The Vienna Opera Ball (Wiener Opernball in German) is an annual Austrian society event which takes place in the building of the Vienna State Opera in Vienna, Austria (Wien, Österreich) on the Thursday preceding Ash Wednesday (a religious holliday). Together with the New Year Concert, the Opera Ball is one of the highlights of the Viennese carnival season. The dress code is evening dress: white tie and tails for men; ususally white floor-length gowns for women.
Each year, almost overnight, the auditorium of the Vienna State Opera is turned into a large ballroom. On the eve of the event, the rows of seats are removed from the stalls, and a new floor, level with the stage, is built.
In a joint venture, ORF and BR broadcast live from the ball for several hours each year.
The Opera Ball was first held in 1935, but was suspended during World War II. It was revived after the war; it has been held annually ever since, with the exception of 1991, when it was cancelled due to the Persian Gulf War. Since 2008, Desirée Treichl-Stürgkh has been the chairman (supervising organizer) of the Vienna Opera Ball.
In recent years, the Opernballdemo, a left-wing demonstration along the Ringstraße against the kind of capitalism represented by, as the protesters see it, many of the well-to-do guests at the Opera Ball, has regularly taken place on the same night. There have been occasional outbreaks of violence.
In 1995 Austrian writer Josef Haslinger published a novel entitled Opernball in which thousands of people are killed in a Neo-Nazi terrorist attack taking place during that society event. The novel was the basis of a 1998 made-for-TV movie by Urs Egger with the same title.
The only ball officially associated with the Vienna Opera Ball is the Dubai Opera Ball. A similar ball takes place in New York City and another in Budapest, but they are not affiliated with the Vienna Opera Ball.
Famous quotes containing the words vienna, opera and/or ball:
“All the terrors of the French Republic, which held Austria in awe, were unable to command her diplomacy. But Napoleon sent to Vienna M. de Narbonne, one of the old noblesse, with the morals, manners, and name of that interest, saying, that it was indispensable to send to the old aristocracy of Europe men of the same connection, which, in fact, constitutes a sort of free- masonry. M. de Narbonne, in less than a fortnight, penetrated all the secrets of the imperial cabinet.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“A pretty air in an opera is prettier there than it could be anywhere else, I suppose, just as an honest man in politics shines more than he would elsewhere.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“‘Throw down the ball, ye Jew’s daughter,
Throw down the ball to me!’
‘Never a bit,’ says the Jew’s daughter,
‘Till up to me come ye.’”
—Unknown. Hugh of Lincoln (l. 13–16)