Photo: Steve Holland

The crowd of about 20,000 mostly over 50s fans clapped, waltzed and sang well into the night alongside the populist Dutch maestro in the most unusual display of unbridled enthusiasm by a classical music audience.

Among them, a handful of fervent Rieu groupies, including one woman wearing a t-shirt inviting her idol to "Come fiddle with moi".

Rieu himself was in fine form, charming the crowd with pantomime gags, flirtatious winks and a heaped plate of orchestral pop hits from the music sheets of Puccini, Ravel and his orchestra's namesake, Johann Strauss.

A tribute to the late Luciano Pavarotti by Rieu's own trio of tenors had the crowd in raptures early, while ice skaters in ballgowns, twirling debutantes and a singing "angel" suspended from the ceiling of the faux Viennese castle kept the spectacles coming.

But it was 23-year-old Brisbane soprano and Rieu's tourmate Mirusia Louwerse who stole the spotlight  - and the lion's share of applause - with a soaring rendition of Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again" from his Phantom of the Opera.

Decked out in a floor-length red sequinned number, she looked and sounded every inch the diva before leading the audience in a chant of "Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, oi, oi, oi" - fitting, given the sporting backdrop.

                                           Photo: Rebecca Hallas

She returned for an operatic take on "Botany Bay", a folk number, Rieu confided to his adoring fans, that had moved him to tears the first time his young protege let rip with it.

The theme continued in a marathon 30-minute encore including "Waltzing Matilda", the Neighbours theme tune and the national anthem, which caught some out on the stage's four giant television screens when Rieu launched into the lesser-known second verse.

The elaborate performance, complete with a full ballet company, bagpipers, chandelier-lit ballroom and even a gold, horse-drawn carriage to ferry a mock princess in and out of the stadium, will return tonight.

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Christine Kellett | December 4, 2008