The Volksoper Wien's 2025-2026 season is set to captivate audiences with a blend of timeless classics and contemporary narratives. From the moving retelling of Shakespearean romance in 'West Side Story' to the enchanting musical journey of 'The Magic Flute', the theater promises a diverse array of performances. Audiences can also look forward to historical insights with 'Let's Forget the World - Volksoper 1938', the whimsical charm of 'The Bat', and the introspective 'Cabaret'. This season celebrates the power of storytelling through opera, ballet, and musical theater, offering something for every taste.

A Journey Through the Volksoper Wien's Captivating 2025-2026 Season

Prepare to be enthralled by the Volksoper Wien's stellar lineup for the 2025-2026 season. From the timeless story of 'West Side Story' to the intricate narrative of 'The Magic Flute', each event promises a unique experience. With a mix of operas, musicals, and ballet performances, this season is designed to captivate audiences of all ages. The Volksoper Wien, renowned for its rich history and vibrant performances, continues to set the stage for unforgettable experiences. Here's a look at what you can expect from this year's exciting performances.

Embracing the Stage: Volksoper Wien's Vibrant 2025-2026 Lineup

Volksoper Wien invites you to embark on a theatrical journey through time and emotion with its array of mesmerizing performances. From the timeless romance of 'West Side Story' to the fantasy of 'Peter Pan', each event promises a unique experience that blends music, drama, and storytelling. Get ready to be transported by the intricate narratives, stellar performances, and vibrant settings as you explore the rich tapestry of the arts at Volksoper Wien.

A Symphony of Stories: Exploring Volksoper Wien's Captivating Performances

The poet Hoffmann thinking of his beloved Stella, struggles with a writer’s block. His Muse, in disguise, is determined to steer Hoffmann away from his unhappy love and back to art. Hoffmann begins recounting the stories of three women he once loved: Olympia, Antonia, and Giulietta. In her staging, director Lotte de Beer creates a dialogue between Hoffmann and the Muse, a confrontation between art and the artist. Jacques Offenbach’s name remains synonymous with operetta, but at the end of his life, he worked on his most ambitious masterpiece: the fantastic opera Les contes d’Hoffmann.

Hoffmanns tales

Volksoper Wien

The famous chansonnière Sylva is not allowed to marry her noble lover Edwin. His parents arrange for him to be drafted into the army and arrange an engagement to a countess. At the engagement party, the chansonnière suddenly turns up. When it becomes clear that Edwin’s mother also used to be a varieté artist, nothing stands in the way of a marriage between the lovers.

The Csárdásfürstin

Jerome Robbins is considered one of the most important ballet makers of the 20th century and his unmistakeable style has had a decisive influence on American dance. Interplay, his second choreographic work, premiered in 1945 in New York, provides a rousing opening to the four-part programme American Signatures that combines dance icons with current choreographic voices.

Performed to Morton Gould’s jazzy score, Interplay presents precisely what its title suggests: as if in a playground, the dancers meet, full of fun, but also competing with each other in Robbins’ choreography, that employs jazz elements to enrich the classical ballet vocabulary and with which the theatre maker and dance artist created one of the works that had a formative influence on his aesthetic.

American Signatures

Following Così fan tutte, the final production of the first graduating class of the Volksoper’s opera studio, the second generation of this young ensemble now takes the stage with another repertoire classic at MuTh in the Augarten. In a newly created chamber version, director Maurice Lenhard highlights the close connections between Mozart’s opera and current global political dynamics, shaping it into a contemporary political thriller. Within this world, the two couples — Vitellia and Sesto, as well as Servilia and Annio — become entangled in a ruthless system of intrigue, corruption, and murder … for power and powerlessness lie dangerously close together.

Titus

The young successor to the throne Aljoscha is unhappy and tormented by loneliness. He avoids contact with women, yet he longs for another person. Eventually, he meets a young man – who, in Lehár’s version, is a girl in disguise. However, for Dutch director and artist Steef de Jong, the situation is more complex … He relocates the story, originally set in Russia, to a more universal fairytale world, focusing entirely on the slowly blossoming love story. He uses beautiful drawings and animations, filmed live and projected, creating a work of art that blends operetta and animated film, capturing the melancholy of Lehár’s music while also adding humor and lightness.

Der Zarewitsch

Follies, one of Stephen Sondheim’s most personal and touching musicals, will have its first production at the Vienna Volksoper in a production by Martin G. Berger. The Chekhovian work with quotes from the music of the 1920’s to 40’s tells the story of two couples struggling with their life decisions and takes a nostalgic look at a glamorous and supposedly carefree past.

Follies

In the 19th century, Penzance was one of the most idyllic and peaceful little towns on the British isle. Pirates... here?! The kings of English operetta, the writing duo Gilbert & Sullivan, had a knack for humorously subverting their audience’s expectations. With this satirical and subversive “recipe,” they created one hit after another.

The rather absurd plot of The Pirates of Penzance would have done proud even to the British humor of Monty Python back in the 19th century: A young man is not trained as a pilot, but instead apprenticed to the Pirates of Penzance because his hard-of-hearing governess confuses the words “pilot” and “pirate.” Upon turning 21, Frederic should have completed his apprenticeship—if only he hadn’t been born in a leap year! According to pirate logic, that makes him just five years old… From this existential dilemma unfolds a love story between the young pirate apprentice and Mabel, a young lady from the British military aristocracy..

The Pirates of Penzance

Figaro, the Count’s servant, has become engaged to Susanna, the Countess’s maid. The Count is stalking Susanna. Figaro hatches a plan to put the count in his place. After a “mad day” of disguises, misunderstandings and other comical complications, Figaro gets his Susanna and the Count has no choice but to apologize to the Countess.

The Marriage of Figaro

With this new production of the operetta classic The White Horse Inn, director Jan Philipp Gloger sets out in search of the contemporary aspects of the piece, which he recognizes above all in the theme of tourism. Come with us to the region of the Salzkammergut and take a look behind the façade of the traditional eponymous hotel!

In the White Horse Inn

The famous dancer Rudolf Nureyev has a dog. When Nureyev dies, the strict ballet mistress Marika inherits the dog. The dog growls at her and becomes aggressive. When Marika is unable to place the dog with one of Nureyev’s friends, the animal shelter seems to be the only solution. Until Marika realises that the dog has hidden qualities …

The author Elke Heidenreich wrote a novel about Nureyev’s dog. Director and choreographer Florian Hurler actually knew Nureyev’s dog and the ballet mistress Marika. Peter te Nuyl wrote a theatrical script and text based on their stories. Keren Kagarlitsky created a new score from ballet-, opera- and her own music.

Nurejews Hund

Spring Awakening is a powerful rock musical about growing up, generational conflict, and the turmoil of awakening sexuality. Winner of eight Tony Awards, including Best Musical, and a Grammy, it redefined Broadway’s themes. Based on Frank Wedekind’s 1891 play Frühlings Erwachen, it criticizes social morality while exploring sexuality and repression. Wendla, Melchior, and Moritz face strict parents and teachers as well as unanswered questions about love and desire, with devastating results.

Spring Awakening

Things are heating up in the Faninal household! The nouveau riche is eagerly awaiting the wedding of his daughter Sophie - it is to be a noble groom. However, it is not the intended candidate, the Baron Ochs, who will win Sophie's heart, but the bearer of the silver engagement rose: the young Count Octavian. Before his secret lover, the Feldmarschallin, releases Octavian for the union, Baron Ochs is publicly disgraced in a suburban pub ...

The Rosenkavalier

Jon is a promising musical composer and lyricist, works as a waiter in New York and has been dreaming of a career on Broadway for years. Despite intensive work and the clear vision of reforming musical theater and bringing it up to date, the big breakthrough is a long time coming. Shortly before his 30th birthday restlessness begins to take hold of him. He fundamentally questions his life choices and feels pressure from all sides: his girlfriend Susan longs for a tranquil family life , his childhood friend Michael wants him to get an office job with a secure income … panic.

tick, tick... BOOM! is semi-autobiographical, existential and innovative. Originally performed on stage from 1990 as a one-man show by Larson himself, it was posthumously re-adapted as a three-person play in 2001, and gained wider notoriety no later than 2021 through its award-winning Netflix extension into a feature film. Larson himself was a door-opener and pioneer for a new kind of musical: close to the issues of young people, close to the music of the time. With a pointed staging of the version for three actors, the Volksoper is also breaking new ground and proving once again that it is a creative place with its finger on the pulse.

tick, tick... BOOM!

Clifford Bradshaw, a young American writer, has come to Berlin to get inspiration for his new novel. In the legendary Kit Kat Club he meets the most exciting creature of Berlin nightlife: the singer Sally Bowles. They fall in love, but both have too little to live for ... Fräulein Schneider and the Jewish fruit merchant Herr Schultz also try to protect their love from the looming Nazi regime. Faced with an uncertain future, all those involved have no choice but to live in the moment: "So come to the Cabaret!” 

Cabaret

“She is a statue of beauty when standing or sitting: grace itself when she moves,” the 18th century English writer and artist Horace Walpole wrote about the legendary Queen of France Marie Antoinette. This colourful character from French history inspired the ballet by the French choreographer Thierry Malandain that premiered with his own ensemble, Malandain Ballet Biarritz, in 2019 in the very theatre that Marie Antoinette inaugurated on 16 May 1770 to mark her wedding to Louis XVI: the Opéra Royal Château de Versailles.

Marie Antoinette’s life in Versailles is central to Malandain’s ballet, which the choreographer has created to music by two of her contemporaries – Joseph Haydn and Christoph Willibald Gluck. The piece depicts her arrival at court, her wedding day, the opening of the opera house with Jean-Baptiste Lully’s Persée – as a ballet within the ballet – the attempted escape that would ultimately be her undoing and the infamous parties and balls associated with the Queen.

Marie Antoinette

Christmas Concert 2025

After a night in the forest, far away from their parents, Hansel and Gretel can't believe their eyes: a house made entirely of gingerbread! At first the witch living in the house sounds quite friendly, but soon she shows her true colours: Hansel is locked in a cage. Will Gretel succeed in saving her brother?

Karl Dönch's production of Engelbert Humperdinck's fairy tale opera has lost none of its fascination over the years! The indispensable classic in the repertoire of the Volksoper never fails to thrill, complete with the witch's flight over the orchestra pit.

Hansel and Gretel

Johann Strauss worked on a ballet based on the well-known fairy tale of Cinderella at the end of his life. Only a fragment of the piece survived. Axel Ranisch and Martina Eisenreich have created their own work inspired by this: In Vienna, 1899, Strauss is working on his ballet, but who is the mysterious librettist? And what does Ida Grünwald have to do with the project, when she is supposed to be merely typing the libretto? The story behind the creation of the Johann Strauss ballet, its storyline, and an unusual Cinderella narrative set in our present day – this fairy tale opera blends timelines and explores themes of self-discovery, emancipation, creativity, and the power of imagination.

Vienna, 1899: Johann Strauss is working on a new ballet. A competition is held to find a suitable libretto, but only one truly sparks the composer’s imagination...

The Cinderella Ballet: The talented seamstress Grete works in her stepmother’s fashion salon. Grete dreams of designing her own clothing, but her stepsisters, Yvette and Fanchon, mock her relentlessly. When the painter Leon enters the salon, everything changes.

Cinderella's Dream

On the occasion of the upcoming 197th anniversary of the death of Franz Schubert – perhaps the most famous son of today’s Vienna district Alsergrund – Annelie Sophie Müller presents a song recital exploring youthful longing for life and love. Complementing Schubert, the program also features works by two other composers who spent formative years in Vienna: Gustav Mahler and Franz Liszt. Together with pianist Alejandro Picó-Leonís, mezzo-soprano Annelie Sophie Müller poses profound questions about the meaning of life, the nature of love, and the inevitability of parting. Rustic dances, beloved melodies, and rapturous love songs promise an evening of pure art song delight!

Dr a n g i n die Fern n e

Peter Pan flies back to the Volksoper! The popular ballet for the whole family celebrates its revival and its return to the stage. Vesna Orlić’s loving and playful choreography based on J. M. Barrie’s enchanting novel of the same name transports young and old audiences alike into the world of the boy who doesn’t want to grow up and let us take part in the adventures of Peter Pan, his lost girls and boys, Tinkerbell and the children of the Darling family.

Peter Pan

This year, we are declaring November the month of song and invite you to not one but two song recitals by our ensemble members in the Volksoper’s balcony foyer. The opening concert features Theresa Dax. Together with her song duo partner Andreas Fröschl, Senior Lecturer in Song Accompaniment at the MDW Vienna, the soprano will transport you into the world of the German art song of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The evening presents both familiar and lesser-heard works by Richard Strauss, Hugo Wolf, Franz Liszt, Gustav Mahler, and Joseph Marx.

And tomorrow the sun will shine again ...

Two French villages 100 years ago have been at loggerheads for generations, although nobody knows exactly why. It is the children who are fighting this battle. They regularly meet in the forest and fight each other. However, the fact that clothes are torn and buttons are cut off in the process infuriates the parents, who give the children a hard time about it. The gang of rascals must therefore show all kinds of ingenuity in order to continue the brawls.

The stage version, written by Johanna Arrouas, is based on the classic children’s book by Louis Pergaud and the iconic film version. Well-known chansons convey the French savoir vivre.

The War of the Buttons

Ruth Brauer-Kvam: “No one shaped pre-war operetta like Fritzi Massary. She fought her way up to the Olympus of operetta like no other. She was the celebrated star of the Metropol Theater in Berlin. There she met the famous actor Max Pallenberg, a master of his art. Two people couldn't be more different, and that's why their love for each other was so great. These birds of paradise flew high and fell low. We want to tell her story filled with music, Jewish humor, feathers and sequins. Drama meets operetta, Palfrader meets Brauer. A tribute to the artists who inspire us!”

A little bit trallalala

The well known tragic love story between the high-class coutesan Violetta and Alfredo, son of a respected Parisian family. With Alfredo the beautiful high-class courtesan Violetta finally finds true love. After a brief spell of happiness enjoyed together Alfredo's father manages, nevertheless, to convince Violetta of the social damage this relationship causes his family. In desperation, she leaves Alfredo and throws herself into the Parisian demimonde with disastrous effects on her health,already ravaged by consumption. Reconciliation comes too late.

The wrong way

The operetta A Night in Venice, composed in 1883, drew on the overflowing enthusiasm that Vienna held for the Serenissima — an affection that reached another peak with the opening of the “Venice in Vienna” theme park in the Prater in 1895.

The plot revolves around the pleasure-seeking Duke of Urbino, a notorious womanizer, who wishes to take advantage of the Carnival season to pursue a romantic conquest under the cover of colorful masks and disguise… Specifically, the Duke sets his sights on Barbara, the wife of Venetian senator Delaqua. Several schemes — some aiming to thwart the Duke’s plan, others to support it — intersect and clash, and in the end, the Duke finds himself facing not one, but three Barbaras!

A Night in Venice

It is probably the most popular, but certainly the most Viennese of all operettas: Johann Strauss' immortal Fledermaus. Parties that get out of hand, erotic mix-ups, conspiracies, intrigues and a large portion of schadenfreude: the climax of the classical Viennese operetta era offers ambiguous entertainment in waltz rhythm. And if the social façade crumbles too much, you can still blame everything on the effect of champagne. 

The Volksoper is considered the most Viennese opera house in the city. So it is not surprising that Johann Strauss' masterpiece is practically family silver here. No work has ever been performed more often at the Volksoper. At the beginning of Lotte de Beer's directorship, the performance was carefully refreshed, and a female "Frosch" has since provided a fresh look at a well-known piece.

The Bat

Operetta has always been an escape from everyday life into a dream world. But what if what is happening in the world is so terrible that it can no longer be forgotten? In the first months of 1938, current political life intrudes into the Volksoper during rehearsals for the operetta Gruß und Kuss aus der Wachau. What do intolerance, discrimination and fascism do to the staff of the Volksoper?

In the course of rehearsals, the seizure of power by the National Socialists brings about serious changes for the Volksoper: dismissals follow at all levels of the house. A captivating look into the mirror of the past can also mean a confrontation with a painful period in the history of the Volksoper. We don't want to avoid that. By telling the story of the Volksoper staff, we preserve the memory of ALL victims. At the same time, we do not lose sight of the actions of the perpetrators, which could happen again at any time, but we also remember the countless people who did not raise their voices.

Let 's forget the world - Volksoper 1938

Opus Walzerkönig

It’s a true cult performance: My Fair Lady explores the power of language, and the power struggle between men and women. Since 1979, the musical has been captivating audiences at the Volksoper. Phonetics professor Dr. Higgins transforms the flower girl Eliza Doolittle into a lady of high society through rigorous language training. However, does Higgins not only manipulate Eliza’s language, but her feelings as well?

Ruth Brauer-Kvam takes a new look at a beloved production with a fantastic ensemble, blowing away the dust that has accumulated over the years and allowing My Fair Lady to shine once again in its old-new brilliance!

My Fair Lady

L a Sere n issim a - Venice as a city of music

“Love stays away, you wait and wait; when least expected, there it is!” 
She is said to seduce all the men with her free-spiritedness and her Spanish folklore, as she sings “Love is a rebellious bird”… Until she is killed by one of the men.

“Is Carmen really the free, independent woman we think she is, or is she rather the prisoner of the very myth of the free, independent woman? Isn’t it precisely the men who attribute this free-spiritedness to her, so that their conquest of her is all the more rewarding? Carmen tries to make decisions that go in an unexpected, unconventional direction. But is that the definition of freedom? Isn’t the consistent decision to go against convention also a kind of straitjacket?” (Lotte de Beer)

Carmen

“I was already warned that I would have to fear for my life,” Carmen declares—foreseeing her own doom—in the finale of Bizet’s “opera of all operas” (as Nietzsche once called it). A few minutes later, she is dead, stabbed by the man who was still her lover only moments before, the soldier Don José. The team behind Killing Carmen—Nils Strunk, Lukas Schrenk, and Gabriel Cazes—asked themselves from which perspective this opera, after its many adaptations (including pop-cultural ones) throughout the 20th century, could be retold once again. These three exceptional artists, who for years have devoted themselves to daring and high-energy reinterpretations of the classics, continue the opera’s story: What happened after Carmen’s murder? What void did she leave behind?

Killing Carmen

The story of The Magic Flute begins like an adventure: a prince rescues a princess from a dark ruler, accompanied by a birdcatcher and magical devices. But the boundaries between good and evil, light and dark become blurred and the characters are far more complex.

The story of The Magic Flute has been interpreted and reinterpreted in many ways. But one of the reasons it continues to captivate audiences to this day is that it features complex characters, who are portrayed as diverse and dazzling as real people. A mother, for example, who wants to save her daughter – or perhaps uses her as an instrument of revenge. A young woman who discovers a strength within herself she didn’t know she had. A coward who might actually be braver than he believes. A villain who, on second glance, no longer appears (only) evil.

The Magic Flute

Just as William Shakespeares’ Romeo and Juliet are born into rival families, Maria and Tony are linked to rival gangs. Tony is a Jet, a gang of white American youths led by his best friend Riff. Maria’s brother Bernardo is the leader of the Sharks, a gang of Puerto Rican immigrants. Maria and Tony fall in love, the gangs fight, Tony happens to kill Maria’s brother. Maria, who still loves Tony, agrees to elope with him. But Tony receives a fake message saying that Maria is dead ...

West Side Story

Concert of the Children 's Choir and the Youth Choir of the Volksoper Vienna

Emperor Overall is the tyrannical ruler of Atlantis. When he finally declares a war between everyone and everyone else, Death decides to go on strike. In an act of populist demagogy, the Emperor claims the credit for delivering immortality. But with no one dying, the country descends into chaos. The Emperor is forced to accept that his power has been broken.   

Confronted directly with persecution and extermination by the Nazis, Viktor Ullmann composed Der Kaiser von Atlantis (The Emperor of Atlantis) in Theresienstadt concentration camp in 1943/44: a harrowing allegory critiquing inhuman warmongering and totalitarian power structures. In October 1944 – along with his co-librettist Peter Kien – he was deported on the so-called “Künstlertransport” to Auschwitz, where Ullmann was gassed to death and Kien died of an infection. Shifting between a contemporary opera, a mystery play and a dance of death, Der Kaiser von Atlantis presents a unique theatrical sound world. 

Volksoper Wien

Sep 27, 2025 - Jun 20, 2026

West Side Story

Jun 14, 2026

Concert of the Children 's Choir and the Youth Choir of the Volksoper Vienna

16 - 28 Jun, 2026

KaiserRequiem

May 31 - Jun 21, 2026

The Csárdásfürstin

May 6 - Jun 25, 2026

Der Zarewitsch

Jun 5, 2026

Hoffmanns tales

May 31 - Jun 21, 2026

The Csárdásfürstin

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