I didn’t expect to write this post. I was preparing posts about politics in Ontario and about the Toronto Police Service’s consultation about protests and demonstrations. But my posts about these topics will wait for a few days. I realize that most of my posts in the last year have been about fraught topics, in particular my opposition to the policies and politics of the Ford Government and my reflections on the Israel-Hamas War and its reverberations in this community. This post is different.

A Concert Broadcast

I became aware of Andre Rieu because his concert broadcasts are advertised before the Metropolitan Opera’s Live in HD performances. I gleaned that Rieu was a popularizer of classical music and that every summer he gives a major open-air concert in Maastricht, Holland. This year I decided to see the broadcast.

The concert was in the main square of Maastricht, with hundreds of musicians and an audience of over ten thousand, some in regular seats and others at picnic tables. It extended through the dusk, twilight, and darkness of a northern summer evening. The setting was designed to impress, if not overwhelm, with the orchestra seated on a large stage with accompanying images displayed above it, and massive screens on either side of the stage. Rieu’s orchestra was accompanied by a marching band of 400 Dutch and Belgian brass players.

Though Rieu’s chosen name for his orchestra – the Johann Strauss Orchestra – suggests a particular focus, his choice of music was wildly eclectic. In the order they were presented, the pieces included: Entry of the Gladiator’s (Fucik), Granada (Lara), Nessun Dorma (Puccini), Triumphal March from Aidi (Verdi), The Pines of Rome (Respighi), Think of Me (Lloyd-Weber), Vilja Leid (Lehar), Blue Danube Waltz (Strauss, Jr.), and the Hallelujah Chorus (Handel). The numerous encores more classical favorites – the Radetzky March (Strauss, Sr.) and the aria Libiamo (Verdi) – and some popular pieces: Tutti Frutti, Can’t Help Falling in Love, Zorba’s Dance, and Sweet Caroline.

Emotional Contagion

What I quickly realized is that Rieu’s concerts are about emotional contagion. On his website and when speaking at his concerts, Rieu makes it clear that he chooses music that will appeal to the audience’s emotions. And the theatre audience is also involved because throughout the concert the cameras are focused on the audience as much as on the performers. On the large screen we glimpse audience members smiling, singing, waving, swaying, embracing, dancing, laughing, and crying. It is impossible not to share their emotions.

It is also obvious that this is not a musically sophisticated audience. Rieu introduced Nessun Dorma as the last aria Puccini wrote and the most moving tenor aria in all opera. That introduction and the music itself, sung by the Johann Strauss Orchestra’s three tenors, were enough to have many of the audience in tears. I wonder how many in the audience were familiar with Turandot or the role the aria plays in the opera. Probably very few, but that didn’t diminish the aria’s impact.

One of the singers is Emma Kok, a Dutch teenager with the debilitating disease gastroparesis. She sings “Dancing on the Stars,” written for her by Rieu. Her vocal talent and her story of resilience also move the audience to tears.

Reminiscent of Fenway Park on a warm summer evening with the Red Sox beating the Yankees, the audience’s enthusiastic rendition of Sweet Caroline, including “bum, bum, bum” and “so good, so good” is a match for any Boston crowd’s.

You might think that Rieu’s concerts are comparable to typical pops concerts (Boston Pops, Last Night at the Proms) but at pops concerts the conductors and musicians seem to be pandering. In contrast, Rieu’s approach is one of whole-hearted musical outreach.

My Bottom Line

For some of the audience, Rieu’s concerts are a gateway drug nudging them into the world of classical music. As one who has long been there, I’m pleased to be reminded that the warhorses are warhorses for a reason and that there is nothing wrong with enjoying a warhorse in the company of thousands of people, both at the concert and at the broadcasts, whom the music moves to experience strong and life-affirming emotions. Thank you, Andre Rieu.

Adieu, Andre Rieu?

But the sugar high of a musical Sachertorte didn’t obscure a perspective that would come naturally to a retired management professor. Rieu is almost seventy-five – my age – and he tells the audience he wants to keep performing for the rest of his life. Rieu has been an incredibly successful musical entrepreneur, building his orchestra from a small ensemble, and creating a global audience for its performances and recordings. How long will someone of seventy-five have the health and energy for world tours? But, to mix metaphors, the orchestra is a perpetual motion machine, and the beast must be fed. The Johann Strauss Orchestra is one man’s creation and doesn’t have the same level of institutional support as a major symphony orchestra. Is there is a successor waiting in the wings who will allow Rieu to graduate to a well-earned role as conductor emeritus while carrying on his joyous vision?