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Salute to Vienna New Year\u2019s Concert | Hege Gustava Tj<\/em><\/strong>\u00f8nn, sop.; Gergely Boncs<\/em><\/strong>\u00e9r, ten.; Europaballett St. P<\/em><\/strong>\u00f6lten; International Champion Ballroom Dancers. Alastair Willis, conductor; Strauss Symphony of Canada. January 1, 2:30 p.m., Roy Thomson Hall.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n For those music lovers of a certain age who are still energetic enough after the revelries on New Year\u2019s Eve, a trip to Roy Thomson Hall on New Year\u2019s Day for Salute to Vienna<\/em> is a great option.\u00a0 This annual New Year\u2019s Concert presented by Hungarian-Canadian impresario Attila Glatz and his wife Marion (they were both in attendance this year) has become quite a tradition in Toronto. \u00a0This year\u2019s show was the 24th, and it was completely sold out. Similar shows were presented in many cities across Canada and the United States.<\/p>\n As usual, I got there early, mainly to avoid snarled traffic and underground garage hassles, but also to sit myself near the main entrance for some serious people-watching.\u00a0 With each passing year, the audience demographic is increasingly superannuated. Today I lost count of the number of people arriving with the aid of a wheelchair, walker, or cane. \u00a0Typically the matinee audience is older given the ease of daylight travel, but it\u2019s also because of the programming, which is more, shall I say, traditional.<\/p>\n Lest I be accused of ageism, I\u2019m rapidly joining the club myself. I salute the many older folks with mobility issues, still making the effort to come. \u00a0Salute to Vienna<\/em> programming is best described as \u201ccomfortably predictable\u201d and \u201cappealingly formulaic.\u201d\u00a0 Its unabashedly old-fashioned content is a big draw \u2013 two-plus hours of waltzes, marches, polkas, operetta arias, ballet and ballroom dancing, enhanced by plenty of banter from this year\u2019s super-chatty Maestro, Alastair Willis. He\u2019s an old hand at creating an atmosphere of Old World Gem\u00fctlichkeit<\/em>. \u00a0Well, it worked \u2014 the elderly gentleman in front of me couldn\u2019t resist humming along. Not my favourite audience behaviour, but what the heck, it\u2019s New Year\u2019s!<\/p>\n Kudos to Austrian soprano Hege Gustava Tj\u00f8nn and Hungarian tenor Gergely Boncs\u00e9r. Ms Tj\u00f8nn was new to me, and she was wonderful, looking gorgeous and singing with gleaming tone and abundant charm, not to mention a terrific C-sharp at the end of Rosalinda\u2019s Csardas<\/em> from Die Fledermaus<\/em>. Mr. Boncs\u00e9r, outstanding in Bravissimo<\/em>, possesses a beautiful lyric tenor with all the money notes. Tall and slim, he was the perfect partner for the soprano, and they sang brilliantly selections from Countess Maritza, Fledermaus, Gypsy Baron, <\/em>and Land of Smiles<\/em>.<\/p>\n The orchestral pieces were the predictable \u201cold standards.\u201d \u00a0The concert opened with Alastair Willis leading the pick-up Strauss Symphony of Canada in the Overture to Die Fledermaus<\/em>. There was no listing of the orchestral musicians in the program, but from my vantage point, I could tell it\u2019s largely the same as the Opera Canada Symphony the night before, led by concertmaster Marie Berard, who also happens to be the concertmaster of the COC Orchestra.<\/p>\n The Fledermaus<\/em> overture was followed by the Emperor Waltz, Feuerfest Polka, Schatz Waltz<\/em> and the like. The dancers this year were the Europaballett from St.P\u00f6lten, Austria, and the Hungarian International Champion Ballroom Dancers \u2014 all youthful, attractive, energetic, and invariably smiling. They also looked like they were from the same cookie-cutter, par for the course when it comes to ballet dancers. As expected, they charmed the audience and received vociferous applause.<\/p>\n The formal program ended with the relatively unfamiliar Sport Polka-schnell<\/em> by Josef Strauss. Wait a minute \u2014 you mean no Blue Danube Waltz<\/em>?\u00a0 Have no fear \u2014 I\u2019ve seen enough of these shows to know that this showstopper of a waltz is always reserved as an encore. True enough, and it was beautifully played by the Strauss Symphony, which was made up of experienced professional musicians from the various bands that were in hiatus over the holidays. The penultimate piece was another audience favourite, the Radetzky March<\/em>. The afternoon ended with the customary Auld Lang Syne, <\/em>with the audience standing. Everybody went home happy, but not before many of them lining up at the box office to book their Salute to Vienna<\/em> tickets for 2020!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For those music lovers of a certain age who are still energetic enough after the revelries on New Year\u2019s Eve, a trip to Roy Thomson Hall on New Year\u2019s Day for Salute to Vienna offers a great night out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":57775,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[25164,76,19,5722,52,63],"tags":[5204],"yst_prominent_words":[25633,25637,25636,25632,10046,25634,25635,25631,25630,7192,15248,6843,6674,7191,7222,7220,7221,6683,15281,15252],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/01\/Salute-to-Vienna-2019.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9bakr-f1P","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57773"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57773"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57773\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57779,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57773\/revisions\/57779"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57773"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=57773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}