House. The stuffed toy’s price tag: €189,90.
The craze for Austria’s biggest celebrity — bigger even than Arnold Schwarzenegger — also boosts sales of ”Mozartkugel” pralines, a combination of chocolate, marzipan, pistachios and nougat, created in 1891 for the 100th anniversary of Mozart’s death by Salzburg confectioner Paul Fuerst.
Nearly 90-million of these fancy chocolates, winners of a gold medal at the 1905 Universal Exposition in Paris and exported since to 50 countries, are sold every year.
Stefan Fuchs, a butcher in the western town of Flachgau, has created a ”Mozart sausage” made of pork and beef and roughly resembling a violin.
”The idea came to me in a dream. When I woke up, I immediately wrote down the recipe,” he said.
The Stiegl brewery in Salzburg, which had a profit of €117-million in 2004, has launched a ”Mozart Gold” brew, while the Hiedler vineyard in Langenlois in the east of the country announced a ”Mozart vintage” at the end of its last grape harvest.
The Alpenmilch dairy offers nougat-, marzipan- or chocolate-flavoured ”Mozart yogurt” drinks. Sales objective: a million pots in 2006.
As for the Café Mozart, near the Albertina museum in the heart of the Austrian capital, it offers a nougat-and-pistachio ”Mozart tart”, described as a ”symphony of flavours”.
”Any excuse is good,” said Elisabeth Stoeckl, buyer for Vienna’s souvenir shops. ”The more kitsch, the better.” — AFP
