Viennese Opera Ball In New York
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Today marks the 50th anniversary of the Viennese Opera Ball in New York. As always, the ball took place in the Grand Ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria hotel. This year's proceeds went to Special Olympics. The founder of the Special Olympics in 1968, Eunice Kennedy Shriver was present at the event and was honored by the Austrian Government.
I was the part of the 15-couple ensemble who performed Viennese waltz choreography for the opening of the ball. Our dress rehearsal took place the day before and today we were back in the hotel to get ready for the show. It was a long day. I got to the hotel at around 5 PM running straight from the office. All women had scheduled the appointments with the professional hair stylist starting from 2 PM! Then they had to put on their makeup with the help of a professional makeup artist. The dinner would not be served until 9:30 PM, so good thing we had the usual snacks in the ladies' dressing room. The men's dressing room had a different kind of snacks that some of the men were consuming while the ladies were getting ready. I enjoyed hanging out in the ladies dressing room watching them getting down to the funky music coming from an I-Pod with portable speakers.
At around 6:30 PM we went to the Grand Ballroom, which was still undergoing the setup, to run through our performance with the live band. The music played live was quite different to the recording that we all got used to. It took some time until Teddy was comfortable with what the band was doing with the music. After running through the routine couple of times, we went back to our dressing rooms to put on the gowns and tails.
At around 8:15 we were all dressed up and took a final group photo before the performance. Then we went to a corridor behind the ballroom to wait for our turn to come out and do our performance. The dignitaries marched through the ballroom, the Austrian and American national anthems were played and then the ballet dancers performed their number. After they were done, we said our last prayers and marched out on the dance floor to start our performance.
The performance itself was a blur for me. After running through the routine so many times, it was on auto-pilot. To the best of my knowledge I did not mess anything up. I wish I had my friends videotape the performance from the balcony so I don't have to wait until the professional videographer comes up with the video.
After our bow, the announcer invited the audience to join us in a traditional Viennese waltz. As soon as he did so, my partner and I rushed into freestyle waltzing to take advantage of the space on the dancefloor until it was completely occupied by the ball patrons with hardly any space to move.
We had been instructed to stop dancing at some point and the ladies were supposed to go back to the dressing room and change out of the performance dresses into their own gowns. The gentlemen were supposed to go straight to the dining tables on the balcony and sit down so that the waiters know to serve us dinner. So I went up to the balcony and hung out with some friends at the table. The dinner seemed quite tasty, maybe because it was around 9:30 and I have not eaten since lunch.
After we ate, Kerrie and I came back down to the dancefloor to dance the waltz and amazingly the Peter Duchin and his Orchestra seamlessly blended various songs non-stop for 11.5 minutes. Phew... it was exhausting. They really should have more defined breaks between songs so that people could stop and take a break from dancing. Otherwise it's awkward to stop dancing in the middle of the song.
After some general dancing the announcer told everyone to take their seats for the performance which is open the same way every year - a horse driven carriage with opera singers. This year they were Alyson Cambridge, soprano and Dimitri Pittas, tenor - members of the Lindermann Young Artist Development Program at the Metropolitan Opera. They sang three arias after which dancing resumed.
At midnight Heinz Heidenreich, artistic director of the Vienna State Opera who flew in to New York just for the ball, conducted the Quadrille dance that was performed by the patrons of the ball. It was a very confusing experience because no one really knew what they were supposed to be doing. But it was fun nevertheless.
At some point later there was a performance by Dr. Ronan Tynan and the Special Olympics Chorus. Mr. Tynan had a very good voice that could be heard from the loudspeakers, but the microphones next to the chorus members appeared to be off...
At around 1 AM dancing in the grand ballroom stopped and everyone went to the afterparty called Tanz Bar that was held in the rooms across the corridor. There was a live swing band in Jade Room, DJ Music in Astor Room and coffee house in Basildon Room. They were serving some authentic Austrian food as well. The party went on until 4 o'clock.
Links:
Ball Program Pages
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