Concert Review: Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra at Auckland Town Hall

It is reassuring that the romance of Johann Strauss the Waltz King still holds some sway in our brutal, often charmless times. And a packed Town Hall at Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra's A Night in Vienna indicates that it does.

The orchestra, under conductor Radoslaw Szulc, evoked the grace of an era long gone, as the Emperor Waltz and Tales from the Vienna Woods swept, or in the case of On the Beautiful Blue Danube, flowed by.

These are ambitious scores, truly symphonic waltzes, with full and imaginative introductions ranging from bucolic landler to rather grand marches. And the musicians, especially the ever-agile woodwind, lapped up every opportunity Strauss had given them.

Szulc's enthusiasm was boundless. The second half of the concert opened with the Finale of Haydn's Il Distratto Symphony and the orchestra, feigning exasperation, started without him. Szulc bustled on a few bars later, violin in hand and raced them through a dazzler of a performance.

Australian soprano Natalie Jones sang a selection of Strauss and Lehar songs with disarming freshness, although her Czardas from Die Fledermaus did not always cut through orchestral textures.

Aaron Gilmore and Nerida Cortese provided dancing for two waltzes, Cortese honouring the Blue Danube with a dress that seemed to have captured all the stars of the Southern Hemisphere. Alas, forced to work back and forth over a restrictive platform above the stage when they should have whirled around a ballroom, their impact was somewhat dampened.

While the evening had been dominated by Johann Strauss jnr, his father finally made an appearance with the penultimate Radetsky March, accompanied by hearty audience clapping.

Half the evening had been marred by two bubbly-swilling women in the audience who chatted and even, at one point, texted through the music, so the final offering was wickedly appropriate - a sparkling Tritsch-Tratsch Polka, in which Strauss sends up the gossips of Vienna.

Somehow I doubt they got it.