Cultural Dessert

We brought in the New Year in a cottage in Herefordshire and, not being able to manage the journey to Vienna, decided instead to join the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra for a Viennese New Year Gala concert at the Malvern Theatres. A packed house enjoyed a marvellous evening of works by Mozart, von Suppé and the Strauss family culminating in the inevitable ‘Blue Danube’ and the ‘Radetzky March’. Austrian conductor Carlos Kalmar was the perfect host, providing fascinating introductions to each of the pieces, entertaining with his exuberant, choreographed conducting and looking the part with wild hair and a mischievous grin. Two days before the concert soprano Gillian Keith was looking forward to a quiet New Year at home when she got a call from the CBSO asking if she could step in to replace an ill Mary Hegarty. Gillian Keith gave a great performance: I particularly enjoyed her ‘Spiel Ich die Unschuld vom Lande’ from ‘Die Fledermaus’ by Johann Strauss II. A lovely way to start 2009.