by Mary Wakefield Buxton –
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Urbanna, Va.— The lawyers were meeting in continuing education classes while in Vienna, and two of the classes attracted my attendance: copyright laws in the U.S. and Europe, and ethics. Lawyers are required every year to take 3 hours of the 16 hours in continuing studies in law on ethics. Good idea. I wish politicians were required to take a course in ethics each year in hopes their behavior would improve. It seems all politicians care about these days is seizing power and will do anything to get what they want.
There are no greater composers in the world than the Germans. The English gave us poetry; French, art; Italians, statues; and Greeks, architecture. But the Germans win when it comes to music. Thus, I gladly plunked down $100 a ticket for first-row seats to attend a concert that featured the “Sound of Vienna,” mainly of Mozart, Lehar, and Strauss, famous composers that left extraordinarily beautiful music to the world. The program consisted of a 13-piece orchestra, opera and ballet.
The Monday evening performance was sold out and the audience of over 300 people came from all over the world. A huge contingency of Indians were seated behind us, an all-male group obviously traveling together in a large tour (as were many groups), an African medical contingency on our right, Japanese group to the left, and the remainder were throngs of Chinese tourists clamoring to take pictures of themselves in the ornate concert hall with their smart phones during intermission. They came to the stage and smiled into their cameras one at a time.
The program started with Eduard Strauss’s rambunctious “Out of Control Polka,” then the Overture from Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro” and leading into famous arias from the opera by male and female opera singers. Then, more of Johann Strauss—“Roses from the South Waltz.” Two ballet dancers on stage, a male dressed in tuxedo and female in a traditional ballerina-style gown, did the Viennese waltz together while the audience just swooned. It was breathtaking, the most exciting evening program I have ever seen.
I turned around and saw the gaping stares of the Indians, Japanese, Africans and Chinese audience as they stared mesmerized at the dancers. I realized many of these tourists may never have seen Western ballet before or even heard German classical music. The evening must have been for them a marvelous and unforgettable program.
A march by Josef Schrammel, “Vienna Remains Vienna,” was next to get our feet tapping, and I thought how true was the title to the march because the Viennese culture had survived through many past wars and upheavals . . . the empires of the past ruled by kings and queens and then the arrival of the Nazis and Communist occupation for 10 years after WWII when Russians liberated the city. Now Vienna is a republic and we all hope (as we do in America) that the relatively new republic can survive future upheavals of society. Regardless of what the future holds, Vienna will always be Vienna.
Next came more opera from Don Giovanni and then more of Johann Strauss with his “A Thousand and One Nights Waltz,” topped off with the “Champagne Gallop” and a hilarious rendition of the ballet dancers who came back on stage dressed as a country couple on a picnic with a basket containing a bottle of champagne. The girl emptied the bottle during the dance and ended up exactly where her beau wanted her—too tipsy to dance and collapsing in his arms!
After a short intermission we were back again swooning at the music with the overture from the operetta “Banditenstreiche,” which the program instructed was a kind of German Robin Hood, the “Gold and Silver Waltz” by Franz Lehar, and more opera and ballet to the music of Strauss.
The last piece was started the soft strains of “Blue Danube.” When the audience first heard those famous beginning notes we burst into waves of ecstatic applause, barely able to contain our sense of excitement. Oh, what a treat to hear this piece that I have played so many years on my piano, now played by professional Viennese musicians, after which the audience jumped to its feet screaming with thunderous cheers and applause!
The German gene may have triggered some horrific wars in the past, but it has certainly mesmerized the world with its music, much of it inspired opera and ballet. One hears that music calms the wild beast and, if so, that particular gene has given humanity serenity.
But not me. I skipped back to the Imperial Hotel, dodging the huge rain puddles in the street, humming the “Blue Danube,” the most beautiful piece ever composed by mankind, and I heard it play over and over again all night long in my dreams. (To be continued) ©2020
