In principle, the season in the three big opera houses in Vienna runs from September to June, with (clearly) a two-month summer break in July and August.
- See also: Opera in Vienna
At the Staatsoper
The State Opera House season began with Verdi’s La Traviata on September 4th, 2019 and ends with Verdi’s Falstaff (conducted by none other than Zubin Mehta) on June 30th, 2020. The repertoire covers 58 operas.
The season highlights include new productions of:
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream by Benjamin Britten (première October 2nd), which has not been seen at the Staatsoper since 1964
- Fidelio by Beethoven (première February 1st, 2020) – in the original Leonore version, which was never previously performed here. The year 2020 celebrates the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth
- Così fan tutte by Mozart (première May 22nd, 2020), first performed here in 1872
- Un ballo in maschera by Verdi (première June 15th, 2020), which is one of the more popular Verdi works at the Staatsoper, approaching its 600th performance
…and world premières of:
- Orlando by Olga Neuwirth (December 8th), who was the first ever woman to be awarded the Grand Austrian State Prize for music (in 2010). I believe this is the first time the Staatsoper has put on an opera written by a woman
- The Persinette children’s opera by Albin Fries (December 21st). Persinette was the title of the French fairy tale that the Brothers Grimm later mimicked in the better-known Rapunzel
At the Volksoper
The Volksoper season began on September 2nd, 2019 with Strauss’s Die Fledermaus and ends with Cole Porter’s Kiss me Kate on June 30th, 2020. The repertoire covers 8 operettas, 12 operas (and 10 musicals).
The season highlights include new productions of:
- Jacques Offenbach’s operetta, König Karotte, thereby celebrating the 200th anniversary of the composer’s birth in 1819 (November 23rd). The work first premiered in 1872 as Le Roi Carotte
- Johann Strauss’s operetta, Der Zigeunerbaron, which first played at the Volksoper back in 1910 (February 29th, 2020)
- Modest Mussorgski’s operatic masterpiece, Boris Gudunov (May 2nd, 2020)
There is a European première for:
- Tod Machover’s 2018 opera, Schoenberg in Hollywood (April 4th, 2020), in the Kasino am Schwarzenbergplatz, first commissioned by the Boston Lyric Opera
Then we have Austrian premières for:
- Marius Felix Lange’s 2013 German opera for the family, Das Gespenst von Canterville (October 18th)
- Lerner and Loewe’s musical, Brigadoon (December 1st), which I once saw 25+ years ago in the UK, while sitting next to a man in full Scottish national dress with a dagger in his sock
Kander and Ebb’s Cabaret musical also appears for the first time ever at the Volksoper (première on September 14th).
At the Theater an der Wien
The Theater an der Wien season began on September 19th, 2019, with Dvořák’s Rusalka and ends with the Neun X Leben children’s opera on June 30th, 2020.
The season highlights feature two world premières as part of the Beethoven 2020 celebrations: Christian Jost’s Egmont (from February 17th, 2020) and Tscho Theissing’s Genia (from March 5th, 2020).
The Beethoven theme continues with a new production of Fidelio, notable for the name of the director: the Academy Award-winning actor, Christoph Waltz.
Other new productions this season include, for example, Rusalka mentioned above, as well as:
- Charles Gounod’s Faust (from October 1st at the Kammeroper), celebrating its 160th anniversary in 2019
- Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito (from October 17th), composed in the year of the great man’s death
- Gaspare Spontini’s 1807 opera, La vestale (from November 16th)
- Handel’s 1737 three-act opera, Giustino (from December 4th at the Kammeroper)
- Stanisław Moniuszko’s Halka (from December 15th)
- Richard Strauss’s Salome (from January 18th, 2020)
- Sergei Prokofiev’s The Fiery Angel (from April 16th, 2020), first performed after the composer’s death
- Vincenzo Bellini’s Norma (from May 15th), which recovered from an inauspicious start at La Scala in 1831 to become widely acclaimed
- Christoph Willibald Gluck’s Orphée et Eurydice (from May 19th, 2020 at the Kammeroper), one of the more famous Orphean operas