Winspear hosts Salute to Vienna
Seasonal event a light, fun celebration
Salute to Vienna When: Sunday at 2:30 p.m. Where: Winspear Centre Tickets: $49.50 to $89.50, from the Winspear box office, 780-4281414, or winspearcentre.com When producers Attila and Marion Glatz first came up with the idea for Salute to Vienna, there were more than a few acquaintances who thought they were nuts.
A lavish concert of Viennese waltzes with a full orchestra and dancers on New Year’s Day? When most people are either relaxing from the night before or spending time with their families?
“We invited the president (Charles Cutts) of the very prestigious Roy Thomson Hall to come out and see it, and he asked if we were kidding,” recalls Attila Glatz from his Toronto office.
“There was no way he was going to leave his house on that day. It was up to my wife to pour on her Viennese charm, and he arrived at the last minute.”
Cutts was no doubt impressed by what he saw at the inaugural concert, which took place at the Toronto Centre for the Arts with the North York Symphony.
Despite little to no publicity, there were already lineups and scalpers, and the concert quickly sold out. During the concert break, Cutts sought out Glatz and suggested moving the event to the Roy Thomson in 1996. Thus are holiday institutions born.
It was also in 1996 that Glatz had the idea to fly in musicians from across Canada for what was eventually dubbed the Strauss Symphony of Canada.
“The musicians ended up exchanging a lot of ideas,” says Glatz.
This was around the time of the last Quebec referendum, “when people were worried about Canada breaking up. They took the news back to their various homes, whether Vancouver or Ottawa, Edmonton or Quebec City, and said we need to have this in our city.”
If Glatz seems like an unabashed proselytizer for Strauss, well, he is. Growing up behind the Iron Curtain in Budapest, he and his family would listen to the famous New Year’s Strauss concert out of Vienna on the radio. This was a tradition shared by most Europeans, including his wife and business partner Marion, who grew up in Vienna. Established in 1939, the now-televised concert draws millions of viewers worldwide.
The two met at a ski lodge in Switzerland, where Glatz, considered a piano prodigy from a young age, was playing for customers after leaving Hungary. Glatz had been drawn to jazz for a number of years, and it was Marion who brought back his early love of classical music.
“I still remember how much I loved that music when I was young, during the holiday season. For the rest of the year, I might listen to Mahler or Beethoven, but during New Year’s it’s nice to have something lighthearted.”
The Glatz-produced Salute to Vienna concerts, which are heavy on the Strauss, have also turned into something of a tradition in North America, taking place in 16 cities across the continent over a four-day period around New Years. The figures are staggering, with more than 2,200 musicians, singers and dancers contracted to perform — an expensive undertaking, so it’s not unreasonable to suggest that Glatz might be nervous at this time of year.
He’s not.
“If you go on YouTube and click on (Strauss’s) Blue Danube, there are hundreds of thousand of videos. This is the most popular song ever, overtaking the Beatles or Elvis. I was surprised myself to see this; I thought ‘My God, this is amazing.’
“The reason why this continues to do so well is because of things like that. This music is never going to go away, and people will always listen. It’s not going to die. Vienna will do it forever. They don’t give up on too many things and certainly they won’t stop doing that.”
To keep an eye on things, there will be a Viennese musical ambassador for the Edmonton concert in the form of conductor Bernhard Schneider. He’ll be in charge of the Strauss Symphony of Canada, with soprano Lara Ciekiewicz, tenor Brian Cheney, as well as the Kiev-Aniko Ballet from Ukraine.
“These are absolutely fantastic performers, really the best, and it’s a very enjoyable concert for anyone,” Glatz says.
“The pieces are not too long, there are a few polkas and marches, singers and dancers, and when the (Strauss) Radetzky March comes on, everybody stands up and claps. This is exactly what people like at this time of year, something light and fun and in the spirit of the season.”