Gardens begin 145th season

Press, 13 May 1987, Page 33

Gardens begin 145th season

By

MICHAEL DUGGAN

> NZPA-Reuter Copenhagen

Copenhagen’s elegant Tivoli Gardens opened • this month for the 145th season, perhaps the last surviving example of the - nineteenth-century plea- - sure gardens which flourished in Europe before Disneyland was dreamed - up. Georg Carstensen, who founded Tivoli in 1843 just ” outside the old city walls, - gleaned the idea from the “ Tivoli Gardens in Paris and the Vauxhall Gardens in London. Tivoli was originally a summer resort near Rome where Emperor Hadrian’s villa stood. “The basic idea was light, gardens and music. In Tivoli, mechanical music and neon lights are forbidden and no one shouts through microphones. The signs are handmade,” a spokesman, - Hans-Henrik Holm, told Reuters. He said the relaxed

atmosphere was to be experienced rather than defined. “You cannot compare it with Disneyland in America. To us that is plastic — and you cannot serve alcohol there.” Since Tivoli opened, nearly 250 million visitors have passed through the gates, more than the present population of the United States. Last year there were 4.5 million guests during the season from May to mid-Septem-ber, and total turnover exceeded 400 million crowns ($lO4 million).

An entrance fee of about $5 entitles visitors to walk around and drink in the atmosphere of bandstands, fireworks, flower beds containing 60,000 tulips, 28 restaurants and a concert hall housing one of the world’s biggest music festivals — all illuminated by 110,000 lamps. There are nightly concerts by musicians from all over the world, and this year’s cultural

highlight will be a visit by the American Dance Theatre of Harlem.

Many of the Tivoli buildings look exotically oriental, reflecting the interests of founder Carstensen, a widely-travel-led Dane born in Algiers 175 years ago. Nazi occupiers blew up a quarter of the buildings during World War 11, as revenge against the Danish resistance movement, but the Danes have restored the damage. A central attraction is the Chinese pantomime, a fantasy of gilt towers and dragons with a mechanical peacock on stage which unfolds his tail before each performance. The pantomime shows mime based on the six-teenth-century Italian commedia dell’arte. “It was originally two Italian families who did it. The first Pierrot clown became a folk hero,” said Mr Holm. Italians also started the firework show which

takes place four times a week. The family now responsible has done the job for three generations.

In the Tivoli funfair, the 70-year-old roller coaster is popular with teenagers, but for the well-dressed elderly ladies who flock to the gardens for their morning coffee the promenade music seems more of a draw.

Tivoli even has a troop of 110 boy soldiers, who march around blowing trumpets. “They get a free musical education. Many become professional musicians,” Mr Holm said.

On the opening day there is keen competition to find a seat in “The Ditch” — a restaurant where politicians, actors and other prominent people go to watch the world go by as they eat traditional Danish food and drink Danish beer.