Artistic director Lotte de Beer is working with musical director Omer Meir Wellber at the Vienna Volksoper to build bridges between known and unknown, tradition and renewal, nostalgia and utopia. De Beer's vision:

"My goal is to be able to call the Volksoper a house of the artists, a house of the audience. A house in which artists tell stories through song, dance, and play; a house in which people can be seduced, are invited to think, and in which they can laugh without restraint."

The prerequisites are perfect, since variety and proximity to the audience are part of the theater's DNA. Nowhere else in Vienna can opera, operetta, musicals and dance be found together on a single stage. We look forward to new artists and works, but also to the popular and familiar.

© WienTourismus/Gregor Hofbauer

Anniversary Season 2023/24: 125 Years of the Volksoper

The Vienna Volksoper will celebrate its 125th birthday on December 14, 2023. The anniversary schedule features nine new productions and three premieres. Many of the works have a special connection with the establishment.

• Richard Strauss’ Salome, for instance, was first performed in Vienna at the Volksoper in 1910 and will return in Luc Bondy’s legendary Salzburg production.
• Lotte de Beer, alongside choreographer and co-director Bryan Arias, will direct West Side Story, which was given its German-language premiere at the Volksoper in 1968.
• The Merry Widow, one of the most performed operettas in the Volksoper’s history with more than 1000 performances, will be reinterpreted by Mariame Clément and Omer Meir Wellber.
• Puccini’s La rondine is back 104 years after its Viennese premiere.
• The world premiere of Lass uns die Welt vergessen – Volksoper 1938 commemorates the members of the Volksoper who were persecuted by the Nazis.
• John Adams’ gripping passion oratorio The Gospel According to the Other Mary will have its Austrian premiere as part of the Vienna Festival on June 15, 2024.
• The youngest members of the ensemble will embark on A Trip to the Moon with Jacques Offenbach.
• The moon also plays a role in the Vienna State Ballet’s three-part ballet premiere The Moon Wears a White Shirt.
• Ein bisschen Trallalala is a tribute by Ruth Brauer-Kvam and Robert Palfrader to Fritzi Massary and Max Pallenberg.
• Aristocats is aimed at the youngest audiences as a follow-up production to The Jungle Book (which remains in the program).
• The Netflix generation can look forward to the premiere of Jonathon Larson’s musical tick tick... BOOM!.

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History of the house

The present-day Vienna Volksoper was opened in 1898 as the "Emperor's Anniversary City Theater" and initially run as a lyric theater only. Operas and musical comedies were subsequently added to the program in 1903. World-famous singers such as Maria Jeritza, Leo Slezak, and Richard Tauber performed here, and Alexander Zemlinsky worked here as conductor.

At selected operettas and musicals, subtitles in English bring the show's action a bit closer to non-German speaking visitors; after all, "The whole world loves operetta…!"