WIENER STAATSOPER IN SUMMER 2024

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by Opera Charm Team

July 1, 2024

Following the presentation of NEST, the Wiener Staatsoper’s new venue in the Künstlerhaus, the 2023/2024 season is drawing to a close – the Opéra de Monte-Carlo with Cecilia Bartoli and the Barocchissimo programme will be performing at Haus am Ring until 11 July.

We would like to thank you for the excellent cooperation this season and wish you a wonderful and hopefully relaxing summer!

Our office will not be staffed continuously during the guest performance of the Opéra de Monte-Carlo until 12 July. We ask for your understanding that the response to your message may therefore be somewhat delayed and that we will only be able to answer enquiries outside the Barocchissimo performances after the theatre holidays. Our office will be closed from 13 July to 25 August 2024.

Below you will find an overview of the new cooperation between the Vienna State Opera and the Film Festival on Vienna’s Rathausplatz as well as a first preview of the start of the season.

WIENER STAATS OPER AT THE FILM FESTIVAL ON VIENNA’S TOWN HALL SQUARE

The intensified collaboration with the popular Film Festival am Wiener Rathausplatz will continue in 2024 – on 10 evenings, mostly on Sundays this summer, special opera and ballet performances from the Haus am Ring will once again be shown on the big screen directly in front of Vienna City Hall. In addition, the Vienna State Opera is also a fixed part of the programme of the Children’s Opera Festival, which shows productions every Friday afternoon from 5.00 pm in the Rathauspark.

Recordings of top-class performances of Madama Butterfly, The Lady of the Camellias, Manon Lescaut, Otello, L’Orfeo, Don Quixote, Live, La Fille du régiment, Le nozze di Figaro and Turandot can be experienced in a relaxed atmosphere (see below for detailed programme).

SEASON OPENER 2024/2025

The Wiener Staatsoper kicks off the 2024/2025 season with seven opera works – including a premiere and a revival – a ballet classic and special events such as the introductory matinee for the first new production, which will once again be kicked off by the popular Open Day on 1 September: on two dates, interested visitors can take a look behind the scenes of the impressive opera and ballet operations and experience the activities of the opera house on the Ring at first hand.

On 4 September, the exhibition “Dance Paintings by Franz Grabmayr” will open at the Vienna State Opera – the Austrian painter (1927-2015) had a special relationship with the Wiener Staatsoper, details will follow in due course.

On 5 September, the season begins on stage with Bizet‘s Carmen (conductor: Pier Giorgio Morandi, with Aigul Akhmetshina, Vittorio Grigolo, Erwin Schrott, Elsa Dreisig, among others) followed by La traviata (from 6 September; conductor: Domingo Hindi). September; conductor: Domingo Hindoyan, with Lisette Oropesa, Juan Diego Flórez, Ludovic Tézier and others) and the revival of Roméo et Juliette (from 8 September; conductor: Bertrand de Billy; with Nadine Sierra, Saimir Pirgu and others).

The Wiener Staatsballet performs Swan Lake with a changing cast (from 16 September; conductor: Paul Connelly, with Liudmila Konovalova and Masayu Kimoto and Kiyoka Hashimoto and Davide Dato, among others).

Rehearsals for the first premiere of the new season will also begin in mid-August: Verdi’s Don Carlo (26 September; conductor: Philippe Jordan, staging: Kirill Serebrennikov, with Asmik Grigorian, Roberto Tagliavini, Joshua Guerrero, Étienne Dupuis, Dmitry Ulyanov, Eve-Maud Hubeaux, among others; detailed press release to follow). On 15 September, director Bogdan Roščić will host an introductory matinee for this new production, in which he will present the work and the new production together with the performers.

The complete cast and the entire programme for September 2024 can be found on our website.

VIENNA OPERA BALL 2025

Applications for the opening committee of the 67th Vienna Opera Ball (27 February 2025) are open until 17 September 2024. Dance enthusiasts aged 18 to 25 (young ladies) or 18 to 28 (young men) with very good left-hand waltz skills have the opportunity to make their debut in the most beautiful ballroom in the world – applications are made exclusively via an online form on the Vienna State Opera website.

NEW MUSICIANS IN THE ORCHESTRA

Three new musicians joined the Wiener Staatsoper / Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra during the most recent auditions:

David Kessler (2nd violin, from 1 September), Gaspard Stankovski-Hoursiangou (2nd horn, from 1 September) and Bernhard Bittermann (2nd trumpet, from 1 September).

THE COMPLETE STATE OPERA PROGRAMME AT THE FILM FESTIVAL ON VIENNA’S RATSHAUSPLATZ

MADAMA BUTTERFLY (2020) | Giacomo Puccini
Philippe Jordan; Asmik Grigorian, Virginie Verrez, Freddie De Tommaso, Boris Pinkhasovich among others.
16 July | 21.15 Hours

DIE KAMELIENDAME (2024) | Frédéric Chopin – John Neumeier
Markus Lehtinen; Ketevan Papava, Timoor Afshar, Hyo-Jung Kang, Marcos Menha among others.
21 July | 21.15 Hours

Kinderoper FATIMA ODER VON DEN MUTIGEN KINDERN (2016) | Johanna Doderer
Benjamin Bayl; Carlos Osuna, Andrea Carroll, Sorin Coliban, Ulrike Helzel, Aura Twarowska, among others.
26 July | 17.04 Hours

MANON LESCAUT (2023) | Giacomo Puccini
Jader Bignamini; Anna Netrebko, Davide Luciano, Joshua Guerrero, Evgeny Solodovnikov among others.
28 July | 21.15 Hours

OTELLO (2023) | Giuseppe Verdi
Alexander Soddy; Jonas Kaufmann, Rachel Willis-Sørensen, Ludovic Tézier among others.
4 August | 21.00 Hours

L’ORFEO (2022) | Claudio Monteverdi
Pablo Heras-Casado; Kate Lindsey, Georg Nigl, Slávka Zámečníková, Christina Bock, Andrea Mastroni, Wolfgang Bankl, Hiroshi Amako among others.
11 August | 21.00 Hours

DON QUIXOTE (2016) | Ludwig Minkus – Rudolf Nurejew
Kevin Rhodes; Kamil Pavelka, Christoph Wenzel, Maria Yakovleva, Denys Cherevychko among others.
18 August | 20.25 Hours

LIVE – EIN VIDEOBALLETT (2020) | Franz Liszt – Hans van Manen
Axel Kober; Olga Esina, Marcos Menha
20 August | 20.45 Hours

Kinderoper DIE ZAUBERFLÖTE FÜR KINDER (2024) | Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Philippe Jordan; Rolando Villazón, Miriam Kutrowatz, Ilja Kazakov, Hiroshi Amako, Serena Sáenz, Florina Ilie, Thomas Ebenstein among others.
23 August | 17.03 Hours

LA FILLE DU RÉGIMENT (2007) | Gaetano Donizetti
Yves Abel; Natalie Dessay, Juan Diego Flórez, Janina Baechle, Carlos Álvarez among others.
23 August | 20.30 Hours

LE NOZZE DI FIGARO (2023) | Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Philippe Jordan; Andrè Schuen, Hanna-Elisabeth Müller, Peter Kellner, Ying Fang, Maria Nazarova, Patricia Nolz among others.
25 August | 20.30 Hours

Kinderoper DIE FEEN (2013) | Richard Wagner
Kathleen Kelly; Gergely Németi, Daniela Fally, Sorin Coliban, Donna Ellen, Monika Bohinec, Caroline Wenborne, Michael Roider, Hans Peter Kammerer among others.
30 August | 17.09 Hours

TURANDOT (2023) | Giacomo Puccini
Marco Armiliato; Asmik Grigorian, Jonas Kaufmann, Kristina Mkhitaryan among others.
1 September | 20.30 Hours

DIE ZAUBERFLÖTE A L'OPÉRA DE PARIS

October 2024

OPERA CHARM TEAM

PREMIERE OF ‘DON CARLO’ AT WIENER STAATSOPER

September 2024

Opera Charm Team

Alice Lechner

Alice Lechner comes from a music-loving family. Her first encounter with the opera universe was at the tender age of six. The grandeur of the stage productions and costumes, the backstage chatter, and last, but definitely not least, the music left her in awe, beginning with Mozart’s Don Giovanni. The overall feeling that opera awakens in anyone who gets a glimpse into this part of artistic eternity, that each and every day passes the test of time, was what drew her to stay and be a part of this world. The Opera House of Brașov became her second home, and the people who worked there were her second family.

Since then, Alice has devoted her spare time to maximising her musical knowledge through instrumental studies, studying both piano and violin for a short time. In the following years, her number one passion stepped out of the limelight and graciously gave way to Law Studies.
Since 2018 she has been studying Law at “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University in Iași.

Her passion for opera, even if it is no longer her top professional priority in terms of career, it has most definitely become her priority during her free time. Wanting to experience the best of both worlds and extend her musical horizons, she regularly attends opera performances throughout Romania and abroad.
With OPERA Charm Magazine, Alice aims to nurture her creative side to help it flourish and bloom and to discover, alongside the magazine’s readers, the fascinatingly complex world of opera.

Currently, she is an LL.M. in Business Law at “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University in Iași.

Oana Zamfir

Oana Zamfir is a second year MA student at the “George Enescu” National University of Arts, at the Department of Musicology.

She studied violin for 12 years at the “Stefan Luchian” High School of Art in Botosani, later focusing on the theoretical aspects of music. In 2019 she completed her bachelor studies in Musicology as a student of the National Academy of Music “Gheorghe Dima” in Cluj-Napoca. Her research during 2018-2019 brought to the forefront elements of the archaic ritual within works of composers who activated during the communist period, giving her the opportunity to start a research internship at the “Carl von Ossietzky” University in Germany. In this context, she recorded conversations with members of the Sophie Drinker Institute in Bremen, and had access to documents directly from the Myriam Marbé archive.

Since 2019 she has been a teacher of Music Education and Theoretical Music Studies, making full use of interactive methods in the musical training of students and working, at the same time, with the children’s choir founded in the first year of her activity.

Her interests include pursuing a degree in interior design in 2020.

Alexandru Suciu

Alexandru Suciu inherited his passion for art growing up in a family of several generations of musicians. He began his musical studies at the “Augustin Bena” School of Music in Cluj, where he studied piano and guitar. Even though his main study direction was philological, his passion for music prevailed. He began his academical journey at the Faculty of Letters of the “Babeș-Bolyai” University, studying Comparative literature and English. He continued by studying Opera Singing at the “Gheorghe Dima” National Music Academy. He also graduated the Musical Education section, followed by Artistic Directing at the Musical Performing Arts department.

His multidisciplinary education opened the doors towards research, which is seen both through his participation in national and international conferences and symposia, such as the Salzburg Easter School PhD-forum, organized by the Salzburg Universität or the Silesian Meeting of Young Scholars, organized by the Institute of English at the University of Silesia, as well as the collaboration with Opera Charm Magazine.

During his student years, he won several prizes, including the Grand Prize at the “Paul Constantinescu” National Musical Interpretation Competition, the Romanian Composers and Musicologists’ Union Prize at the same competition, the First Prize and the Schubert Prize at the “Ada Ulubeanu” Competition.

He further developed his artistic skills by specializing in courses and masterclasses held by personalities such as Vittorio Terranova, Giuseppe Sabbatini, Marian Pop, Ines Salazar, Riccardo Zanellato, Paolo Bosisio, Valentina Farcaș and Manuel Lange in contexts such as the Internationale Sommerakademie für Operngesang Deutschlandsberg, Corso Internazionale di Canto Lirico I.M.C. Licata or the Europäische Akademie für Musik und darstellende Kunst Montepulciano. Besides his activity on-stage, he currently teaches Opera Singing Didactics, and Pedagogical Practice within the Department for Teacher Education and Training at the “Gheorghe Dima” National Music Academy.

Cristina Fieraru

Cristina is a 24 year-old Romanian soprano & a student at the National University of Music Bucharest, where she pursues the MA program in Vocal Performance.

She made her debut in Pamina from “Die Zauberflöte” by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart at only 19 years old at the Bucharest National Opera House, as a member of the Ludovic Spiess Experimental Opera Studio. Over the years she made her debut in roles such as Contessa d’Almaviva (Le nozze di Figaro), Mimì & Musetta (La Bohème), Alice Ford (Falstaff), Erste Dame (Die Zauberflöte) in her university’s opera productions.
Her passion and experience extends in the field of choral music, too.

She has been part of our dream team since the fall of 2021. For a good period of time she took care of OPERA Charm’s social media and took you on the monthly journey through the history of opera through our Legends rubric – and a few times through the Theaters around the World rubric.

Her little soul rubric – from 2021 to present – is definitely the Conductors of the Future, where, every month, she gives you the chance to meet a young star of the world of conducting and, of course, to find out what’s the most charming feature of opera in these artists’ views.

BIANCA L. NICA

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