On the 15th of October, 1884, a jubilee celebration took place in Vienna at the Wieden Theatre, to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the day upon which Johann Strauss, the "Walzerkoenig," made his first public appearance in the character of an orchestral conductor. The stalls, boxes, and pit were crowded with the elite of Viennese society, fashionable, artistic, and literary...fill[ing] all the "numbered'' seats at the Wieden... whilst the galleries were thronged almost to suffocation by Strauss's most enthusiastic admirers — the true bom … more >>
On the 15th of October, 1884, a jubilee celebration took place in Vienna at the Wieden Theatre, to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the day upon which Johann Strauss, the "Walzerkoenig," made his first public appearance in the character of an orchestral conductor. The stalls, boxes, and pit were crowded with the elite of Viennese society, fashionable, artistic, and literary...fill[ing] all the "numbered'' seats at the Wieden... whilst the galleries were thronged almost to suffocation by Strauss's most enthusiastic admirers — the true bom Viennese of the lower middle classes. Archduke William — who, being Grand Master of the Order of St. John, seldom shows himself in a theatre — occupied the Imperial Box, whilst King Milan of Servia sate out the whole performance in a ground-tier stage box, signifying his admiration for the bénéficiaire's talents and achievements by conferring upon him, towards the close of the evening, the Cross of the Takovo Order. The progranmie of the occasion consisted of selections from Strauss's operas, conducted by himself. His desk was converted for the nonce into a gorgeous flower-bed of the costliest exotics; and his appearance thereat, baton in hand, was the signal for a demonstration of affectionate rejoicing on the part of the audience, such as, according to the leading journals of the Kaiserstadt, has never before been witnessed within the walls of a Vienna theatre. He opened the entertainment with his bright little overture to Indigo — his first opera, produced at the Wieden Theatre about twenty years ago — which was rapturously re-demanded. Then came the first act of A Night in Venice, followed by the immortal Schoene blaue Donau during the entr'acte, which inimitable waltz brought down a shower of laurel wreaths upon its composer's head. The second act of Fledermaus with some additions to the dialogue written especially for the occasion, came next, and was succeeded by "musical episodes " from Spitzentuch, Methusalem, Cagliostro, Der Lustige Krieg and the Carnival in Rome, each successive number being supplemented by presentations of addresses, medals, and flowers.
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