"I want to bring
classic music back where it belongs — in the
street, for everybody," Andre Rieu says.
And that's what he has
done. At 57, Rieu is classical music's
equivalent of a rock star, with more than 20
million albums and CDs sold.
On Monday, the charming
Dutchman brings his show to Xcel Energy Center
for his first Minnesota appearance before an
audience that's expected to number between
10,000 and 11,000.
With his violin tucked
under his chin and a smile that can melt a woman
in the 40th row, Rieu leads his Johann Strauss
Orchestra. Many of his productions have been
shown on U.S. public television stations, where
he is the top performer during pledge weeks. A
conductor and composer, Rieu was recognized as
the No. 2 best-selling classical artist for 2005
by Billboard Magazine, and his spring 2006 U.S.
tour sold out in every market, as well as
landing him in the Top 10 of Pollstar Magazine's
touring artists.
Rieu, who urges
concertgoers to dance in the aisles, is known
for springing surprises on audiences. Will he do
it in St. Paul?
"Oh, yes, but I won't
tell what," Rieu said in a phone conversation
from his home in Maastricht, capital of the
Dutch province of Limburg. The concert he played
in the town's open-air Vrijthof Square was an
anchor for American PBS stations' August pledge
drive.
Rieu, who loves
animals, was doing this interview while watching
his boxer and his little poodle run around his
garden.
"Maastricht is the most
romantic city in Europe, and my home is the most
romantic in Maastricht," he said. "It's a little
castle, very old, built of soft stone, so it has
to be constantly rebuilt. Our architect wanted
modern. I'm always fighting with him; I want
everything romantic. Now that everything is
growing and flowering, slowly he's turning into
a romantic."
ALL ABOUT ROMANCE
Romance is a hallmark
of Rieu's concerts, from the music to the long,
billowy dresses worn by the orchestra's female
musicians.
"Music is the most
beautiful instrument to bring love to the
people, and love is the most important thing in
life," he says. "But humor is important to love,
too, and I want people to have fun at my
concerts."
He recalled a concert
in Iowa during which a woman in the audience was
working on a big patchwork quilt. He stopped the
show to banter with her.
"I like things like
that to happen spontaneously in the audience so
I can react," he said. "I thought she'd give me
the quilt at the last moment, but she said it
wasn't finished."
When Rieu is
performing, he exudes warmth and confidence. So
it's surprising to hear him admit he's shy.
"When I'm onstage,
together with my orchestra, there is this
distance between me and the public, and I am
very glad of that. We open our hearts to the
audience. But when I have to meet people
one-on-one? I hate it. But I have to do it."
Does he have groupies?
"Yes, but they are nice
groupies, 40 to 50 people who follow me around
the world," he says modestly.
Are they mostly women?
"Well, yes," he replies
with a laugh. "This is a joke to my wife,
Marjorie. She knows I belong to her."
GROWING UP WITH MUSIC
Rieu began playing the
violin when he was 5, although he admits he was
so entranced by his blond teacher he forgot to
listen to her instructions. His father was a
professional conductor in Maastricht, and the
Rieu children grew up exclusively with
symphonies, chamber music and opera.
After studying in
Amsterdam and Brussels, Rieu joined the Limburg
Symphony Orchestra while launching his own
group, the Maastricht Salon Orchestra. He
organized the Johann Strauss Orchestra in 1987,
the year he and Marjorie founded Andre Rieu
Productions.
"I've known Marjorie
since I was 11," Rieu says. "It would be
impossible to do all this if she wasn't there.
We have been married 32 years, and every day we
have several times we think and say the same
thing. It's very nice."
Rieu and his wife, who
managed the business, experienced some hard
times in the years when their two sons were
little. But he kept working because he believed
in his dream.
"I wanted ordinary
people to love music again," says the man who
can't stand snobs.
"When I was a member of
an orchestra, I saw this was not the way I
wanted to make music. All the colleagues around
me were speaking of money, the union. It was too
cold, too hot. Nobody was speaking about the
music. The atmosphere was too elitist. Normally,
in classical music, the conductor turns his back
to the public. It's like, 'Don't bother me.' The
atmosphere I wanted to create during concerts is
friendship. I like the public in the hall. I
want to look them in their faces and see their
reactions."
RICH HERITAGE
In Marjorie's book,
"Andre Rieu: My Music/My Life," Rieu explains
that he owes his success partly to his Jewish
father-in-law, who amassed a collection of more
than 300 records in the 1920s. Although
Marjorie's father had to go underground during
World War II, when his wife was in the Dutch
Resistance, he returned to Maastricht and
continued adding 78s to a collection that
eventually included everything from opera to
American and English dance music, French
chansons and golden oldies, sung by artists
ranging "from Richard Tauber and Caruso to
Maurice Chevalier, Josephine Baker and Marlene
Dietrich."
This musical mix, Rieu
says, was the kind of repertoire he wanted his
orchestra to play.
After years of doing
holiday concerts in Europe, Rieu got his big
break in 1994, when his "From Holland With Love"
album was released in the Netherlands. The album
triggered a waltz wave because of the
orchestra's rendition of a Shostakovich piece
that Marjorie renamed "Second Waltz." A year
later, Rieu's orchestra played "Second Waltz" at
a televised international soccer match in
Amsterdam, and the fans in the stands swayed and
hummed along. The album soon went platinum in
Germany.
In 1996, Rieu was
dubbed the Modern Waltz King by the media and
won the World Music Award in Monte Carlo. Since
then, he has released 25 albums, including
"Songs From My Heart," "The Flying Dutchman,"
"Life Is Beautiful" and "The Christmas I Love."
Rieu's filmed concerts,
such as "Live From Tuscany" and "Live From
Dublin," are some of Twin Cities Public
Television's most popular pledge-week shows,
according to David Preston, TPT director of
membership and viewer services. TPT supporters
who pledged $250 to $1,000 were given tickets to
Rieu's Xcel concert as a "thank you" gift.
"Andre's had a long
relationship with TPT and PBS," Preston said.
"Like (singer) Andrea Bocelli, he's an example
of a classy artist who was unheard of in the
U.S. until public television found him. It took
a while for people here to warm up to him, if we
think of pledging as people 'warming up.' About
eight years ago, he changed the format of his
presentations from being like music videos to
more concert-oriented, and by three or four
years ago, he was really popular here."
'CHRISTMAS' IN OCTOBER
Rieu's newest
television special, "Christmas Around the
World," which will be released in CD and DVD
formats Tuesday, will anchor PBS stations'
December pledge drives.
Rieu says that "the
beautiful thing about PBS" is having a direct
contact with the public during pledges.
"In the early days, I
went to studios with volunteers sitting by the
phone while they showed my special," he recalls.
"I'd start talking with the talent (show hosts),
and suddenly all the phones were ringing. It's
up to viewers whether they pay or not. I think
that is a very nice thing we don't have in
Europe."
These days, Andre and
Marjorie Rieu spend six months on the road and
six months at home in Maastricht. Their oldest
son, Marc, is a painter, and Pierre is the
company's production manager.
When Rieu started the
Maastricht Salon Orchestra 30 years ago, he had
12 employees. Today, he has a payroll of 120,
many of whom have been with him for 15 years.
"Some nights, when we
have no concert, we go to a restaurant, and I
see them all together and I think, 'I am paying
all these people,' " he says in mock horror.
"But we like to be onstage together so much that
the sparkle jumps to the public. It's not
theater, not something we play for money. It's
real. We can look at each other and know what we
want. When you know each other so well, making
music together is better than sex."
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