X-Nico

3 unusual facts about Vienna State Opera


Friedrich Cerha

Cerha is still active as a composer of orchestral works and stage music (among others, Baal, The Rattenfänger, and Der Riese vom Steinfeld, the latter commissioned by the Vienna State Opera, with a libretto by Peter Turrini).

Horst Stein

Stein held a regular post at the Vienna State Opera from 1969 to 1971, where he conducted 500 performances.

Internationales Kulturinstitut

The main campus, including the reception, school office, and five classrooms are located near the Vienna State Opera House at Opernring 7.


Agnes Baltsa

Baltsa made her first appearance in an opera in 1968 as Cherubino in The Marriage of Figaro at Frankfurt Opera, before going on to appear as Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier at the Vienna State Opera in 1970.

Albrecht Dümling

As a scholar at the Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities Dümling created an American version of the exhibition „Entartete Musik (degenerate music) in 1989/90, which travelled to more than 50 locations worldwide, including the Royal Festival Hall in London, and the Vienna State Opera.

Alfred Walter

In Vienna he has worked as guest conductor at the State Opera, and in 1980, Walter was awarded the Golden Medal of the International Gustav Mahler Society.

Andreas Ottensamer

Ottensamer first gained his orchestral experience as substitute clarinet in the Vienna State Opera and the Vienna Philharmonic and is a former member of the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra.

Arnold Schoenberg Choir

Moreover it has performed in opera productions such as Schubert's Fierrabras at the Vienna State Opera, Messiaen's Saint François d'Assise and Berio's Cronaca del luogo at the Salzburg Festival and videos of three operas of Mozart with the producer Peter Sellars.

Bertha Schwarz

As an opera singer, she was for many years a prominent member of the company of the Vienna Court Opera, where her fame was such that an asteroid discovered on 4 September 1880 was named 218 Bianca in her honour.

Eleonore Schwarz

The music was composed by Bruno Uher, and was written and directed about the beauty of the Austrian capital, including the Vienna State Opera, City Hall and St. Stephen's Cathedral but also the Viennese Waltz and Johann Strauss II.

Ernst Ottensamer

He first played with the Vienna State Opera and Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in 1978, before becoming a principal clarinetist in 1983.

European Academy of Music Theatre

Thus conferences with renowned partners such as the Vienna State Opera, the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris and the Teatro Nacional de São Carlos in Lisbon as well as the European Forum Alpbach and the University of Zurich could be held.

Felix Prohaska

He spent many years conducting at the Vienna State Opera and the Frankfurt Opera, and is noted for his recordings for the Vanguard Classics label of the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Franz Schubert, and Gustav Mahler.

Franca Squarciapino

She has spent much of her career designing costumes for major theatres and opera houses, including the Burgtheater in Vienna, Royal Opera at Covent Garden, the Metropolitan Opera, the Vienna State Opera, and Zurich Opera among others.

Georges Baklanoff

In 1910 he began performing with important opera houses internationally, and became a member of both the Boston Opera Company (1910-1915) and the Vienna State Opera (1912-1914).

Grete Forst

Born Margarete Feiglstock to a Jewish family in Vienna, Forst made her operatic debut in Cologne in 1900 in the title role of Lucia di Lammermoor Three years later, made her Vienna State Opera debut in the same role and was made a member of the company by Gustav Mahler.

Håkan Hagegård

Hagegård studied at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm and has performed on stages around the world, including Carnegie Hall, the London Royal Opera House, La Scala, the Metropolitan Opera, the Sydney Opera House, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Vienna State Opera (Così fan tutte conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt), and the Royal Swedish Opera in Stockholm.

Ian Bousfield

In September 2000 he accepted a new position as principal trombonist of the Vienna State Opera/Vienna Philharmonic, on an equal footing with Dietmar Küblböck.

Kammeroper Schloss Rheinsberg

Singers who have started in Rheinsberg can be heard at the New York Metropolitan Opera, La Scala, Salzburg Festival, other various international opera houses such as Royal Swedish Opera in Stockholm, Tokyo Opera House, Vienna State Opera, Sydney Opera House, Zürich Opera House and most German opera houses.

Karita Mattila

Mattila appears regularly in the major opera houses worldwide, including the Metropolitan Opera, the Royal Opera House in London, Théâtre du Châtelet, Opéra Bastille, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Vienna State Opera, Toronto Roy Thomson Hall and Großes Festspielhaus, Salzburg and with top orchestras.

Marie Wilt

She sang for many years at the Vienna Hofoper (now Vienna State Opera) and for a number of seasons at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in London.

Mathilde Mallinger

Outside of Berlin, Mallinger made a number of guest appearances at the Vienna State Opera and the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg.

Maurice Peress

Maurice Peress has also extensively conducted orchestras internationally, including the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra in 1980, the Vienna State Opera in 1981, the Santa Cecilia Orchestra of Rome in 1988, the Brno Orkester of the Czech Republic in 1997, the FOK Orkester at the Prague Spring Festival in 1988, the Shanghai Radio and Television Orchestra in 1996-97, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra in 1998, and the Barbican Centre Orchestra in London in 1999.

Michael Halász

In 1978, Halász was appointed General Musical Director of the Hagen Opera House, and in 1991 he was named Resident Conductor at the Vienna State Opera.

Naděžda Kniplová

Other performance credits include appearances at the Liceu (Isolde), Teatro Regio di Torino (Brünnhilde in Götterdämmerung), the San Francisco Opera (Brünnhilde in Die Walküre), Vienna State Opera (Isolde, Kostelnička), Deutsche Oper am Rhein, the Palacio de Bellas Artes, the Grand Théâtre de Genève, and the Canadian Opera Company.

Nicola Rescigno

He conducted at most of the major opera houses of Italy, and made guest appearances at Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Royal Opera at Covent Garden, Opéra National de Paris, Vienna State Opera, Zurich Opera, and the Teatro Colón among other theaters.

Opera house

Traditionally, Europe's major opera houses built in the 19th century contained between about 1,500 to 3,000 seats, examples being Brussels' La Monnaie (after renovations, with 1,700 seats), Odessa Opera and Ballet Theater (with 1,636), Warsaw's Grand Theatre (the main auditorium with 1,841), Paris' Opéra Garnier (with 2,200), the Royal Opera House in London (with 2,268) and the Vienna State Opera (the new auditorium with reduced capacity of 2,280).

Renato Bruson

He debuted at the Vienna State Opera in 1978 with Macbeth, with such a success that the prestigious Austrian theatre awarded him with the important title of Kammersänger.

Sebastian Fuchsberger

As a tenor and "voice artist", he has worked with the Arnold Schönberg Choir and the choir of the Vienna State Opera, as a soloist in the Burgtheater, with the Inn District Symphony Orchestra, as well as with the bands Mnozil Brass, Global Kryner, Pro Brass, Alegre Correa, and Gansch & Roses.

Sonia Prina

Prina's extensive list of performance credits also include appearances at the Barbican Centre, the Bavarian State Opera, the Glyndebourne Festival Opera, La Fenice, the Liceu, Opera Australia, the Paris Opera, the Salzburg Festival, the San Francisco Opera, the Teatro Comunale Alighieri, the Teatro di San Carlo, the Teatro Real, and the Vienna State Opera among others.

Teatro Massimo

Finally, on 16 May 1897, twenty-two years after the laying of the foundation stone, the third largest opera theatre, after the Palais Garnier in Paris and the K. K. Hof-Opernhaus in Vienna, was inaugurated with a performance of Verdi's Falstaff conducted by Leopoldo Mugnone.

It is the biggest in Italy, and one of the largest of Europe (the third after the Opéra National de Paris and the K. K. Hof-Opernhaus in Vienna), renowned for its perfect acoustics.

Theater am Kärntnertor

Beginning in 1861 the Vienna Court Opera House (now the Vienna State Opera) was built on the adjoining grounds; it was completed in 1869 and in 1870 the former theatre was razed, making way for the apartment building that became the Hotel Sacher.

Trixi Schuba

Born in Vienna, Schuba's passion for figure skating began as a young child in 1955 when she happened to see an American competition on the television bought by her parents to watch performances of the Vienna State Opera and the Burgtheater.

Valery Panov

There he choreographed several ballets, including Cinderella, Sacre du printemps, The Idiot, and War and Peace. He also staged Heart of the Mountain for the San Francisco Ballet (1976), Scheherazade and Petrushka for Vienna State Opera Ballet (1981), The Three Sisters for the Royal Swedish Ballet (1983), and Hamlet to music by Shostakovich for the Norwegian National Ballet (1984).


see also

Daniele Gatti

In 2005, alongside Zubin Mehta and Christian Thielemann, Gatti was invited to conduct a concert in commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the 1955 reopening and renovation of the Vienna State Opera.

Electronic libretto

The installations of the Met, La Scala and the Arcimboldi, the Vienna State Opera, Liceu, and the Royal Opera House were possible with the donations of the philanthropist Alberto Vilar, at the time a majority shareholder of Figaro Systems.

Éva Marton

She has also portrayed Turandot in six television and video productions, including a Vienna State Opera production directed by Harold Prince, a Metropolitan Opera production created by Franco Zeffirelli production and a production designed by David Hockney filmed at the San Francisco Opera.

Falk Struckmann

His recordings include: the role of Orest in Elektra (Berlin Staatskapelle Orchestra and Chorus, conducted by Daniel Barenboim); Kurwenal in Tristan und Isolde (Bayreuther Festspiele 1995, conducted by Daniel Barenboim, filmed); Amfortas in Parsifal (Vienna State Opera Orchestra and Chorus, conducted by Christian Thielemann) and the Dutchman in The Flying Dutchman (Berlin Staatskapelle Orchestra and Chorus, conducted by Daniel Barenboim).

L'Upupa und der Triumph der Sohnesliebe

There is a DVD of the original 2003 Salzburg production with Matthias Goerne, Laura Aikin, John Mark Ainsley, and Alfred Muff, and Markus Stenz conducting the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and the Vienna State Opera Chorus (EuroArts 2053929).

Lotte Lehmann

In her 21 years with the company, Lehmann sang more than fifty different roles at the Vienna State Opera, including Marie/Marietta in Die tote Stadt, the title-roles in La Juive by Fromental Halévy, Mignon by Ambroise Thomas, and Manon by Jules Massenet, Charlotte in Werther, Marguerite in Faust, and Tatiana in Eugene Onegin.

Taimo Toomast

He has performed as a soloist at the Vienna State Opera and at the Vienna Chamber Opera, he has been soloist at the Coburg Landestheater and Dessau Anhaltisches Theater in Germany (altogether for 12 years).