Here is a little lighthearted adventure I was fortunate enough to experience during the later stage of my time in Medical School, in January 1961, at a time when I was still fancy free and enjoying life generally, and even had some holiday time. 

First, though, a little background about our musical heritage and Continental connections.

Our only living relative on my father’s side of the family was my Auntie Mary—in actual fact his cousin, but they had grown up more as siblings. She was a large and very ebullient lady, who had been brought up in Italy. Her father was a scion of a quite famous aristocratic family—the Mildmays—whose ancestor Lord Mildmay was a bosom pal of the Prince Regent during the Regency, though my father was related to the Mildmays by marriage and not by blood. 

My father and she were united, as cousins, by their common grandmother, Luisa Kapp—whose stage name as a singer was Luisa Cappiani. In those days you had to have an Italian name to get anywhere in the musical world, but although trained to sing (as most fashionable girls were) it was only when she was left as an impoverished widow bringing up two children that she took it up professionally. Luisa became a famous singer in her day, in concerts and opera all over Europe and visiting America on tour. There are many family anecdotes about her—definitely a larger than life diva!

One of them I remember was about how she could sometimes embarrass my father when he was young. One afternoon, as a student, he was escorting Grandmama over the bridge in Rome after leaving the La Scala Opera house. He had taken her to hear another star singing, and, timidly, he ventured a little compliment on the other diva. 

Luisa drew herself up and said  “Yes, maybe—but she should have sung like this…” and drawing  a great breath into her ample lungs she proceeded to treat the public to a famous aria, at top decibels, stopping the traffic and gaining a crowd of excited and applauding passers by. Young Reggie cringed and didn’t know what to do with himself. 

Calling all Grandmamas—admit it, wouldn’t we all secretly love a double coup like that, if we had the talent? Stopping the traffic with a crowd of admirers and seriously embarrassing the grandchildren, all in one go!

We had other musical ancestors. One was in the Vienna Boys Choir as a child and was said to have been patted on the head by Beethoven one Sunday. His tutor is later listed as a pall bearer at Beethoven’s funeral, so it may well be true. Another ancestor was a founding member of the Music Society in Vienna, which built the beautiful Musikverein concert hall.

Mary Mildmay, my father’s cousin, had been brought up in Italy, where her own father was British Consul in Milan. When I knew her she was living in St John’s Wood in London, and teaching singing, Italian opera style, to singers, along with her lifelong companion Doria Grey as piano accompanist. They were indeed highly regarded in their day, being part of an elite group of teachers who were regularly employed by festivals and opera theatres to coach and support the singers.

She taught me to sing, during holidays, over several years, in what I realised later was Bel Canto style. I learnt the violin too and have always been very grateful for the lovely background understanding of classical music that comes from any learning attempts. My voice was tuneful and sweet, a Lyric Soprano if I had ever wanted to take it up professionally, best suited to lieder and folk songs, which indeed I love.

The latter dance was not the sedate ‘poor relation’ taught in England at that time, but a continuous whirl by the couple at high speed, of course to the music of Strauss—who else! Vienna was trying, at that time, to restore the glories of an earlier era—and essentially this Ball was regarded as the equivalent of being a Debutante in England. 

My dress for the cocktail party-cum-dance class was a strapless black number with tiers of short skirt, which stood out most flatteringly during the Waltz rehearsal. Unfortunately, my dress was more sophisticated than I was. I barely made it to the end of the dance before nausea took me on a mad dash for the hall leading to the garden, still spinning like a top on the way. As I checked my gyrations in front of a floor length mirror, I had an unforgettable view of the effect of black taffeta against a torso and face no longer flesh colour but grass green. I waltzed on out and was violently unwell into a convenient rose bush, before Ernst rescued me and took me home.

Undaunted, I practised rigorously several times each day, increasing the whirl by small increments, so that on the Big Day I not only performed the Lancers but Ernst and I, along with the other debutantes, accomplished an impeccable Viennese Waltz, ending with a deep curtsy before the President of Austria.

To crown the pleasure I got from the whole experience, the Ball was being held in the very Musikverein of which my ancestor was a founding member.

After the slight drama of that first evening, the rest of the holiday was wonderful. Ernst and I didn’t have a romantic liaison, in spite of the setting, but we remained really good friends and both families kept in touch over many years. His daughter, Dagmar, came and spent a summer with Ken and I and the children in Cardiff, and the family welcomed us when my husband, Ken, had to attend the World Psychiatric Society meeting in Vienna in 1983—but that’s another story. We continue to be good friends.