Stefan Herheim as new artistic director at the Vienna Theater an der Vienna

TheStefan Herheim, director of the new Vienna Second Opera, is certainly no easy feat. While fellow Lotte de Beer only had to change the color of the Volksoper’s facade, the structural problems at the historic theater an der Wien are so great that it must remain closed for more than two years. After the building was inspected, the originally planned draining of the vault grew into a general renovation of the house. In the meantime, the electrical engineering including the photovoltaic system, fire protection, installations and elevators must be reconstructed. Of course, the stage will also be raised to the current state of art.

This costs a lot of money – about sixty million euros estimated to repair the Vienna Municipal Opera Theater – and time. Norwegian director Stefan Herheim did not want to leave this in vain during his first artistic direction. And so the newly named MusikTheater an der Wien (MTAW) will take place until the fall of 2024 in Winner Festival Hall E was used in the Museum District after a number of modifications: dozens of technology enclosures and toilets had to be stacked behind the building in order to be able to start operations. At the opening on 15/16. On October 10, Herheim announced an “open day” to show the temporary arrangement to a large audience: with public rehearsals and short concerts of the most important in-house orchestras, the ORF Radio Vienna Symphony Orchestra and the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, with panel discussions and children’s workshops, through which it was announced that The new youth program “TaWumm!”.

Despite restrictive conditions, Herheim presents thirteen premieres this season, eight at the Museumsquartier and five at the small chamber opera. Programmatically, it follows its predecessor Roland Geyer by combining rarely performed theatrical works such as Dostojewski’s preparation Mieczysław Weinberg “Der Idiot” (April 28, 2023, Director: Vasily Barkhatov) with such famous opera as Weber’s “Freischütz” (March 22). , 2023, Director: David Marton) or “Lulu” Berg (May 27, 2023, Director: Marilyn Montero Freitas) and a sequel to Baroque opera, which is rarely represented in competing state operas and folklore. The recesses of the pure theater process are also filled this time with nine musical performances of operas from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

It all began with Agostino Stefani’s work he composed for the Duchy of Hanover, “La lotta d’Ercole con Acheloo” (1689), which is based on a story from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. A lively one-act play with a mixture of Italian and French stylistic elements, which the world famous Stephanie knows from Jean-Baptiste Lully in Paris. Two distinguished singers, soprano Anna Prohaska and mezzo-soprano Sonia Runge, emerged from the solo quartet, elegantly accompanied by Bach Consort Wien under the leadership of Ruben Dubrovsky.