An eclectic musical adventure journey. The destination is a mysterious, magical portal that only opens once every hundred years. But where is this enchanted entrance? What is certain is that it is one of the many secrets of the enormous building housing the Wiener Staatsoper, and one that has been sought in vain since the opera house opened in 1869. Yet it is supremely important! For it is only by passing through it that Belmonte, Constanze and their friends can finally escape to freedom. Happily, children seem to have a special talent for finding this very door – with a little luck precisely on the only day when it is open. And so, with the help of these young visitors, for once the search could be crowned with success.

Commissioned by the Wiener Staatsoper, experienced theatre-maker and founder of the “Lower Austrian Fairytale Summer” Nina Blum has designed a multi-station mobile opera for children aged six to twelve intended to inspire a passion for opera in these young visitors. The paths to be travelled are also part of the production; each participant is both spectator and actor and will enjoy their own unique experience of the journey. Mozart’s The Abduction from the Seraglio forms the basis for this theatre experience lasting nearly one-and-a-half hours, with additional music written by Austrian composer Gerald Resch. Family performances at which children are accompanied by adults will be offered as well as school presentations.

Performances for school classes in the 2022/2023 season: October 10, 17, 18, November 10, 2022, February 27, 28, 8, 14, 20, 21, March 17, 18, April 30, May 1, 5, 6, June 20, 2023.

Age recommendation: 1st to 5th school level

Information and registration for school classes: Margarete Krenn-Arnold at jugend@wiener-staatsoper.at

Every year in the hours after the Opera Ball, the Vienna State Opera undergoes a miraculous transformation. Where there was dance music just a moment ago, there is suddenly the sound of a thousand children's laughter, you see young, curious eyes, enchanted faces. The ballroom is now a theatre stage, and here Mozart's Magic Flute is played in a version suitable for children. Tamino and Pamina, the Queen of the Night and Sarastro, Papageno as narrator, a colourful crowd of animals and many other characters populate the stage for an hour, and you can hear ensemble members and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.

Many of the 7,000 children who experience the two performances are in the Vienna State Opera for the first time, perhaps for the first time ever in a theatre. But if you watch the young visitors sitting all over the auditorium, you see how immediate and threshold-free opera is - by virtue of the music, the emotions, the performers. No wonder that more than a few of the 120,000 children who have experienced The Magic Flute at the State Opera have been so inspired by the unique energy of a live musical theatre performance that they are still telling us about this »State Opera experience« years later!

Registration and ticket allocation for school classes: Austrian Directorates of Education

The Vienna State Opera invites school classes to attend opera and ballet performances from our extensive repertoire at the reduced school group price of € 20 per person. Please write us your date requests to jugend@wiener-staatsoper.at.

Start of the new school year: In September and October - depending on availability - one school class can visit the Vienna State Opera every day. 

Dates from November 2022

Age recommendation: 7th to 12th/13th grade (depending on works)

Prices:
€ 20,-- Performances
€ 10,-- dress rehearsals
€ 8,-- Youth Opera: Tschick

The dress rehearsals and the performances of Tschick take place in the mornings.

Pre- or post-performance theatre education workshops are offered for the following works, which are free of charge in combination with a performance:        

• Opera: L'Orfeo, Don Giovanni, Le nozze di Figaro, Salome, Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria
• Ballet: Dornröschen, Goldberg Variations
• Youth opera: Tschick

Dates for school workshops can be arranged flexibly. Contact: jugend@wiener-staatsoper.at

The exclusive 10€ ticket contingent for the dress rehearsals of the new productions is also available to school classes. Teachers can place orders for their school classes at jugend@wiener-staatsoper.at 

Age recommendation: 7th to 12th/13th grade (depending on the work)

Information and registration for school classes: 
Margarete Krenn-Arnold jugend@wiener-staatsoper.at

In our participatory youth projects Opera Lab, Dance Lab and On the Road with Tschick, new productions are developed with children and young people, which will be performed together with professionals from the Vienna State Opera at various locations in Vienna from spring 2023.
Here you will soon find the premiere dates.

Impressions from our past participatory play developments:

Opera lab »Der letzte Tag«

Dance Lab »Pictures of a Dream«

Utoperas »Eine Jugend(chat)oper im Serienformat«

What is special about an opera production? Or what distinguishes the movement language of a choreography? In pre- or post-production theater workshops, students creatively explore the plot, themes, music or dance aesthetics of an opera or ballet and get to know the work in question even more deeply through staged play, joint music-making and improvisation.
The theater pedagogical workshops can be flexibly adapted to the knowledge level of the school class in exchange with the teacher. A workshop can be booked free of charge in connection with the booking of a performance visit and lasts 90 minutes. It takes place either live in the school or digitally. 

During a guided tour of the Vienna State Opera, schoolchildren learn many things that are otherwise hidden from evening opera-goers. During this 40-minute tour, they learn a lot of interesting facts about the history of the building, its architecture and the opera business. From the foyer, the tour continues via the grand staircase through the state rooms (Tea Salon, Marble Hall, Schwindfoyer, Gustav Mahler Hall) to the auditorium (with a view of the stage).

Rehearsals at an opera house are particularly exciting: individual scenes are worked on with the utmost concentration, processes are analyzed and examined, and a contemporary visual, movement and musical language is developed together. Singers, instrumentalists, the conductor and the directing team approach the work from a variety of directions in order to find a meaningful interpretation. In short, the upcoming performance is being created!

To give students an exclusive insight into this special workshop situation, the Vienna State Opera opens selected stage rehearsals to school classes.