With 13 staged music theatre productions, 9 concert opera highlights, a new Late Night series as well as a double Encore and the new mediation format TaWumm!, star director Stefan Herheim presents a versatile and extensive programme with 140 events for the 2022/23 season. In the first season of the new artistic directorship, the focus will be on the artistic range of music theatre - from the early baroque to the present, including lesser-known genres and neglected forms. With a special focus on the unique synthesis of music and theatre, the new team of the Theater an der Wien enters the season with a logo supplemented by one word, which together with a new graphic appearance is programme in every respect: MusikTheater an der Wien

Top-class soloists, together with internationally renowned special ensembles, bring numerous programme highlights, including new formats, to the stage, including two Austrian and one Viennese premiere.

The ongoing collaboration with the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra and the Arnold Schoenberg Choir (conducted by Erwin Ortner) continues to form the foundation of the theatre's outstanding orchestras, complemented by renowned ensembles of historical performance practice.

The Theater an der Wien moves to the MuseumsQuartier | Hall E

The historic building has been undergoing extensive renovation since March 2022 and is scheduled to shine again in new splendour from the 2024/25 season. During the more than two-year renovation phase, the theatre will move to Hall E, where the major new productions will take place in the middle of the MuseumsQuartier (MQ). The second venue, the Kammeroper, will also be remodelled to provide the ideal setting for smaller works.

Premiere in Hall E with Stefan Herheim's opening production

With the premiere of Leoš Janáček's Das schlaue Füchslein, the Theater an der Wien will celebrate its debut in its interim venue, Hall E in the MuseumsQuartier, on 15 October 2022, and at the same time Stefan Herheim will make his directorial debut at the house. Mélissa Petit will play the cunning little vixen, Jana Kurucová the fox. The Vienna Symphony Orchestra will perform together with the Arnold Schoenberg Choir conducted by Giedrė Šlekytė. (→ MQ Hall E)

Season opening with early baroque female power

Francesca Caccini, composer to the Medicis and superstar among female singers in Italy on the threshold of the early Baroque, opens the opening weeks and this special season with the Viennese premiere of her first opera La liberazione on 6 October 2022 at the Kammeroper. The La Folia Baroque Orchestra will play under the direction of early music expert Clemens Flick, who will bring Caccini's work to life in his own version. (→ Kammeroper)

 
The Theater an der Wien is expanding its promotion of young talent under the nameCAMPUS. Among other things, as in this opening production, students from various European universities will regularly be seen on stage in suitable roles together with established singers. Young artists benefit from the experience of established performers such as Veronica Cangemi and Stefano Bernardin or from master classes with Stefan Herheim, Alexey Igudesman and Peter Eötvös.

Opening weeks at the new venue

In the first half of October of the new 2022/23 season, four centuries of music history will be celebrated at the new venue in the MuseumsQuartier: Under the title Resonanz, visitors can discover what it means when sound art enters into a liaison with visual art at the mumok and the Kunsthalle Wien. On the open day, the rooms of the MuseumsQuartier will be opened to the public. Short concerts, workshops and musical pop-ups provide insights into the world of music, theatre and musical theatre, bringing together curious people of all ages with die-hard opera lovers and whetting the appetite for more.

Masterpieces, rediscoveries and unusual formats

A century before Janáček's Füchslein, all of Vienna was in Rossini fever. His operatic melodrama La gazza ladra will be brought to Vienna by Tobias Kratzer, a successful director throughout Europe, for his directorial debut on 16 November 2022, interpreted under the musical direction of Antonino Fogliani by the ORF Radio Symphony Orchestra and bel canto stars such as Nino Machaidze, Maxim Mironov and Paolo Bordogna. (→ MQ Hall E)

A Spanish contemporary of Mozart was Vicente Martín y Soler, whose musical comedy L'arbore di Diana is based on a libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. This opera about the trials and tribulations of a pair of young lovers on the threshold of adulthood is in the hands of Spanish director Rafael R. Villalobos, the Bach Consort Wien and its director Rubén Dubrovsky. The title role will be sung by Verónica Cangemi, the premiere is on 3 December 2022. This production also features performers as part of the CAMPUS cooperation. (→ Kammeroper)

TaWumm! - The new music and cultural education programme under the direction of Stefan Herheim begins with a "WUMM"

Music theatre for young & old. For children, young people, families. That is the new music and cultural education programme TaWumm! It aims to create encounters and access and also pave the way for young people and less experienced audiences to find the right piece. Plays that are particularly suitable for this are given a TaWumm! tip.

Numerous school cooperations also take place within the framework of TaWumm! Workshops are offered for selected plays to get to know the music theatre pieces from different perspectives, including a visit to dress rehearsals.

The family opera at Christmas and another TaWumm! Tipis Gian Carlo Menotti's Amahl und die nächtlichen Besucher. The work, which premiered on American television on Christmas Eve in 1951 and is directed by Stefan Herheim, will celebrate its premiere on 15 December 2022. Members of the Vienna Boys' Choir will sing and make music together with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra conducted by Magnus Loddgard. (→ MQ Halle E)

On 16 January 2023, Jacques Offenbach's La Périchole will be the first operetta on the repertoire of the former operetta house. Anna Lucia Richter will sing the title role, director Nikolaus Habjan will literally make his puppets dance, and the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra will be conducted by Jordan de Souza. (→ MQ Hall E)

On 14 February 2023, the contemporary opera Der goldene Drache by Peter Eötvös will celebrate its premiere and Vienna premiere. It is based on the play of the same name by Roland Schimmelpfennig. Walter Kobéra conducts the Klangforum Wien PPCM Academy. Two of the five soloists are selected singers from the CAMPUS cooperation of the Theater an der Wien. (→ Kammeroper)

Handel's biblical oratorio Belshazzar is a work that is still performed far too rarely. On 20 February 2023, it will be performed in full by the Austrian lutenist and baroque harpist Christina Pluhar and the ensemble L'Arpeggiata, which she founded and leads. The production is by French director Marie-Eve Signeyrole. Shooting star Jeanine De Bique will sing Handel for the first time in Vienna. (→ MQ Hall E)

A co-production with the Teatro Real Madrid will celebrate its Vienna premiere on 22 March 2023: Carl Maria von Weber's romantic musical drama Der Freischütz in a production by David Marton, with a top-class cast including Alex Esposito as Kaspar, Jacquelyn Wagner as Agathe and Sofia Fomina as Ännchen. The Vienna Symphony Orchestra will perform. (→ MQ Hall E)

A very special project on 12 April 2023 is the opera performance SuperZero, Baby on the theme of value and worth, initiated by the Austrian-Kurdish artist Scharmien Zandi, winner of the Austrian Music Theatre Award, who is also developing the concept and directing. Young people between the ages of 14 and 20 with a musical background are being cast via the social media channels of the Theater an der Wien, with Marc Bruckner as musical director. (→ Kammeroper)

Another Austrian premiere is "The Idiot", the last opera by the Polish-Russian composer Mieczysław Weinberg, based on the novel of the same name by Dostoyevsky. It was premiered posthumously in Mannheim in 2013 and will be seen for the first time in Austria from 28 April 2023 in a production by Vasily Barkhatov. Michael Boder conducts the ORF Radio Symphony Orchestra Vienna. (→ MQ Hall E)

A jewel worth discovering is Erich Wolfgang Korngold's last stage work "Die stumme Serenade". The fantastic musical comedy in two acts will now receive its Austrian premiere on 5 June 2023, almost 70 years after its premiere in 1954. It will be performed by the Vienna Chamber Orchestra under Ingo Martin Stadtmüller. (→ Kammeroper)

Joint project with the Wiener Festwochen

Alban Berg's "Lulu" is the joint music theatre project of the Vienna Festival 2023 with the Theater an der Wien and will be staged by Cape Verdean choreographer Marlene Monteiro Freitas. With a top-class cast including Vera-Lotte Boecker as Lulu, Bo Skovhus in the role of Dr Schön and Anne Sofie von Otter as Countess Geschwitz, this production will premiere on 27 May 2023. In the orchestra pit, French conductor Maxime Pascal will lead the ORF Radio Symphony Orchestra Vienna. (→ MQ Hall E)

LATE NIGHT - chanson, musical satire and crossover at the Kammeroper

The new "Late Night" format at the Kammeroper is a programme for night owls: from musical cabaret to jazz, from improvisation to chanson, from baroque to ballroom, anything goes. Always from 9 pm.

The musical for an actress, here in an adaptation by Eike Ecker and Rainer Mühlbach, is also a birthday present to its creator, the legendary Georg Kreisler, who would have turned 100 this year. Katrin Wundsam is Lola Blau.

From 0 to opera is the motto on 20, 21 and 22 April 2023, when the virtuoso violinist, composer, conductor and actor Aleksey Igudesman comes together, so to speak at the last minute, with improvisation-loving students from a wide range of disciplines from the CAMPUS programme to create an opera evening in the shortest possible time. Humour, fun and spontaneity are guaranteed.

Telemannia is the name of the congenial show by multi-instrumentalists Georg Gratzer and Klemens Bittmann. With Telemann as their musical "trigger", the two break the boundaries of all genres and travel from jazz improvisations to Astor Piazzolla, from Radiohead to legendary film scores and, of course, to Telemann. 13 June 2023.

ENCORE - unique music by and with artists closely associated with the Theater an der Wien

In the new "Encore" series, musical partners closely associated with the theatre are given a stage beyond the big productions. This season it is Igudesman & Joo, two world stars of musical comedy, with whom further projects are planned and who will present their new programme Mambo Jambo. On the other hand, the Arnold Schoenberg Choir, long-time opera choir at the Theater an der Wien, celebrates its 50th anniversary with its musical director Erwin Ortner. Both "Encores" will be given in the MuseumsQuartier Hall E in the opening month of October 2022.