Volksoper Vienna
The Volksoper Wien is Europe´s leading operetta House and Vienna's largest theatre for opera, musical and dance - offering quality musical entertainment. Along with 18th, 19th and 20th century operas we offer more than 100 performances of (Viennese) operettas per year, as well as classical musical and contemporary dance.
In September 2003, Rudolf Berger - former Opera Director in Strasbourg - became Director of this 1,400 seat repertory theatre.
When it first started out, today's Volksoper Wien was neither a state-run theatre nor an opera house. It opened in 1898 as the "Kaiser's Jubilee Civic Theatre" and was initially run as a conventional stage for drama. Standard and comic singspiel operas had to wait until 1903 before they were incorporated into the repertoire: and Vienna's Civic Theatre gradually metamorphosed into the present day Volksoper Wien.
"Tosca" (1907) and "Salome" (1910) were first performed in Wien at the Volksoper Vienna; world famous singers such as Maria Jeritza, Leo Slezak or Richard Tauber would appear at the Volksoper Wien at the very outset of their careers; this was where Alexander Zemlinsky worked as a conductor and became first kapellmeister in 1906. Although the Volksoper Wien managed to attain a position as Vienna's second prestige opera house in the wake of the First World War, after 1929 it reverted to being a "New Viennese Theatre" with a repertoire focusing on light opera.
After the Second World War, the Volksoper Wien acted as the preferred alternative venue to the devastated Wiener Staatsoper.
With the re-opening of the Staatsoper in 1955, the Volksoper Wien again became an independent musical theatre featuring opera, operetta, and musicals. Ever since then, directors Franz Salmhofer (1955-63), Albert Moser (1963-73), Karl Dönch (1973-86), Eberhard Waechter (1987-92) Ioan Holender (1992-96) Klaus Bachler (1996-99) and Dominique Mentha (1999 - 2003) have helped to make the Volksoper Wien what it is today.
Address:
Währingerstraße 78,
1090 Vienna