Great sounds in Vienna

The Vienna State Opera is one of the most important opera houses in the world and stage for elite international opera stars. Here you can enjoy variety on the highest level:

About 50 operas and 20 ballets are performed on 300 days every year – performances change every day.

At the Theater an der Wien, opened in 1778, musical history was written: Emanuel Schikaneder, the talented librettist of Mozart’s “Die Zauberflöte,” was its director, Beethoven lived for a time in the building and his opera “Fidelio” had its premiere there. Nowadays, a monthly premiere awaits opera-lovers, from Mozart to modern opera.

A diverse program can also be found at the Vienna Volksoper, where not only operas but classic operettas and musicals are performed and where first-class ballet performances are shown.

Rarities of the musical theater are shown at the Vienna Kammeroper: rarely shown operettas, musicals and musical plays as well as baroque and modern operas. During the summer, the Vienna Chamber Opera offers performances of popular operettas at the Schönbrunn Palace Theater.

Musicals that were first performed in Vienna have already been exported as far as Tokyo and New York. The originals can be seen at the Ronacher and at the Raimund Theater. Smaller in scale, but often very witty productions of musicals are sometimes also shown at the Metropol, a former suburban variety hall whose program also includes fantastic concerts from Jazz to Pop and cabarets.

Vienna’s classical concert repertoire is dominated by two great concert halls: millions of music lovers all over the world are familiar with the Vienna Musikverein as a traditional concert venue. Here, from its Golden Hall, the annual New Year’s Concert with the Vienna Philharmonic is telecast internationally.

An additional center of concert life is the Vienna Konzerthaus with its art nouveau ambiance. Its musical scope is not limited to the classical repertoire but ranges from the Middle Ages to the most progressive sounds of the present time. In addition to these two renowned buildings, there are dozens of concert halls where great sound is the order of the day.