The “Strauss Gala” performance featured more than fifty performers. Among them were the wonderful soloists Małgorzata Rodek from the Warsaw Chamber Opera, Sabina Zapiór, known on Vienna’s stages, as well as Harald Wurmsdobler and Till von Orlovsky. During this musical feast, the artists served up the most popular excerpts from the operettas “Die Fledermaus,” “The Gypsy Baron,” “Viennese Blood,” and “A Night in Venice.” The soloists established a wonderful rapport with the audience, who joined them at the end of the concert in performing the arias “Great Fame Is a Joke” and, during the encores, “Lips Are Silent, the Soul Sings.”
The wonderful Strauss Festival Orchestra also performed delightful waltzes and amusing polkas. The musicians surprised the audience with “Pizzicato Polka,” in which the strings of the instruments are plucked rather than rubbed with bows.
Conductor Wojciech Rodek not only led the orchestra superbly but, while performing the “Radetzky March,” also conducted the audience, who clapped along to the rhythm. The concert was embellished by beautiful choreographic arrangements presented by Poland’s finest ballet dancers. At the end of the gala, the dancers performed a spectacular French cancan. For this charming performance, the artists were rewarded with a standing ovation.
