In principle, the season in the three big opera houses in Vienna normally runs from September to June, with (obviously) a two-month summer break in July and August.
Check for detailed programmes with the houses directly.
The 2022/2023 season
At the Staatsoper
Vienna’s State Opera House (Staatsoper) jostles with the Met, La Scala and others at the top of the world rankings for opera venues.
The 2022/2023 season should have begun with a performance of Jacques Fromental Halévy’s grand opera La Juive, but illness has led to a relatively late change in plans. The season opener on September 5th, 2022, is now Puccini’s La Bohème with Anna Netrebko playing Mimi.
The Staatsoper season then ends on June 30th, 2023 with Richard Wagner’s Götterdämmerung.
Planned highlights along with such delights as Fidelio and Aida include Staatsoper premières of six productions. These are:
- Joint performances of Mahler’s Das klagende Lied cantata and Kindertotenlieder song cycle
- Richard Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
- Richard Strauss’s Salome
- Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro (you can visit the room in Vienna where he composed the piece)
- Monteverdi’s Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria
- Francis Poulenc’s Dialogues of the Carmelites
(Editor’s note: the Staatsoper does rather nice tours of the building for those who want to look behind the scenes or get a flavour of the place without attending a full-blown performance.)
At the Volksoper
The Volksoper 2022/2023 opera season begins on September 2nd with a public general rehearsal for the operetta Gräfin Dubarry by Carl Millöcker and revised by Theo Mackeben.
The season ends on June 30th with Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail (composed in Vienna).
Various opera productions enjoy a première at the main house. These include, for example:
- Otto Nicolai’s The Merry Wives of Windsor
- The aforementioned pieces that open and close the season (Gräfin Dubarry and Die Entführung aus dem Serail)
- Jacques Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld
- A world première for German composer Moritz Eggert’s Die letzte Verschwörung
At the Theater an der Wien
The Theater an der Wien 2022/2023 opera season is a little different, since performances take place away from the main house due to renovation work.
The core opera season begins with Leoŝ Janáĉek’s Das schlaue Füchslein on October 15th, though you can catch, for example, Francesca Caccini’s La liberazione earlier at the affiliated Kammeroper.
The season ends on June 25th with Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s musical comedy Die stumme Serenade (also at the Kammeroper).
New production highlights and wider premières include all the above, plus such delights as:
- Gioachino Rossini’s La gazza ladra
- Gian Carlo Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors
- Jacques Offenbach’s La Périchole
- Handel’s Belshazzar oratorio
- Carl Maria von Weber’s Der Freischütz
- Mieczyslaw Weinberg’s The Idiot
- Alban Berg’s Lulu