• Austria

« Then we just ran away » – DiePresse.com

mars 1, 2025

The 67th opera ball took place in the Vienna State Opera on Thursday. But while one spoke about the ball rollers and guests in front of the camera and on television, the visitors on site were also concerned with completely different topics.

The man at the upper end of the festival seems a bit piqued: « Now I have now climbed to the train for her again, » he says a little annoyed to his friend, who cannot do much. Dense crowds ruled on the big festival in the Vienna State Opera shortly after admission.

The guests – some more, some less famous – step up the stairs in their ball dresses and tailcoats, where the photographers are waiting with a lot of flash of lightning. Although the photos with the often wide clothes and drags that fall over the festival see, fantastic – but they are a trap in the thick crowd. Not only a lady is torn back that evening during walking because someone has climbed on the dress again.

But it is an opera ball again, and chaos, crowds and mouls are simply part of the many people. For the 67th time, around 5000 guests came together on Thursday evening, in which operated opera with colorful flowers and even fruit and vegetables. It is the most important ball in the domestic ball calendar, so some also take themselves. « I would be there if you want to take a photo now, » says an entrepreneur at the top of the festival to the photographers, he is simply ignored.

M. Pauty

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It is better to wait for more well-known faces such as Model Leni Klum, Gossip-Girl actor Ed Westwick, street artist Alec Monopoly, Model Franziska Knuppe or choreographer Bruce Darnell, who would like to thank the photographers on the festival.

Waiting for politics

Of course, domestic politics is also present there, albeit sparse. Interim Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg, Vice Chancellor Werner Kogler, Minister of Justice Alma Zadić and Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen are long in coming with their move -in. The journalists and onlookers were pushed back for them. « They are looking for the new government, » jokes a ball visitor over the longer waiting time.

A loud murmur has long since laid over the opera. When 5000 people talk at the same time, it makes a pagan noise.

Michèle Yves Pauty

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But what conversations were actually held at the opera ball, the « press » wanted to know from guests. « Very irrelevant and superficial to be honest, » says model Kerstin Lechner refreshingly honestly and laughs. « It is not the conversations of my life now. »

This cannot say cathedral priest Toni Faber: « I have very good conversations that give hope and point into the future and work out a lot of what is depressing us in the present. » Moment. Does he make pastoral care on the ball? « Naturally. Always ”, he says and continues in the crowd. The Grande Dame of the Opera Ball, Elisabeth Gürtler-Mauthen, appears-after all, she organized the ball from 1999 to 2007. What she talks about the opera ball? « About what we see, » she says narrowly.

Michèle Yves Pauty

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Empty kilometer

Vice -Chancellor Werner Kogler, who will make it into the government lodge at some point, will diplomatically summarize his conversation content later in the evening: « We had some clever kilometers and some emptiness. »

One with which almost everyone wants to talk is the host and opera ball director Bogdan Roščić, and he knows that too. Although he never knew how the evening will go before. « Everything is a coincidence on the ball evening, » he says. There would be exciting random talks. He takes a break. « And sometimes you have to run away before these conversations. » For example, those two crashed women who drank on the first ball after the pandemic at five in the morning are unforgettable into his box, where he was sitting with his son, wanted to talk and talk to him: « We just ran away. » Nachet: « As a host, you can't throw anyone out. »

Despite crowds at the opera ball, other visitors met almost fatefully. Opera singer Maria Nazarova and her husband, for example, on the 2018 Opera Ball. The two were together earlier, but not at that time. « Back then I stood down in the crystal bar, which is no longer available today, » she says. She didn't know that he would be there, « but he really wanted to see me, but didn't know where I was. » He finally decided to make his way through a door – « and it was exactly the one I wanted to go out. » The rest is history: « Now he is my husband and we have a daughter. »

She tells that before her performance of « everything masked », a piece that she will sing together with Nadine Sierra, Juan Diego Flórez and Daniel Jenz that evening. It comes from the Strauß operetta « One night in Venice ». It has long since become ten o'clock, time for the opening, in which the Vienna State Ballet also impresses with black costumes.

Michèle Yves Pauty