And there was me thinking the Proms were the big deal in classical music in the summer. Such hubris! The true colossus who bestrides the classical-music empire in this season of effulgence, sun, and pleasure isn’t the Proms, Covent Garden, the Metropolitan Opera – or even Glyndebourne.
It is, of course, the violin’s very own Mel Gibson lookalike, André Rieu, with his abiding addiction to dressing up like a Disneyfied version of a 19th-century concert-master.
The Dutch violinist’s summer concert, beamed live from his home town of Maastricht, set a UK cinema record last weekend, according to Charles Gant’s box office report. With box office takings of £1.1m from 460 cinemas, the annual event has set a record for a music concert concert at UK cinemas. And that doesn’t mean just classical concerts: Rieu’s army of fans turned him into a Take That- and One Direction-beating draw at the nation’s picture-houses, and, indeed, Picture Houses.
With the faces of his band and dancers locked into a terrifying rictus grin as they were forced to play the very acme of commodified classical music, and as poor old Strauss waltzes and polkas and other unsuspecting masterpieces were turned into saccharine fodder, Rieu’s brand of music making isn’t what I personally would choose to watch at a cinema, but clearly there’s plenty who disagree, making this the only music concert to have grossed over £1m in the UK in a single day.
If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. I’m off down the hairdressers and haberdashers for a can of hairspray, a Mel Gibson mullet, and some blue velvet tails.
