[An * means an affiliate relationship; see footer]

City guide | Search the site | Tips for February

Visiting Vienna

Johann Strauss 2025

Portrait of Johann Strauss

Johann Strauss celebrated his 200th birthday in 2025 and Vienna honoured the King of the Waltz with a year’s worth of activities.

Birthday celebrations

Plaque at Strauss's birthplace

(The plaque at the location where Strauss was born in 1825)

Few composers are so intimately associated with one city as Johann Strauss II, who gave Vienna its unofficial anthem (The Blue Danube) and whose music features in evening concerts throughout the city and balls throughout the world.

(In the interests of accuracy, I feel obliged to point out that the river’s not always blue.)

Anyway, Vienna paid tribute to its musical son in 2025 with a festival year of activities in celebration of his 200th birthday.

Those celebrations are over now, but you can look back at some of the highlights below. Some exhibitions and similar have even continued into 2026 and beyond.

It’s official

Display of event programmes

(The official Johann Strauss 2025 programme publication; press photo © Christian Jobst)

The city set up a specialist company (Johann.Strauss-Festjahr2025 GmbH) to organise the festivities, led by two personalities familiar with Vienna’s music scene: Roland Geyer (former director of the Theater an der Wien) and Simon Posch (director of Vienna’s Haus der Musik).

Events and activities took place at around 69 locations and stretched across numerous media and genres: music, dance, literature, theatre, exhibitions and installations, digital media, science,…etc.

Official events broadly fell into three categories:

  • PUR: performances of original works or homages to the man
  • MIX: fresh and artistic interpretations of Strauss’s work
  • OFF: derivations, explorations and the unexpected

Strauss 2025 had an official website with full programme details, and I listed some highlights and other related events below as they crossed my path…

New museum

Fron view of the new Johann Strauss Museum

(The timely arrival of a new exhibition)

A Johann Strauss Museum opened in early November, 2024, and remains open into the future. The multimedia, immersive and interactive exhibition inside offers a full tribute to the life, times and music of the maestro.

I found it a nice mix of entertainment and information delivered for a modern audience and can certainly recommend a visit.

Vienna has two other particularly significant locations for learning more about the man and/or the wider Strauss dynasty: the House of Strauss (which also has concerts) and the Strausswohnung.

Special exhibitions

The Lobkowitz townhouse

(Palais Lobkowitz houses the Theatermuseum and has its own Beethoven connection: his third symphony premiered there, for example))

Exhibitions continuing into 2026
  • The Haus der Musik also has a small special Strauss exhibition alongside its existing composer offerings. The displays explore his connection with the Wiener Philharmoniker through documents and photos. Catch it from October 1st, 2025 to March 31st, 2026
Notable past exhibitions
  • Our National Library’s state hall had a small display of Strauss-related documents, photos, letters, drafts and similar taken from their musical and biographical collections
  • The life and works of Strauss formed the topics of a special exhibition at the Theatermuseum

I rather enjoyed the Theatermuseum exhibition, which had numerous delightful items on show…not least the original score for the famous Die Fledermaus operetta.

Concerts

View of the rear of the Musikverein and piano store at night

(The Musikverein hosts some prominent concerts)

You could enjoy plenty of concerts over and above the usual array of Strauss and Mozart-themed evenings in Vienna’s historical venues. For example…

We had special concerts on October 25th to celebrate the composer’s actual birthday:

  • The Wiener Philharmoniker performed the “Best of Strauss” programme that played in 1925 at the same Musikverein location
  • The Wiener Symphoniker performed a homage to Strauss later in the day…also at the Musikverein

Other highlights across the year included:

  • A memorial concert for Strauss at the Musikverein on January 19th, 2025. This featured conductor Oksana Lyniv and the ORF RSO Wien orchestra
  • Franz Welser-Möst conducted Christiane Karg, Piotr Beczała, and the Wiener Philharmoniker (also at the Musikverein) on March 29th and 30th, 2025 with a Strauss-related programme of music and song from the operettas
Ad:

Back to the Fledermaus…

Various operetta performances in classic productions as well as new adaptations occurred throughout 2025. For example…

  • The Theater an der Wien premiered a new production of Die Fledermaus on October 5th, and a further nine performances took place across the month
  • Fledermaus Day on April 5th, 2025 celebrated his most well-known operetta. The MuseumsQuartier hosted various activities, including a special performance of the work by the Janoska Ensemble and soprano Daniela Fally
Front view of a theater

(Die Fledermaus premiered at Theater an der Wien back in 1874)

  • Anna Bernreitner brought Strauss to the entire city with open-air performances of a mobile version of Indigo und die 40 Räuber in each of Vienna’s 23 districts from June 1st to June 23rd, 2025 (a collaboration with the WE ARE WIEN.FESTIVAL)

Imaginative ideas

Events in 2025 also included the unusual and eclectic. For example:

  • A co-production between theaternyx* and the Zeitwalzer theater project put you on a journey through four centuries and above Vienna: theatrical performances took place one day a month throughout the year in the wagons of the famous Riesenrad

Move over Orson Welles, Strauss has arrived.

Close up of a Riesenrad wagon

(The giant ferris wheel hosts theatrical performances)

  • To add a sweet touch to my selection of highlights…we could enjoy Strauss ice cream (and had a Strauss ice cream week from April 28th to May 4th)

At the 2025 ice cream season opening, for example, the Eissalon am Schwedenplatz announced in-house alternatives that included a Fledermaus champagne gelato and a blue Stracciatella ice cream with golden glitter in honour of the Blue Danube waltz.

  • Contemporary art crafted in light appeared in the Stadtpark from March 21st to May 25th, 2025: media artist Victoria Coeln brought seven female figures from the Strauss operettas to life with the help of augmented reality
  • The park in front of the Rathaus had numerous different orchestras spread about the area on July 5th performing open-air Strauss as part of the Summa Cum Laude international youth music festival
  • The Vienna marathon took place on April 6th, 2025, and various Strauss-related activities accompanied the runners. For example, participants could join a giant waltz at the start in the hopes of breaking a world record. And they succeeded!
Competition banner with the blue Danube

(Strauss film competition; press photo © Vienna Shorts)

  • The Vienna Shorts film festival and Johann Strauss Festjahr 2025 looked for short films with a modern interpretation of Strauss’s most famous waltz. The best shorts featured at a gala event on May 28th, 2025, and were also shown at the 2025 Rathausplatz Film Festival

Get closer to Strauss…

The Strauss monument

(The golden Strauss statue in the Stadtpark)

Finally, my summary page lists various locations in Vienna associated with Strauss’s life and music should you wish to follow in his footsteps.

Last modified: