Opera Air - an open air gala concert
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2025 is an important year for Austria. It marks the 80th anniversary of the liberation from National Socialism and the establishment of the Second Republic, and we are also celebrating 70 years of the State Treaty. but 1945 and 1955 are also crucial dates in the history of the Vienna State Opera: On March 12, 1945, bombs hit the building on the Ring, large parts burned out and it took 24 hours to extinguish the fire. Just two months after the destruction, emergency artistic operations were made possible in the Volksoper and later also in the Theater an der Wiener. Meanwhile, the Haus am Ring was rebuilt. The parties in the provisional government of 1945, consisting of the ÖVP, SPÖ and KPÖ, unanimously supported the reconstruction plan. The ceremonial reopening took place on November 5, 1955. After a ceremony in the morning with a lot of politics, Beethoven's Fidelio, "the" opera about unjust rule and liberation through love, was performed in the evening. And the performance became a symbol of a new Austria. Those who were not there were able to listen in via loudspeakers, 40 radio stations from all over the world broadcast the performance, and at the same time Austrian live television was born: people crowded into halls and inns - because who had a TV set at home in 1955 - to at least be there via television.
The fact that the new director of the Vienna State Opera, conductor Karl Böhm, had also been the last director during the Nazi era was kept quiet. The fact that Hans Tietjen, the director of Fidelio, was just as much a Nazi artist as Rudolf Eisenmenger, who was allowed to design the Iron Curtain and for whom great names such as Fritz Wotruba were passed over - that was not mentioned either. Like about many and many other things. in 1955, the Vienna State Opera was therefore a symbol for many things - for freedom, dedication, passion, identity. And unfortunately also for the highly questionable way in which Austria at the time dealt with its immediate past.
For the first time in the history of the house and also in remembrance of the years 1945 and 1955 , we are therefore opening the season with a large open-air opera festival. A first-class opera air concert awaitsyou in Vienna's Burggarten- with Elīna Garanča, Sonya Yoncheva, Jonas Kaufmann, Benjamin Bernheim and Boris Pinkhasovich, among others, as well as the Vienna State Opera Chorus and Orchestra. Bertrand de Billy conducts. And best of all: admission is free!
And - as in 1955 - television will also be there: ORF III will broadcast live, time-shifted from 8.15 pm. The concert will be available on ORF.ON for 3 months afterwards. ARTE will broadcast a slightly shortened version of the concert on September 18 and a short version on November 12. Both versions will be available in the ARTE Mediathek for one year after the first broadcast.
