From 24^th to 30^th August 2002, a Johann Strauss Festival was held in Bucharest, Romania, for the first time. The event was organized by the Romanian Johann Strauss Society in cooperation with the Johann Strauss Society of Vienna. The prominent role accorded to the Viennese Society became apparent from the very first day of the festival. On the afternoon of 24^th August, the Romanian President Ion Iliescu presented Prof. Franz Mailer, President of the Johann Strauss Society of Vienna, with the National Order of Merit of Romania in the Rank of Officer. The award ceremony took place at the President’s official residence, the former royal palace in Bucharest. Franz Mailer was honoured for decades of research on Johann Strauss as well as his journalistic contributions in support of Romanian culture. Numerous distinguished figures from the fields of art, culture, business, politics, and public life attended the ceremony. They congratulated the honoree  and celebrated the occasion in the palace’s regal setting. Among the guests were Prince Paul, nephew of Romania’s last king, and his wife, Princess Lia.

That evening, the festival’s opening concert was held in the magnificent Romanian Athenaeum, Romania’s most important concert hall (see cover photo). The event was held under exceptionally tight security, as President Ion Iliescu, who had assumed patronage of the festival, was attending in person. The revolution that had  put an end to Romania’s communist dictatorship had taken place only a decade earlier, and the political situation was evidently still far from stable.

From the royal box, Ion Iliescu watched the performance alongside Franz Mailer, who had accepted honorary patronage of the festival week, and Hedwig Aigner-Strauss. The great-granddaughter of Josef Strauss and head of the Strauss descendants, had been appointed an honorary member of the Johann Strauss Society only a few weeks earlier. At the Bucharest festival, she served as a member of the organizing committee.

The concert was performed by the festival orchestra, a large ensemble of outstanding Romanian musicians, under the baton of the Viennese conductor Kurt Schmid. The vocal soloists were the Romanian mezzo-soprano Laura Cabiria and the Viennese tenor Peter Widholz. Through Widholz’s participation, the Johann Strauss Society of Vienna was also artistically represented at the festival. In line with the Society’s commitment to reviving and promoting unjustly neglected works by the Waltz King, Peter Widholz sang not only  highlights from Eine Nacht in Venedig (A Night in Venice) and Die Fledermaus, but opened his programme with Cassim’s Dream Narrative from Act III of Johann Strauss’s operetta Fürstin Ninetta. The great success of this performance once again confirmed the correctness of the Strauss Society’s objectives. It also furthered the mission of bringing Strauss’s music to the widest possible audience, as the concert was broadcast live throughout Romania on radio and television and even transmitted worldwide via satellite.

The festival featured a total of four orchestral concerts and three chamber music concerts. Alongside works by Johann Strauss, the programme also included compositions by other composers, ranging from Beethoven and Schubert to film scores and contemporary music. In addition, the festival offered a ballet evening, an international symposium, at which Prof. Franz Mailer also made an appearance, an exhibition, and an extensive social programme, including sightseeing trips to other regions of Romania. The festivities concluded with a grand ball, for whose opening the renowned Viennese dance school Elmayer had been engaged.

The initiator and principal organizer of this major event was Josefina Rodica, president of the Romanian Johann Strauss Society. She was an ardent admirer of the Viennese composer and of Austrian culture in general. Authenticity mattered deeply to her, and from the outset she sought close cooperation with the Vienna Strauss Society in planning the festival. Its tremendous success – Romanian television continued to report on it regularly for months afterwards – led to the continuation of this series of events in the following years.

 

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