Balls & Street Party

CARNIVAL IN VENICE 1982

I was known for putting on special parties for friends and regulars with my REISS team: spring parties, neighborhood parties, parties for patrons’ children and annual REISS birthday parties.

However, the party staged on September 11, 1982, was something really special.

It was the first private street party in the first district of Vienna and had the theme “Carnival in Venice.” There was dance and music, re-eaters, jugglers, street artists, a forty-man orchestra, the Dschungelorchester, and an enrapturing performance by a commedia dell’arte group on a city stage.

In keeping with the theme of the party, the guests celebrated in Venetian commedia dell’arte costumes, transforming downtown Vienna into bella Venezia, complete with a gondola of course.

THANK YOU to Brigitte Hosse, my REISS team and those who accompanied the project, especially Alexander Rinesch. It was a truly exciting and wonderful party.

1st. CHAMPAGNE BALL 1986

The Vienna Opera Ball ends the ball season in Vienna and I had the idea of opening the ball season with a spirited ball night in the Wiener Konzerthaus: a contemporary artist would transform the entire concert hall, a French star would appear in the midnight show and the 2000 guests at the ball would drink only the finest of champagnes. Although it was probably a little crazy, I dove boldly into the task of organizing and nancing the first Champagne Ball.

Up to that point, the leading champagne producers had only ever cooperated once in public, namely, to establish the Champagne Academy in London. It was all the more remarkable that I was able to get 12 of the major Grandes Marques Houses around the same table to plan the first Champagne Ball. Those houses were Bollinger, Charles Heidsieck, Lanson, Laurent Perrier, Moët & Chandon, Mumm, Piper Heidsieck, Pol Roger, Pommery, Roederer, Taittinger, and Veuve Clicquot. The French brought Charles Aznavour to Vienna as a generous gift for a midnight show. I was able to convince Countess Christel Schönfeld to head up the ball office. She had gained a legendary reputation as the long-standing First Lady of the Vienna Opera Ball.

The first Champagne Ball took place on November 14, 1986. The famous Austrian painter Christian Ludwig Attersee created a huge fanshaped painting, which transformed the Wiener Konzerthaus into a ballroom for the senses.

2nd. CHAMPAGNE BALL 1987

The following year the artist Mario Terzic made the Champagne Ball an extraordinarily artistic experience by designing ying sculptures to oat over the heads of the enthusiastic ball guests. Only well-known essayist Gregor von Rezzori was not amused, complaining that the “art ying about” had blocked his view of Juliette Greco. He had to make do with a small ceramic gure of the famous French chanson singer and actress, which Gundi Dietz had created as a ball gift and hommage to Juliette Greco.

3rd. CHAMPAGNE BALL 1988

The champagne was owing again in 1988, when Oswald Oberhuber immersed the huge ballroom in a mystical light from light sculptures that lled the entire space. Ball-goers found the huge backdrop painting of an erotic orchestra somewhat provocative. Heinz Lindinger created gigantic champagne bottles with imaginative designs that formed a guard of honor in the entrance hall. Brigitte Kowanz and Ernst Caramelle decorated the Schubertsaal and Mozartsaal.

At midnight, Zizi Jeanmaire danced her famous fan dance. Time stood still as the fan fell and slowly drifted to the floor. The audience went wild – and no one could have imagined that it was to be the nal Champagne Ball.

CARNIVAL BERMUDADREIECK 1987

As the photo shows, our then mayor Helmut Zilk was having a grand old time back in February 1987 at a carnival celebration that Sepp Fischer and I had initiated in downtown Vienna: “Fasching im Bermudadreieck”. It was to become the biggest carnival party in Vienna.

THANK YOU to Sepp Fischer for establishing your club Krah; Krah and with it the Bermudadreieck nightlife district, Vienna’s own Bermuda Triangle. And THANK YOU for the many wild initiatives we jointly staged there.