VIENNA, Feb 24: Vienna’s Opera Ball, Austria’s society event of the year, celebrated its 50th anniversary on Thursday to the sound of Mozart and with the presence of curvaceous Hollywood starlet Carmen Electra.

The ‘Opernball’, the most coveted of Vienna’s 300 balls and a top international meeting point for the political and business worlds, waltzed for the first time to the music of Wolfgang Amadeus, who celebrates his 250th anniversary this year and who, as organisers pointed out, often attended balls himself and “was an enthusiastic composer of dance music.”

The Romanian opera singer, Ildiko Raimondi, and fellow soloist Adrian Eroed sang highlights of Mozart’s operas while the Vienna Opera Ballet presented dances to his music.

Among the politicians present, Austrian President Heinz Fischer and Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel rubbed shoulders with fellow European officials, with the guest list including the German, Swiss and Hungarian economy ministers Michael Glos, Joseph Deiss and Janos Koka, French Minister for Industry Francois Loos and Mohamed ElBaradei, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency and 2005 Nobel Peace Prize recipient.

—AFP