Inside the 2022 Viennese Opera Ball, Where Guests Waltzed Into the Night

Even at its New York City counterpart, the Viennese Opera Ball is a night filled with music. Hosted on Friday, May 13 at Cipriani 42nd Street, the event, now in its 66th year, benefited the music therapy program at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center with support from Gabrielle’s Angel Foundation for Cancer Research. The gala chair for the evening was Jean Shafiroff and vice-chairs were Sylvia Hemingway and Peter Thomas Roth.

Guests who enjoyed the white-tie evening arrived at a room filled with over 20,000 red roses. Throughout the space, items up for auctions were on display, plus, there was a donation table was set up to collect funds for Caritas Ukraine.

After the presentation of this year’s debutants, gala-goers were treated to performances from renowned opera stars including Carolina López Moreno, Iurii Samoilov, Johanna Will, Matthew White, and Donata D Annunzio Lombardi. Samoilov, the Kyiv-born baritone who can be seen this year at The Metropolitan Opera’s La Boheme, also performed a poignant tribute to his native Ukraine, singing a folk song in honor of his home country.

Following the performances, it was just about time for the clock to strike 12:00 a.m and to usher the start of the traditional midnight quadrille. Attendees who hadn’t yet taken a spin on the dancefloor joined in on the fun. Guests waltzed and ballroom danced and continued to do so into the hours of the early morning—just as they do back in Vienna.