Fast confession - Director of Ball at the Opera, Zuzana Vinzens Fryaufová: I have a kind of stupid characteristic...
Zuzana Vinzens got the post of Director of the Ball at the Opera completely by chance. Personally she likes to say that the Ball is her first child. With regard to refurbishment of the State Opera the mother of two has a "Ball" break. During the temporary absence of the most prestigious event of the year, Zuzana found plenty of other activities on which she inter alia talked about in an interview for Luxury Prague Life.
Zuzana, it is March now, the ball season is coming to an end… Will there again be a Ball at the Opera?
There will be, in two years´ time. This is a second year now when there hasn´t been a ball. All together it will be four years. Although originally it was supposed to be only two years. The last one was in 2016 and God willing, the next will be in 2020.
Are you not bored? What are you doing in the meantime?
I am not bored, I gave birth to my children… (laughter)
I also started to work for one private collection of contemporary art - TBA 21, I founded a blog, Zuzeta, and I still do some smaller things for C&B Group. I am definitely not bored.
But is it not strange that suddenly there is no Ball? You don't feel like there is a bit of you missing?
It was just a little bit our choice, too. We could have held it elsewhere, there was interest on the part of the investors, demand too, but to do a Ball at the Opera without the Opera simply seemed to us to be an absolute non-starter.
Do you already have an idea of how the Ball should look like?
Of course, I have enough time to think about it…but it is usually the case that one Ball ends and immediately you start preparing another one. The preparations really do take one year; when you talk about major foreign stars or performers and so on, because their diaries are filled long in advance. So now I have one last year to properly think it through and then get on with it.
Can you reveal anything? What will be the theme or what stars are you considering?
It is still premature, but I can say that I am thinking about a completely different concept. By that I don´t mean to say that we would like to lower the dress code standards. People are looking forward to it and the media also. But I would like to come up with a more efficient system of how to collect more money for the charity. I would like this to be the greatest philanthropic event here.
How do you perceive development of balls in the Czech Republic? Here we are accustomed to graduation or inaugural balls but the Ball at the Opera in my opinion doesn´t have such as a great tradition here. How do you look at it from the perspective of the organiser?
Ballroom dancing has had a tradition here since the Austria-Hungarian Empire. It is still a centrepoint of Austria´s social life. Nowhere else toward the west are there any events like this, they simply don´t know it. Sometimes it can be quite bizarre to explain to foreign guests what type of event this is. There were still some balls held in France, but it didn´t build any tradition. Here we have tradition, but as far as concerns Ball at the Opera, there is no continuity. It has been disrupted so many times, whether by totalitarian regime or other events. After the revolution there was another great pause.
We organised a Ball at the Opera in the years from 2011 to 2016; this was the longest continuous period ever and I think that also thanks to that we have managed to move on with it and build a better reputation. We broke out of the mould of a tabloid snobbish event... Even though we are once again forced to miss one more because of the refurbishment of the State Opera, I feel quite positive about it. We can start again, differently and even better. I would like to make good use of the break.
You literally talk about the Ball as if it were your child.
Yes, it is the first of my three children. (laughter)
But why? Where did you get such a commitment to culturally educate the Czech nation of ´rednecks´?
I would not put it like that at all. The Czechs are more like Švejk. (Transl. note: Hero of the book Good Soldier Švejk) They think that by ignoring the requirement of a strict dress code they will be cool, which is elsewhere perhaps taken as lack of manners, but here it is perceived as a "fine piece of rebellion." Maybe you're right, that by being very strict as concerns the dress code, it perhaps is a form of education for the people.
Please can you tell our readers what a correct dress code for the Ball at the Opera should look like?
The Ball at the Opera has the highest possible dress code - black tie or possibly white tie. For ladies this means definitely a long gown covering the ankles. For gentlemen it is either a dinner jacket or even tails.
Let us go back a little bit into the history, how did the Ball become your first child?
I came across it as an ordinary producer at a time when it was acquired by C&B Group, at a time when a new concept began to be implemented. It is terribly nice and motivating to be at the creation, to start from scratch. We started to design the graphics, strategy, communication, what is such an event to bring to the city of Prague. Then somehow it happened that I moved up in the hierarchy and I started to take on more and more things. And suddenly I knew everything about the Ball there is to know. I know exactly who takes care of what despite the fact that during the last days there is about 300 people there. I spent six beautiful and challenging years like that. I like it even though I am not a ball enthusiast, and I even spent the whole of the first Ball without high heels for which Františka Čížková would have perhaps let me hang from the window. (laughter)
Here again I just love this event. Thanks to the Ball I have met incredibly interesting people, many people received help, and in it I simply see more than just what seems quite one-dimensional when published in the papers.
Did you have to add something to your education? For example to learn to dance or to complete a course of recognising real champagne?
There wouldn´t be such a problem with Champagne, I quite enjoy adding to this knowledge, but there is a problem with the dance every year. (laughter)
Each year panic breaks up when it is found that the main host is to be a man who should do the introductory dance and with whom else than the head of the entire event. At that moment I call dance professional Eva Krejčířová from StarDance and we try to get something out of myself, but unfortunately I have a feeling that in all those years we still haven´t managed it. (laughter)
Have you been to the Viennese Ball at the Opera?
Yes, we have been invited by the town hall and I have to say that it was an interesting experience. The ball is different than most people here imagine; we are often compared to them. But I do not understand why. The main difference is the capacity. The Viennese ball is organised for almost 5,000 people. The whole of Vienna focuses on it. The majority of the guests, even before the start which is at ten in the evening, all go for dinner in those sweeping gowns and tail coats.
The cheapest tickets cost over 300 Euros and for this you cannot even go to the main hall, you are actually in the corridor, watching the exhibition dances on a plasma TV. While we have the meal included in the price of the tickets, here you can perhaps buy overpriced sandwiches or in the minus second floor; in the cellar basically, you can buy goulash. There is no all inclusive system like here. Everything is to be paid extra.
So we are better off
I would rather say that it is a different type of event. It has a common patronage of Vienna, of which we are appropriately proud, because only nine balls worldwide have that, and another thing in common is the building of the Opera, but that is in essence all.
I did not know that. Why do the Czechs compare it then?
We make references to them. Each year the Mayor of Vienna it also present to the opening. Within the framework of the auspices they also provide funds, so there is some logic as to why people compare it. But I honestly think that a comparison is made by people who haven´t even been there. If they have, they would see that it is incomparable.
What during that entire time surprised you the most and by that I mean as concerns behaviour of the people? It is still fresh in my mind how Ornella Štiková was shown out…
She did not much surprise me by that... I am certainly always taken aback by how some foreign or even Czech "celebrities” behave within the complex. What kind of attitude they have. Some are invited as honorary guests, this means they attend free of charge... and for years some of them haven´t even thanked us. While for example Leoš Mareš is always the one who the next day sends an SMS message with his honest insight and thanks. It is therefore regrettable that this surprises me.
Then I am always pleasantly surprised by the atmosphere there. At the beginning the people are kind of starched, which is also due to the fact that they are differently dressed. However, in the end they enjoy it very much.
During your directorship both of your children were born.
Yes both of them came in the course of the Balls.
How did you manage to combine motherhood with the preparation and implementation of such an ambitious event?
When Amelie was born, the Ball was held at a time when I ended the post-natal period. It was fine, I had prepared everything, gave birth, then it was Christmas and then the Ball. It has moreover at the stage when the baby sleeps a lot. So the biggest problem at that time was with the gown, for me it was unimaginable that I would find anything for that figure.
To the last year I have therefore been involved mainly in the role of a kind of supervisor because the team was working very well together after the five years and knew what was required and then I was pregnant again… Motherhood, mainly at the beginning, seems to me to be incompatible with full-time work, but I already had my well-functioning team in the last years as well as the know-how. So it was manageable.
Are you contacted because of the know-how by others who would like to hold a similar type of event?
Sometimes, yes.
The Ball is a lot about charity and you yourself started to support the Endowment Fund of Premature Infants…
I don´t support solely the Endowment Fund of Premature Infants, but somehow provide overall support to anything that concerns premature infants. I myself have undergone the experience, having spent quite a lot of time in the Podolí hospital and therefore I specifically support the intermediary department of the Podolí Maternity Ward, in cooperation with the Endowment Fund, or by myself, or with other organisations that provide assistance.
In so doing, I have found out that in our Czech healthcare system it is difficult to just give money to someone, so we are dealing with it by a kind of circuitous route. Before Christmas, we tried to devise an on-line wish list, where we recorded everything that department needed and through my blog, Instagram and Facebook we got that among the people. We managed to get everything, people offered their services as well as money in cash. This assistance amounted to approximately CZK120,000. I like that even though that event has been ended for a long time now, people always send something, which of course doesn't get lost.
In this respect I think the Czechs are incredible. They always rally round when someone needs help.
Yes, I see it like that also. Czechs understand solidarity and charity. Even people who don´t have that much themselves want to help. On the list there was for example the item ofa ´dummy´, costing a few crowns and a family that has deep into the pockets simply wishes to help so they send three. This is specially in contrast with the Ball charity. There are people who do not hesitate to buy tickets for tens of thousands and then have a problem in the auction to bid for an item costing twenty thousand…
What was the most expensive item you have ever sold at the auction?
Racing overall of Mika Häkkinen, for one million crowns.
Where did the money go?
Every year the money was sent to the Children´s Foundation of Tereza Maxová but last year we sent it to UNICEF.
Are you also engaged in charity on your blog, Zuzeta?
There are a lot of things, do not imagine a classic mama blog. From the blog I developed cooperation with the media, so sometimes I write something for Marianne, Zdroj.cz, etc. I write more kind of opinion pieces...
I have noticed that there you respond a lot to the political or even tabloid situation…
I have such a stupid characteristic that I pass a comment on just about anything. Policy interests me a lot and public events and Czech tabloids are real fun. When something catches my attention, I comment on it. (laughter) I also like to describe the various events I have attended or there are recommendations - where can you go with children, where to eat. I do also give tips for culturalevents.
