The Vienna State Opera (Wiener Staatsoper) is an opera house – and opera company – with a history dating back to the mid-19th century. It is located in the centre of Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

, Austria. It was originally called the Vienna Court Opera (Wiener Hofoper). In 1920, with the replacement of the Habsburg Monarchy

Habsburg Monarchy

The Habsburg Monarchy covered the territories ruled by the junior Austrian branch of the House of Habsburg , and then by the successor House of Habsburg-Lorraine , between 1526 and 1867/1918. The Imperial capital was Vienna, except from 1583 to 1611, when it was moved to Prague...

 by the First Austrian Republic

First Austrian Republic

The Republic of Austria encompasses the period of Austrian history following the signing of the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye of September 1919, the settlement after the end of World War I which put an end to the Republic of German Austria, continuing up to World War II...

, it was renamed the Vienna State Opera. The members of the Vienna Philharmonic are recruited from its orchestra.

History of the building

Construction

The building was the first major building on the Vienna Ringstraße

Ringstraße

The Ringstraße is a circular road surrounding the Innere Stadt district of Vienna, Austria and is one of its main sights...

 commissioned by the controversial Viennese "city expansion fund". Work commenced on the building in 1861 and was completed in 1869, following plans drawn up by architect

Architect

An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...

s August Sicard von Sicardsburg and Eduard van der Nüll

Eduard van der Nüll

Eduard van der Nüll was an Austrian architect, who was one of the great masters in the historicist style of Vienna's Ringstrasse.-Life and work:...

, who lived together in the 6. Bezirk

Bezirk

Bezirk means "district" in German and can refer to:* The primary Subdivisions of East Germany from 1952* The districts of Austria* Some of the Districts of Switzerland...

. It was built in the Neo-Renaissance

Neo-Renaissance

Renaissance Revival is an all-encompassing designation that covers many 19th century architectural revival styles which were neither Grecian nor Gothic but which instead drew inspiration from a wide range of classicizing Italian modes...

 style.

The Ministry of the Interior had commissioned a number of reports into the availability of certain building materials, with the result that stones long not seen in Vienna were used, such as Wöllersdorf

Wöllersdorf-Steinabrückl

Wöllersdorf-Steinabrückl is a municipality in the district of Wiener Neustadt-Land in Lower Austria, Austria.-References:...

er Stein, for plinths and free-standing, simply-divided buttresses, the famously hard stone from Kaisersteinbruch, whose colour was more appropriate than that of Kelheim

Kelheim

Kelheim is a municipality in Bavaria, capital of the district Kelheim. It is situated at the confluence of Altmühl and Danube. As of June 30, 2005, the town had a population of 15,667....

erstein, for more lushly decorated parts. The somewhat coarser-grained Kelheimerstein (also known as Solnhof Plattenstein) was intended as the main stone to be used in the building of the opera house, but the necessary quantity was not deliverable. Breitenbrunner

Breitenbrunn, Austria

Breitenbrunn am Neusiedler See is a small wine village in the district of Eisenstadt-Umgebung in Burgenland in Austria....

 stone was suggested as a substitute for the Kelheimer stone, and stone from Jois

Jois

Jois is a small town in the district of Neusiedl am See in Burgenland in Eastern Austria. It is on the northern shore of Lake Neusiedl, which straddles the border with Hungary....

 was used as a cheaper alternative to the Kaiserstein. The staircases were constructed from polished Kaiserstein, while most of the rest of the interior was decorated with varieties of marble

Marble

Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite.Geologists use the term "marble" to refer to metamorphosed limestone; however stonemasons use the term more broadly to encompass unmetamorphosed limestone.Marble is commonly used for...

.

The decision was made to use dimension stone

Dimension stone

Dimension stone is natural stone or rock that has been selected and fabricated to specific sizes or shapes. Color, texture and pattern, and surface finish of the stone are also normal requirements...

 for the exterior of the building. Due to the monumental demand for stone, stone from Sóskút

Sóskút

-References:...

, widely used in Budapest

Budapest

Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...

, was also used. Three Viennese masonry companies were employed to supply enough masonry labour: Eduard Hauser (still in existence today), Anton Wasserburger and Moritz Pranter. The foundation stone was laid on May 20, 1863.

Public response

The building was, however, not very popular with the public. On the one hand, it did not seem as grand as the Heinrichshof, a private residence which was destroyed in World War II (and replaced in 1955 by the Opernringhof). Moreover because the level of Ringstraße was raised by a metre in front of the opera house after its construction had begun, the latter was likened to "a sunken treasure chest" and, in analogy to the military disaster of 1866 (the Battle of Königgrätz

Battle of Königgrätz

The Battle of Königgrätz , also known as the Battle of Sadowa, Sadová, or Hradec Králové, was the decisive battle of the Austro-Prussian War, in which the Kingdom of Prussia defeated the Austrian Empire...

), was deprecatingly referred to as "the 'Königgrätz' of architecture". Eduard van der Nüll

Eduard van der Nüll

Eduard van der Nüll was an Austrian architect, who was one of the great masters in the historicist style of Vienna's Ringstrasse.-Life and work:...

 committed suicide, and barely ten weeks later Sicardsburg suffered a fatal heart attack so neither architect saw the completion of the building. The opening premiere was Don Giovanni

Don Giovanni

Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and with an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga on October 29, 1787...

, by Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...

, on May 25, 1869. Emperor Franz Josef

Franz Joseph I of Austria

Franz Joseph I or Francis Joseph I was Emperor of Austria, King of Bohemia, King of Croatia, Apostolic King of Hungary, King of Galicia and Lodomeria and Grand Duke of Cracow from 1848 until his death in 1916.In the December of 1848, Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria abdicated the throne as part of...

 and Empress Elisabeth

Elisabeth of Bavaria

Elisabeth of Austria was the spouse of Franz Joseph I, and therefore both Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary. She also held the titles of Queen of Bohemia and Croatia, among others...

 (Sissi) were present.

Wartime bombing and redesign

Towards the end of World War II, on March 12, 1945, the opera was set alight by an American bombardment.The front section, which had been walled off as a precaution, remained intact including the foyer

Foyer

A foyer or lobby is a large, vast room or complex of rooms adjacent to the auditorium...

, with fresco

Fresco

Fresco is any of several related mural painting types, executed on plaster on walls or ceilings. The word fresco comes from the Greek word affresca which derives from the Latin word for "fresh". Frescoes first developed in the ancient world and continued to be popular through the Renaissance...

es by Moritz von Schwind

Moritz von Schwind

thumb|Moritz von Schwind, c. 1860Moritz von Schwind was an Austrian painter, born in Vienna.Moritz von Schwind received rudimentary training and spent a happy and carefree youth in Vienna. Among his companions was the composer Schubert, some of whose songs he illustrated...

, the main stairways, the vestibule and the tea room. The auditorium and stage were, however, destroyed by flames as well as almost the entire décor and props for more than 120 operas with around 150,000 costumes. The State Opera was temporarily housed at the Theater an der Wien

Theater an der Wien

The Theater an der Wien is a historic theatre on the Left Wienzeile in the Mariahilf district of Vienna. Completed in 1801, it has seen the premieres of many celebrated works of theatre, opera, and symphonic music...

 and at the Vienna Volksoper

Vienna Volksoper

The Vienna Volksoper is a major opera house in Vienna, Austria. It gives about three hundred performances of twenty-five productions during an annual season running from September through June....

.

Lengthy discussions took place about whether the opera house should be restored to its original state on its original site, or whether it should be completely demolished and rebuilt, either on the same location or on a different site. Eventually the decision was made to rebuild the opera house as it had been, and the main restoration experts involved were Ernst Kolb (1948–1952) and Udo Illig (1953–1956).

The Austrian Federal Chancellor

Chancellor of Austria

The Federal Chancellor is the head of government in Austria. Its deputy is the Vice-Chancellor. Before 1918, the equivalent office was the Minister-President of Austria. The Federal Chancellor is considered to be the most powerful political position in Austrian politics.-Appointment:The...

 Leopold Figl

Leopold Figl

Leopold Figl was an Austrian politician of the Austrian People's Party and the first Federal Chancellor after World War II...

 made the decision in 1946 to have a functioning opera house again by 1949. An architectural competition was announced, which was won by Erich Boltenstern. The submissions had ranged from a complete restructuring of the auditorium to a replica of the original design; Boltenstern decided on a design similar to the original with some modernisation in keeping with the design of the 1950s. In order to achieve a good acoustic, wood was the favoured building material, at the advice of, among others, Arturo Toscanini

Arturo Toscanini

Arturo Toscanini was an Italian conductor. One of the most acclaimed musicians of the late 19th and 20th century, he was renowned for his intensity, his perfectionism, his ear for orchestral detail and sonority, and his photographic memory...

. In addition, the number of seats in the parterre (stalls) was reduced, and the fourth gallery, which had been fitted with columns, was restructured so as not to need columns. The facade, entrance hall and the "Schwind" foyer were restored and remain in their original style.

In the meantime, the opera company, which had at first been performing in the Volksoper, had moved rehearsals and performances to Theater an der Wien

Theater an der Wien

The Theater an der Wien is a historic theatre on the Left Wienzeile in the Mariahilf district of Vienna. Completed in 1801, it has seen the premieres of many celebrated works of theatre, opera, and symphonic music...

, where, on May 1, 1945, after the liberation and re-independence of Austria from the Nazis, the first performances were given. In 1947, the company went on tour to London.

Due to the appalling conditions at Theater an der Wien, the opera company leadership tried to raise significant quantities of money to speed up reconstruction of the original opera house. Many private donations were made, as well as donations of building material from the Soviets, who were very interested in the rebuilding of the opera.

However, in 1949, there was only a temporary roof on the Staatsoper, as construction work continued. It was not until November 5, 1955, (after the Austrian State Treaty

Austrian State Treaty

The Austrian State Treaty or Austrian Independence Treaty re-established Austria as a sovereign state. It was signed on May 15, 1955, in Vienna at the Schloss Belvedere among the Allied occupying powers and the Austrian government...

), that the Staatsoper could be reopened with a performance of Fidelio

Fidelio

Fidelio is a German opera in two acts by Ludwig van Beethoven. It is Beethoven's only opera. The German libretto is by Joseph Sonnleithner from the French of Jean-Nicolas Bouilly which had been used for the 1798 opera Léonore, ou L’amour conjugal by Pierre Gaveaux, and for the 1804 opera Leonora...

, by Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...

, conducted by Karl Böhm

Karl Böhm

Karl August Leopold Böhm was an Austrian conductor. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest symphonic and operatic conductors of the 20th century.- Education :...

. The new auditorium had a reduced capacity of about 2,100, including 567 standing room places. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/shows/viennaopera50/essay3.html The American Foreign Minister, John Foster Dulles

John Foster Dulles

John Foster Dulles served as U.S. Secretary of State under President Dwight D. Eisenhower from 1953 to 1959. He was a significant figure in the early Cold War era, advocating an aggressive stance against communism throughout the world...

, was present. The television station ORF used the occasion to make its first live broadcast, at a time when there were only c. 800 televiewers in the whole of Austria. The ensemble, which had remained unified until the opening, crumbled in the following years, and slowly an international ensemble formed.

History of the company after the war

In 1945, the Wiener Mozart-Ensemble was formed, which put on world-renowned guest performances and became known particularly for its singing and playing culture. The Austrian conductor Josef Krips

Josef Krips

Josef Alois Krips was an Austrian conductor and violinist.-Biography:Krips was born in Vienna and went on to become a pupil of Eusebius Mandyczewski and Felix Weingartner. From 1921 to 1924, he served as Weingartner's assistant at the Vienna Volksoper and as répétiteur and chorus master...

 was the founder and mentor, who had only survived the Nazi era (given his Jewish heritage) thanks to luck and help from colleagues. At the end of the war, Krips started the renovation of the Staatoper, and was able to implement his aesthetic principles, including the departure from the Romantic, Mozart ideal with a voluminous orchestral sound. Instead, qualities more associated with chamber music were featured, as well as a clearer, lighter sound, which would later come to be known as "typically Viennese". Singers who worked with Krips during this time were Erich Kunz

Erich Kunz

Erich Kunz was an Austrian operatic bass-baritone, particularly associated with the roles of Papageno and Beckmesser....

, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf

Dame Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, DBE was a German-born Austrian/British soprano opera singer and recitalist. She was among the most renowned opera singers of the 20th century, much admired for her performances of Mozart, Schubert, Strauss, and Wolf.-Early life:Olga Maria Elisabeth Friederike...

 and Wilma Lipp

Wilma Lipp

Wilma Lipp is an Austrian operatic soprano, particularly associated with Mozart roles, especially Konstanze in Die Entführung aus dem Serail and the Queen of the Night in The Magic Flute....

, among others.

As early as 1947, the Mozart-Ensemble was playing guest performances at the Royal Opera House

Royal Opera House

The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...

 in London, with Mozart's Don Giovanni. Richard Tauber

Richard Tauber

Richard Tauber was an Austrian tenor acclaimed as one of the greatest singers of the 20th century. Some critics commented that "his heart felt every word he sang".-Early life:...

, who had fled from the Nazis, sang Don Ottavio; three months later he died, and was remembered for singing with "half a lung" in order to fulfil his dream. many other artists became associated with the Mozart-Ensemble, for example Karl Böhm

Karl Böhm

Karl August Leopold Böhm was an Austrian conductor. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest symphonic and operatic conductors of the 20th century.- Education :...

, but their role was still greatly peripheral, in a straightforward or assisting role. This was the beginning of Krips' worldwide career, which would take him to the most prominent houses in the world. Until his death in 1974, Krips was regarded as one of the most important Maestri (conductors/music directors) of the Staatsoper.

On July 1, 1998, a historical broadcast took place, as Austria undertook its first presidency of the European Union

European Union

The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...

. Fidelio was broadcast live from the Vienna State Opera to the 15 capital cities of the EU.

Present day

The company

The Vienna State Opera is closely linked to the Vienna Philharmonic, which is an incorporated society of its own, but whose members are recruited from the orchestra of the Vienna State Opera.

The Wiener Staatsoper is one of the busiest opera houses in the world producing 50 to 60 operas per year in approximately 200 performances. It is quite common to find a different opera being produced each day of a week. As such, the Staatsoper employs over 1000 people. As of 2008, the annual operating budget of the Staatsoper was 100 million Euros with slightly more than 50% coming in the form of a state subsidy.

The opera company operates a repertoire system: more than 50 productions are staged every year, and there is a performance nearly every day for ten months of the year.

The opera's current musical director is Franz Welser-Möst

Franz Welser-Möst

Franz Welser-Möst is an Austrian conductor who is currently the music director for the Cleveland Orchestra and the Vienna State Opera.- Biography :...

.

Gustav Mahler

Gustav Mahler

Gustav Mahler

Gustav Mahler was a late-Romantic Austrian composer and one of the leading conductors of his generation. He was born in the village of Kalischt, Bohemia, in what was then Austria-Hungary, now Kaliště in the Czech Republic...

 was one of the many conductors who have worked in Vienna. During his tenure, Mahler cultivated a new generation of singers, such as Anna Bahr-Mildenburg

Anna von Mildenburg

Anna von Mildenburg was an eminent Wagnerian soprano of Austrian nationality. Known as Anna Bahr-Mildenburg after her 1909 marriage, she had been a protege of the composer/conductor Gustav Mahler during his musical directorship at the Hamburg State Opera...

 and Selma Kurz

Selma Kurz

Selma Kurz was an Austrian operatic soprano known for her brilliant coloratura technique.-Background:...

, and recruited a stage designer who replaced the lavish historical stage decors with sparse stage scenery corresponding to modernistic, Jugendstil tastes. Mahler also introduced the practice of dimming the lighting in the theatre during performances, which was initially not appreciated by the audience. However, Mahler's reforms were maintained by his successors.

Herbert von Karajan

Herbert von Karajan

Herbert von Karajan

Herbert von Karajan was an Austrian orchestra and opera conductor. To the wider world he was perhaps most famously associated with the Berlin Philharmonic, of which he was principal conductor for 35 years...

 introduced the practice of performing operas exclusively in their original language during his directorship of the company; prior to this, operas were performed in German. He also strengthened the ensemble

Musical ensemble

A musical ensemble is a group of people who perform instrumental or vocal music. In classical music, trios or quartets either blend the sounds of musical instrument families or group together instruments from the same instrument family, such as string ensembles or wind ensembles...

 and regular principal singers and introduced the policy of predominantly engaging guest singers; and began a collaboration with La Scala

La Scala

La Scala , is a world renowned opera house in Milan, Italy. The theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778 and was originally known as the New Royal-Ducal Theatre at La Scala...

 in Milan

Milan

Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

, in which both productions and orchestrations were shared. This created an opening for the prominent members of the Viennese ensemble to appear in Milan, especially to perform works by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...

 and Richard Strauss

Richard Strauss

Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...

.

2005/2006 season

At the beginning of the 2005–2006 season, the ballet companies of the Staatsoper and the Volksoper were united under the direction of Gyula Harangozó, which led to a reduction in the number of performers in the resulting ensemble. This has resulted in an increase in the number of guest stars engaged to work in the ballet. The practice of combining the two ballet companies proved an artistic failure, and Harangozó left when his contract expired in 2010. Starting with the 2010-2011 season, a new company has been formed called Wiener Staatsballet under the direction of former Paris Opera Ballet star dancer Manuel Legris

Manuel Legris

Manuel Legris is a French ballet dancer, born in Paris on October 10, 1964. He was a star dancer of the Paris Opera Ballet for 23 years. Since September 1, 2010, he has directed the Vienna State Opera Ballet....

. Legris eliminated Harangozós's policy of presenting nothing but traditional story ballets with guest artists in the leading roles, and is concentrating on establishing a strong in-house ensemble and has restored evenings of mixed bill programs, featuring works of George Balanchine

George Balanchine

George Balanchine , born Giorgi Balanchivadze in Saint Petersburg, Russia, to a Georgian father and a Russian mother, was one of the 20th century's most famous choreographers, a developer of ballet in the United States, co-founder and balletmaster of New York City Ballet...

, Jerome Robbins

Jerome Robbins

Jerome Robbins was an American theater producer, director, and choreographer known primarily for Broadway Theater and Ballet/Dance, but who also occasionally directed films and directed/produced for television. His work has included everything from classical ballet to contemporary musical theater...

, Jiří Kylián

Jiří Kylián

Jiří Kylián is a Czech dance choreographer.Kylián studied in Prague and, at the age of 20, won a scholarship at the Royal Ballet School in London. He joined the Stuttgart Ballet in 1968 and worked under John Cranko, where he began to choreograph. Kylián became Artistic Director of Nederlands Dans...

, William Forsythe

William Forsythe (dancer)

William Forsythe is an American dancer and choreographer resident in Frankfurt am Main in Hessen. He is known internationally for his work with the Ballett Frankfurt and The Forsythe Company...

, and many contemporary choreographers, as well as a reduced schedule of the classic story ballets.

2009 season

2009 marked the 140th anniversary of the Vienna Opera House. To celebrate this milestone a revolutionary idea designed to reach out and embrace a new audience was conceived. A giant 50 sqm screen was placed on the side of the opera house facing Kärntnerstraße. The screen was placed there for 4 months of the year and broadcast LIVE over 60 of the most famous opera's directly to the public. Madama Butterfly, The Magic Flute and Don Giovanni were amongst the stellar performances during this time. This hugely successful venture brought a new wave of operatic excitement and fervor to the many tourists and locals that experienced this cultural first.

2006/2007 season

For the 2006/07 season, the Staatsoper scheduled five new productions in the main auditorium, one premiere in the children's opera tent, and several revivals. The first premiere, on October 25, was Giuseppe Verdi

Giuseppe Verdi

Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...

's Otello

Otello

Otello is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Arrigo Boito, based on Shakespeare's play Othello. It was Verdi's penultimate opera, and was first performed at the Teatro alla Scala, Milan, on February 5, 1887....

, conducted by Daniele Gatti

Daniele Gatti

Daniele Gatti is an Italian conductor.Official website: He is currently Music Director of the Orchestre National de France, a role he assumed in September, 2008 , and also Chief Conductor of the Zurich Opera, a position he began in September, 2009; his contract is for three seasons, after which...

, directed by Christine Mielitz, with the title role sung by Johan Botha, Falk Struckmann

Falk Struckmann

Falk Struckmann is an operatic bass-baritone, particularly prominent in the Wagnerian repertoire.A Kammersänger of the Vienna State Opera, he made his debut there as Orest in Elektra on September 13, 1991...

 as Iago and Krassimira Stoyanova as Desdemona. On December 9, Strauss' Arabella

Arabella

Arabella is a lyric comedy or opera in 3 acts by Richard Strauss to a German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, their sixth and last operatic collaboration. It was first performed on 1 July 1933, at the Dresden Sächsisches Staatstheater....

 premiered, conducted by Franz Welser-Möst, direction by Sven-Eric Bechtolf, stage design by Rolf Glittenberg and costumes by Marianne Glittenberg. The main roles were filled by Adrianne Pieczonka

Adrianne Pieczonka

Adrianne Pieczonka, OC is a Canadian soprano opera singer. Pronounced AY-dree-in pyeh-CHON-kuh .She was born in Poughkeepsie, New York, and grew up near Toronto in Burlington and graduated from the Opera School of the University of Toronto. She also graduated from the University of Western Ontario...

 (Arabella), Genia Kühmeier (Zdenka), Thomas Hampson (Mandryka) and Michael Schade

Michael Schade

Michael Schade is a Canadian operatic tenor, who was born in Geneva and raised in Germany and Canada. He and his four children live in Oakville, Ontario; a city just outside of Toronto, Canada. The family has a second home in Vienna, Austria.Schade is considered a leading Mozart tenor...

 (Matteo).

The first new production of Jules Massenet

Jules Massenet

Jules Émile Frédéric Massenet was a French composer best known for his operas. His compositions were very popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and he ranks as one of the greatest melodists of his era. Soon after his death, Massenet's style went out of fashion, and many of his operas...

s Manon

Manon

Manon is an opéra comique in five acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Henri Meilhac and Philippe Gille, based on the 1731 novel L’histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut by the Abbé Prévost...

 since 1971 took place on March 3, 2007, conducted by Bertrand de Billy

Bertrand de Billy

Bertrand de Billy is a French conductor.He was born in Paris.After his career as an instrumental musician, de Billy began his conducting career in Paris. He later moved to Germany and built up his career as an opera conductor. He was the general music director at the Anhaltisches Theater in...

, directed by Andrei Şerban

Andrei Serban

Andrei Șerban is a Romanian-born American theater director. A major name in twentieth-century theater, he is renowned for his innovative and iconoclastic interpretations and stagings...

, with Anna Netrebko

Anna Netrebko

Anna Yuryevna Netrebko is an Russian operatic soprano. She now holds dual Russian and Austrian citizenship and currently resides in Vienna. She has been nicknamed "La Bellissima" by fans.-Biography:...

 in the title role and also starring Roberto Alagna

Roberto Alagna

Roberto Alagna is a French-Italian tenor. He was born in Clichy-sous-Bois, Seine-Saint-Denis, France.-Early years:Alagna was born outside of the city of Paris in 1963 to a family of Sicilian immigrants . As a teenager, the young Alagna began busking and singing pop in Parisian cabarets for tips...

 (Chevalier Des Grieux) and Adrian Eröd

Adrian Eröd

Adrian Eröd , baritone, is an Austrian opera singer. He was born in 1970, and is the son of composer Iván Erőd.- Career :After his studies with Walter Berry and Franz Lukasovsky at the Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, Adrian successfully participated in several competitions...

 (Lescaut). Gaetano Donizetti

Gaetano Donizetti

Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti was an Italian composer from Bergamo, Lombardy. His best-known works are the operas L'elisir d'amore , Lucia di Lammermoor , and Don Pasquale , all in Italian, and the French operas La favorite and La fille du régiment...

s La fille du régiment

La fille du régiment

La fille du régiment is an opéra comique in two acts by Gaetano Donizetti. It was written while the composer was living in Paris, with a French libretto by Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges and Jean-François Bayard.La figlia del reggimento, a slightly different Italian-language version , was...

 premiered on April 1, conducted by Yves Abel, direction by Laurent Pelly

Laurent Pelly

Laurent Pelly is a French opera and theatre director. At the age of 18, he founded the Compagnie Théâtrale du Pélican which, since 1982, has been co-directed by Agathe Mélinand...

 (via a co-production with Covent Garden Opera

Royal Opera House

The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...

, London, and the New York Metropolitan Opera

Metropolitan Opera

The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...

). Juan Diego Flórez

Juan Diego Flórez

Juan Diego Flórez is a Peruvian operatic tenor, particularly known for his roles in bel canto operas. On June 4, 2007, he received his country's highest decoration, the Gran Cruz de la Orden del Sol del Perú....

 as Tonio, Carlos Álvarez

Carlos Álvarez (baritone)

Carlos Álvarez is a Spanish baritone who has had a major international opera career since the early 1990s. His recording of the title role in Isaac Albéniz's Merlin with Plácido Domingo as King Arthur won a Latin Grammy Award in 2001, and his recording of the role of Ford in Giuseppe Verdi's...

 as Sulpice and Montserrat Caballé

Montserrat Caballé

Montserrat Caballé is a Spanish operatic soprano. Although she sang a wide variety of roles, she is best known as an exponent of the bel canto repertoire, notably the works of Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti and Verdi....

 as Duchesse de Crakentorp appeared beside Natalie Dessay

Natalie Dessay

Natalie Dessay is a French coloratura soprano. She dropped the silent "h" in her first name in honor of Natalie Wood when she was in grade school and subsequently simplified the spelling of her surname outside France...

 as Marie. The final premiere of the season was Boris Godunov

Boris Godunov (opera)

Boris Godunov is an opera by Modest Mussorgsky . The work was composed between 1868 and 1873 in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It is Mussorgsky's only completed opera and is considered his masterpiece. Its subjects are the Russian ruler Boris Godunov, who reigned as Tsar during the Time of Troubles,...

 by Modest Mussorgsky

Modest Mussorgsky

Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky was a Russian composer, one of the group known as 'The Five'. He was an innovator of Russian music in the romantic period...

 on May 28; conducted by Daniele Gatti, direction by Yannis Kokkos. Ferruccio Furlanetto

Ferruccio Furlanetto

Ferruccio Furlanetto is an Italian bass. His professional debut was in 1979 at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, in a production of Verdi's Macbeth, conducted by Claudio Abbado...

 (Boris Godunov), Jorma Silvasti (Shuysky), Robert Holl (Pimen), Clifton Forbis (Grigoriy), Nadia Krasteva (Marina) and Falk Struckmann (Rangoni) were the cast.

Mira Lobe

Mira Lobe

Mira Lobe was an Austrian writer of nearly 100 children's books.Some of her books were translated into English and other languages, such as Es ging ein Schneemann durch das Land, which became The snowman who went for a walk in English...

's children's book "Die Omama im Apfelbaum" (The Omama in the Apple Tree) was the basis for Elisabeth Naske's children's opera of the same name, which was commissioned by the Wiener Staatsoper and first performed on April 15. Mozart's early work Bastien und Bastienne

Bastien und Bastienne

Bastien und Bastienne , K. 50 is a one-act singspiel, a comic opera, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart....

 was revived in the same performance space on September 24.

The opera house and children

The Vienna State Opera is particularly open to children: under Holender's direction (he has three children of his own), the opera house has become well known for its children's productions, which are performed in a tent on the roof of the Staatsoper. Recent examples include Peter Pan

Peter Pan

Peter Pan is a character created by Scottish novelist and playwright J. M. Barrie . A mischievous boy who can fly and magically refuses to grow up, Peter Pan spends his never-ending childhood adventuring on the small island of Neverland as the leader of his gang the Lost Boys, interacting with...

, Das Traumfresserchen (The Dream-Gobbler), Der 35. Mai (The 35th of May), Aladdin, Bastien and Bastienne and Wagners Nibelungenring fuer Kinder (Wagners Ring for children). In addition to this, there is a production of The Magic Flute

The Magic Flute

The Magic Flute is an opera in two acts composed in 1791 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a Singspiel, a popular form that included both singing and spoken dialogue....

 every year for 9- and 10-year-olds, decorated like the Opernball

Vienna Opera Ball

The Vienna Opera Ball is an annual Austrian society event which takes place in the building of the Vienna State Opera on the Thursday preceding Ash Wednesday. Together with the New Year Concert, the Opera Ball is one of the highlights of the Viennese carnival season...

.

The opera house also has an opera school for boys and girls between the ages of eight and fourteen, which takes place in the afternoons, around normal schooling. The children are taught in a manner appropriate to their continuing in a singing career; the opera recruits for children's roles from this opera school. Twice every season there is a special matinee performance of the opera school. In the year of Mozart 2006 they performed a 20 minute miniature opera "Der kleine Friedrich" arranged with songs of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...

 by Janko Kastelic

Janko Kastelic

Janko Kastelic is a conductor from Canada who is currently the music director for the Opera House of Maribor, Slovenia.- Biography :...

 and Claudia Toman.

The "Standing place only" audience at the Wiener Staatsoper

Immediately before each performance, cheap, standing place tickets are sold. These are popular with all age groups, and now have an almost legendary regular clientele, which allegedly is merciless in showing its displeasure with a performance loudly and unambiguously, but is even louder in voicing approval.

Der Neue Merker

Every performance at the Wiener Staatsoper is reviewed by an independent company in the opera publication Der Neue Merker (The New Flag) which is printed in about 2000 copies. This is unusual in that most opera magazines prefer to concentrate on new productions and premieres. There is an online version parallel to the publication, which receives (as of March 2007) an average of 10000 visitors a week, and therefore is one of the most successful German-language opera portals.

The opera ball

For many decades, the opera house has been the venue of the Vienna Opera Ball

Vienna Opera Ball

The Vienna Opera Ball is an annual Austrian society event which takes place in the building of the Vienna State Opera on the Thursday preceding Ash Wednesday. Together with the New Year Concert, the Opera Ball is one of the highlights of the Viennese carnival season...

. It is an internationally-renowned event, which takes place annually on the last Thursday in Fasching

Carnival in Germany, Switzerland and Austria

In German-speaking countries, there are essentially two distinct variations of Carnivals: the Rhenish Carnival in the west of Germany centred around the cities of Düsseldorf, Cologne and Mainz, and the Alemannic or Swabian-Alemannic Fastnacht in Swabia , Switzerland, Alsace and Vorarlberg .The...

. Those in attendance often include visitors from around the world, especially prominent names in business and politics. The opera ball receives media coverage from a range of outlets.

The opera ball in 1968 was the occasion for a protest, at which the organisation was criticised for being "elite" (due to the high prices), "conceited" (due to the opulent display of wealth for the newspapers and cameras) and "reactionary" (for upholding an allegedly outdated culture). There was violence between the demonstrators and the police.

Directors / General managers

In chronological order, the directors (or general managers) of the Staatsoper have been:

• Franz von Dingelstedt
  Franz von Dingelstedt
  Franz von Dingelstedt was a German poet, dramatist and theatre administrator.-Biography:Dingestedt was born at Halsdorf, Hesse-Kassel , Germany, and later studied at the University of Marburg nearby. In 1836 he became a master at the Lyceum in Kassel, from where he was transferred to Fulda in 1838...
  
   (1867–1870)
• Johann von Herbeck
  Johann von Herbeck
  Johann Ritter von Herbeck was an Austrian musician, born in Vienna, best known for leading the premiere of Franz Schubert's "Unfinished" Symphony....
  
   (1870–1875)
• Franz von Jauner
  Franz von Jauner
  Franz Ritter von Jauner was an Austrian theatre director and opera intendant.- References :...
  
   (1875–1880)
• Wilhelm Jahn
  Wilhelm Jahn
  Wilhelm Jahn was an Austro-Hungarian conductor. He served as director of the Vienna Court Opera from 1880 to 1897 and principal conductor of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra from 1882 to 1883. He gave the partial premiere of Bruckner's Symphony No. 6, performing the middle two movements in 1883....
  
   (1881–1897)
• Gustav Mahler
  Gustav Mahler
  Gustav Mahler was a late-Romantic Austrian composer and one of the leading conductors of his generation. He was born in the village of Kalischt, Bohemia, in what was then Austria-Hungary, now Kaliště in the Czech Republic...
  
   (1897–1907)
• Felix Weingartner, Edler von Münzberg
  Felix Weingartner
  Paul Felix von Weingartner, Edler von Münzberg was an Austrian conductor, composer and pianist.-Biography:...
  
   (first term, 1908–1911)
• Hans Gregor
  Hans Gregor
  Hans Gregor was a German actor and arts administrator.Gregor directed several German-language theaters, including in Barmen-Elberfeld from 1898 to 1905. In Berlin, he led the Komische Oper as its director from 1905 to 1911...
  
   (1911–1918)
• Richard Strauss
  Richard Strauss
  Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
  
   / Franz Schalk
  Franz Schalk
  Franz Schalk was an Austrian conductor. From 1918 to 1929 he was director of the Vienna State Opera, a post he held jointly with Richard Strauss from 1919 to 1924. Later, Schalk was involved in the establishment of the Salzburg Festival.-Biography:Schalk was born in Vienna, Austria, where he later...
  
   (1919–1924)
• Franz Schalk (1924–1929)
• Clemens Krauss
  Clemens Krauss
  Clemens Heinrich Krauss was an Austrian conductor and opera impresario, particularly associated with the music of Richard Strauss.-Biography:...
  
   (1929–1934)
• Felix von Weingartner (second term, 1935–1936)
• Erwin Kerber (1936–1940)
• Heinrich Karl Strohm
  Heinrich Karl Strohm
  Heinrich Karl Strohm was a German opera manager of the Vienna Staatsoper.-References:...
  
   (1940–1941)
• Lothar Müthel
  Lothar Müthel
  Lothar Max Müthel was a German stage and film actor and director.Müthel was born in Berlin, Germany where he attended the acting school of Max Reinhardt, Schauspielschule, Berlin....
  
   (1941–1942)

• Karl Böhm
  Karl Böhm
  Karl August Leopold Böhm was an Austrian conductor. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest symphonic and operatic conductors of the 20th century.- Education :...
  
   (first term, 1943–1945)
• Franz Salmhofer
  Franz Salmhofer
  Franz Salmhofer was an Austrian composer, clarinetist, conductor and poet. He studied the clarinet, composition and musicology in Vienna and was a pupil of Franz Schreker and Franz Schmidt...
  
   (1945–1954)
• Karl Böhm (second term, 1954–1956)
• Herbert von Karajan
  Herbert von Karajan
  Herbert von Karajan was an Austrian orchestra and opera conductor. To the wider world he was perhaps most famously associated with the Berlin Philharmonic, of which he was principal conductor for 35 years...
  
   (1956–1964) (artistic director)
• Egon Hilbert
  Egon Hilbert
  Egon Hilbert was an Austrian opera/theatre director.- Biography :Hilbert was born in Vienna, Austria where he would later study law and philosophy at the Universität Wien....
  
   (1964–1968)
• Heinrich Reif-Gintl
  Heinrich Reif-Gintl
  Heinrich Reif-Gintl was an Austrian opera manager and theatre director.Reif-Gintl began his career in theater administration in 1923, and directed the Vienna Staatsoper for four years, beginning in 1968....
  
   (1968–1972)
• Rudolf Gamsjäger
  Rudolf Gamsjäger
  Rudolf Gamsjäger , was an Austrian opera administrator. He served as general director of the Vienna State Opera from 1972 to 1976....
  
   (1972–1976)
• Egon Seefehlner
  Egon Seefehlner
  Egon Seefehlner was an Austrian jurist, editor and opera intendant.Seefehlner was born in Vienna Austria where he studied law at the Konsularakademie Wien. From 1938 to 1943 it was active in the politico-economic department of AEG, Berlin. From 1945 to 1961 he returned to Vienna where he worked as...
  
   (first term, 1976–1982)
• Lorin Maazel
  Lorin Maazel
  Lorin Varencove Maazel is an American conductor, violinist and composer.- Early life :Maazel was born to Jewish-American parents in Neuilly-sur-Seine in France and brought up in the United States, primarily at his parents' home in Pittsburgh's Oakland neighborhood. His father, Lincoln Maazel , was...
  
   (1982–1984)
• Egon Seefehlner (second term, 1984–1986)
• Claus Helmut Drese
  Claus Helmut Drese
  Claus Helmut Drese was a German opera and theatre administrator, and author.-Early career:Drese led the theatre in Heidelberg from 1959 to 1962...
  
   (1986–1991); musical director: Claudio Abbado
  Claudio Abbado
  Claudio Abbado, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI , is an Italian conductor. He has served as music director of the La Scala opera house in Milan, principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, principal guest conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, music director of the Vienna State Opera,...
  
  
• Eberhard Wächter (1991–1992)
• Ioan Holender
  Ioan Holender
  Ioan Holender is a Romanian born Austrian opera administrator.Holender was born in Timişoara, Romania. His family is of Jewish ancestry, and growing up, he spoke 3 languages. His father owned a factory in Timişoara, which was expropriated in 1948. Holender studied mechanical engineering at the...
  
   (1992–2010); musical director: Seiji Ozawa
  Seiji Ozawa
  is a Japanese conductor, particularly noted for his interpretations of large-scale late Romantic works. He is most known for his work as music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and principal conductor of the Vienna State Opera.-Early years:...
  
   (2002–2010)
• Dominique Meyer (2010–present); musical director: Franz Welser-Möst
  Franz Welser-Möst
  Franz Welser-Möst is an Austrian conductor who is currently the music director for the Cleveland Orchestra and the Vienna State Opera.- Biography :...
  
   (2010–present)

Prominent artists

Karajan's principle of guest principals remains today; many great artists have appeared at the Staatsoper.

Singers

• Theo Adam
  Theo Adam
  Theo Adam is a distinguished German classical bass-baritone who had an active international career in operas, concerts, and recitals from the 1940s through the 1990s. He particularly excelled in portraying roles from the operas of Richard Wagner...
  
  
• Giacomo Aragall
  Giacomo Aragall
  Jaume Aragall i Garriga better known as Giacomo Aragall is a Catalan Spanish tenor, born in Barcelona, Spain on 6 June 1939.After his initial studies in Barcelona under Jaime Francisco Puig, Giacomo Aragall travelled to Milan on a scholarship from the Liceu to study with Maestro Vladimir Badiali...
  
  
• Agnes Baltsa
  Agnes Baltsa
  Agnes Baltsa is a leading Greek mezzo-soprano.Baltsa was born in Lefkada. She began playing piano at the age of six, before moving to Athens in 1958 to concentrate on singing...
  
  
• Ettore Bastianini
  Ettore Bastianini
  Ettore Bastianini was an Italian opera singer who was particularly associated with the operas of Verdi. He had a prolific international career between 1945 and 1965 which was cut short by throat cancer. He began his professional career as a bass working in opera houses throughout Italy and in...
  
  
• Teresa Berganza
  Teresa Berganza
  Teresa Berganza, born on March 16, 1935), is a Spanish mezzo-soprano. She is most closely associated with the roles of Rossini, Mozart, and Bizet. She is admired for her technical virtuosity, musical intelligence and beguiling stage presence.- Biography :...
  
  
• Walter Berry
• Franco Bonisolli
  Franco Bonisolli
  Franco Bonisolli was an Italian operatic tenor, particularly associated with the Italian repertory, notably as Manrico and Calaf.-Life and career:...
  
  
• Montserrat Caballé
  Montserrat Caballé
  Montserrat Caballé is a Spanish operatic soprano. Although she sang a wide variety of roles, she is best known as an exponent of the bel canto repertoire, notably the works of Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti and Verdi....
  
  
• Maria Callas
  Maria Callas
  Maria Callas was an American-born Greek soprano and one of the most renowned opera singers of the 20th century. She combined an impressive bel canto technique, a wide-ranging voice and great dramatic gifts...
  
  
• José Carreras
  José Carreras
  Josep Maria Carreras i Coll , better known as José Carreras , is a Spanish Catalan tenor particularly known for his performances in the operas of Verdi and Puccini...
  
  
• Mimi Coertse
  Mimi Coertse
  Mimi Coertse , is a South African soprano.-Early life:Coertse, born in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, matriculated at the Helpmekaar Girls High School in Johannesburg. She began vocal studies in South Africa in 1949. In July 1953 she married the broadcaster and composer Dawid Engela. She left South Africa...
  
  
• Franco Corelli
  Franco Corelli
  Franco Corelli was a famous Italian tenor who had a major international opera career between 1951 and 1976. Associated in particular with the spinto and dramatic tenor roles of the Italian repertory, he was celebrated universally for his powerhouse voice, electrifying top notes, clear timbre, a...
  
  
• José Cura
  José Cura
  José Cura is a prominent operatic tenor known for his intense and original interpretations of his characters, notably Verdi’s Otello and Saint-Saëns’ Samson, as well as for his unconventional and innovative concert performances. He is also able to perform high baritone roles with the extended...
  
  
• Giuseppe Di Stefano
  Giuseppe Di Stefano
  Giuseppe Di Stefano was an Italian operatic tenor who sang professionally from the late 1940s until the early 1990s. He was known as the "Golden voice" or "The most beautiful voice", as the true successor of Beniamino Gigli...
  
  
• Plácido Domingo
  Plácido Domingo
  Plácido Domingo KBE , born José Plácido Domingo Embil, is a Spanish tenor and conductor known for his versatile and strong voice, possessing a ringing and dramatic tone throughout its range...
  
   (40th jubilee in May 2007)
• Otto Edelmann
  Otto Edelmann
  Otto Edelmann was an Austrian bass. He was born in Vienna and studied singing in Vienna with Gunnar Graarud. His debut was at Gera as Figaro in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro. He later sang the Vienna State Opera, the Edinburgh Festival and the Metropolitan Opera...
  
  
• Juan Diego Flórez
  Juan Diego Flórez
  Juan Diego Flórez is a Peruvian operatic tenor, particularly known for his roles in bel canto operas. On June 4, 2007, he received his country's highest decoration, the Gran Cruz de la Orden del Sol del Perú....
  
  
• Mirella Freni
  Mirella Freni
  Mirella Freni, birth name Mirella Fregni, is an Italian opera soprano whose repertoire includes Verdi, Puccini, Mozart and Tchaikovsky...
  
  
• Ferruccio Furlanetto
  Ferruccio Furlanetto
  Ferruccio Furlanetto is an Italian bass. His professional debut was in 1979 at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, in a production of Verdi's Macbeth, conducted by Claudio Abbado...
  
  
• Elīna Garanča
  Elina Garanca
  -Biography:Garanča was born in the Latvian city of Riga into a musical family, her father a choral director, mother a lieder singer and singing teacher. Her mother Anita is a professor at the Latvian Academy of Music, an associated professor at the Latvian Academy of Culture, a vocal music teacher...
  
  
• Angela Gheorghiu
  Angela Gheorghiu
  Angela Gheorghiu is a Romanian soprano opera singer. Since her professional debut in 1990, she has sung as soprano leading roles at New York's Metropolitan Opera, Covent Garden's Royal Opera House, the Vienna State Opera, Milan's La Scala, and many other opera houses in Europe and the United States...
  
  
• Nicolai Ghiaurov
  Nicolai Ghiaurov
  Nicolai Ghiaurov was a Bulgarian opera singer and one of the most famous bass singers of the postwar period. He was admired for his powerful, sumptuous voice, and was particularly associated with roles of Verdi.Ghiaurov married the Italian soprano Mirella Freni in 1978...
  
  

• Tito Gobbi
  Tito Gobbi
  Tito Gobbi was an Italian operatic baritone with an international reputation.-Biography:Tito Gobbi was born in Bassano del Grappa and studied law at the University of Padua before he trained as a singer. Giulio Crimi, a well-known Italian tenor of a previous generation, was Gobbi's teacher in Rome...
  
  
• Edita Gruberová
  Edita Gruberová
  Edita Gruberová , is a Slovak soprano who is one of the most acclaimed coloraturas of recent decades. She is noted for her great tonal clarity, agility, dramatic interpretation, and ability to sing high notes with great power, which made her an ideal Queen of the Night in her early years...
  
   (40th jubilee in September 2008)
• Thomas Hampson
• Hans Hotter
  Hans Hotter
  Hans Hotter was a German operatic bass-baritone, admired internationally after World War II for the power, beauty, and intelligence of his singing, especially in Wagner operas. He was extremely tall and his appearance was striking because of his high, narrow face, wide mouth, and big, aquiline nose...
  
  
• Gundula Janowitz
  Gundula Janowitz
  Gundula Janowitz is an Austrian lyric soprano singer of operas, oratorios and concerts. She is one of the most renowned opera singers of the 20th century and was pre-eminent in the 1960s and 1970s.-Career:...
  
  
• Maria Jeritza
  Maria Jeritza
  Maria Jeritza , born Marie Jedličková, was a celebrated Moravian soprano singer, long associated with the Vienna State Opera and the Metropolitan Opera...
  
  
• Gwyneth Jones
• Vesselina Kasarova
  Vesselina Kasarova
  Vesselina Kasarova is a Bulgarian mezzo-soprano opera singer.- Early life and education :Vesselina Kasarova was born in the central Bulgarian town of Stara Zagora. Under the communist regime she studied Russian as a second language and had an early start in music education...
  
  
• Jonas Kaufmann
  Jonas Kaufmann
  Jonas Kaufmann is a German operatic tenor. Although he has sung a variety of leading roles including both the Mozart and Wagner repertoire, he is particularly known for his performances in spinto roles such as Don José in Carmen, Cavaradossi in Tosca, Maurizio in Adriana Lecouvreur, and the title...
  
  
• Angelika Kirchschlager
  Angelika Kirchschlager
  Angelika Kirchschlager is an Austrian mezzo-soprano opera and lieder singer.-Career:Kirchschlager began her musical training at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, where she studied percussion and piano. In 1984, she went to the Vienna Music Academy, where she studied with Gerhard Kahry and Walter Berry...
  
  
• Alfredo Kraus
  Alfredo Kraus
  Alfredo Kraus Trujillo was a distinguished Spanish tenor of partly Austrian descent, particularly known for the artistry he brought to opera's bel canto roles...
  
  
• Erich Kunz
  Erich Kunz
  Erich Kunz was an Austrian operatic bass-baritone, particularly associated with the roles of Papageno and Beckmesser....
  
  
• Selma Kurz
  Selma Kurz
  Selma Kurz was an Austrian operatic soprano known for her brilliant coloratura technique.-Background:...
  
  
• Christa Ludwig
  Christa Ludwig
  Christa Ludwig is a retired German mezzo-soprano, distinguished for her performances of opera, Lieder, oratorio and other major religious works like masses and passions, and solos contained in symphonic literature...
  
   (final operatic performance in Elektra, 1994)
• Anna Moffo
  Anna Moffo
  Anna Moffo was an Italian-American opera singer and one of the leading lyric-coloratura sopranos of her generation...
  
  
• Anna Netrebko
  Anna Netrebko
  Anna Yuryevna Netrebko is an Russian operatic soprano. She now holds dual Russian and Austrian citizenship and currently resides in Vienna. She has been nicknamed "La Bellissima" by fans.-Biography:...
  
  
• Birgit Nilsson
  Birgit Nilsson
  right|thumb|Nilsson in 1948.Birgit Nilsson was a celebrated Swedish dramatic soprano who specialized in operatic and symphonic works...
  
  
• Jessye Norman
  Jessye Norman
  Jessye Norman is an American opera singer. Norman is a well-known contemporary opera singer and recitalist, and is one of the highest paid performers in classical music...
  
  
• Jarmila Novotná
  Jarmila Novotná
  Jarmila Novotná was a celebrated Czech soprano and actress and, from 1940 to 1956, a star of the Metropolitan Opera.-Early career:...
  
  
• Luciano Pavarotti
  Luciano Pavarotti
  right|thumb|Luciano Pavarotti performing at the opening of the Constantine Palace in [[Strelna]], 31 May 2003. The concert was part of the celebrations for the 300th anniversary of [[St...
  
  
• Alfred Piccaver
  Alfred Piccaver
  Alfred Piccaver was a British-American operatic tenor. He was particularly noted for his performances as Rodolfo in Giacomo Puccini's La bohème and other popular mainstream operatic roles.-Early years:...
  
  

• Hermann Prey
  Hermann Prey
  Hermann Prey was a German lyric baritone. He is most famous for lieder and for light comic baritone roles in opera.-Biography:...
  
  
• Gianni Raimondi
  Gianni Raimondi
  Gianni Raimondi was an Italian lyric tenor, particularly associated with the Italian repertory.Born in Bologna, Raimondi studied at the Music Conservatory of his native city with Antonio Melandri, and Gennaro Barra-Caracciolo and in Mantua with Ettore Campogalliani...
  
  
• Ruggero Raimondi
  Ruggero Raimondi
  Ruggero Raimondi is an Italian bass-baritone opera singer who has also appeared in motion pictures.-Early training and career:Ruggero Raimondi was born in Bologna, Italy, during World War II...
  
  
• Maria Reining
  Maria Reining
  Maria Reining was an Austrian soprano and Kammersänger.At first, Reining worked as in a Viennese bank, and didn't commence her signing career until the age of 28, when she started to sing at the Vienna State Opera, mainly in soubrette roles...
  
  
• Leonie Rysanek
  Leonie Rysanek
  Leopoldine "Leonie" Rysanek was an Austrian dramatic soprano.-Biography:Rysanek was born in Vienna and made her operatic debut in 1949 in Innsbruck. In 1951 the Bayreuth Festival reopened and the new leader Wieland Wagner asked her to sing Sieglinde...
  
  
• Matti Salminen
  Matti Salminen
  Matti Salminen is a Finnish operatic bass singer, who has sung at all of the most important opera houses of the world, including the Metropolitan and Bayreuth Festival....
  
  
• Elisabeth Schwarzkopf
  Elisabeth Schwarzkopf
  Dame Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, DBE was a German-born Austrian/British soprano opera singer and recitalist. She was among the most renowned opera singers of the 20th century, much admired for her performances of Mozart, Schubert, Strauss, and Wolf.-Early life:Olga Maria Elisabeth Friederike...
  
  
• Renata Scotto
  Renata Scotto
  Renata Scotto is an Italian soprano and opera director.Recognized for her sense of style, musicality and as a remarkable singer-actress, Scotto is considered one of the preeminent singers of her generation, specializing in the bel canto repertoire with excursions into the verismo and Verdi...
  
  
• Cesare Siepi
  Cesare Siepi
  Cesare Siepi was an Italian opera singer, generally considered to have been one of the finest basses of the post-war period. His voice was characterised by a deep, warm timbre, and a ringing, vibrant upper register. On stage, his tall, striking presence and elegance of phrasing made him a natural...
  
  
• Giulietta Simionato
  Giulietta Simionato
  Giulietta Simionato was an Italian mezzo-soprano. Her career spanned from the 1930s until her retirement in 1966.-Life:Born at Forlì, Romagna, she studied in Rovigo and Padua, and made her operatic debut at Montagnana in 1928...
  
  
• Bo Skovhus
  Bo Skovhus
  Bo Skovhus is a Danish opera singer .Skovhus studied at the Royal Academy of Music in Aarhus, at the Royal Academy for Opera of Copenhagen and in New York with Oren Brown....
  
  
• Giuseppe Di Stefano
  Giuseppe Di Stefano
  Giuseppe Di Stefano was an Italian operatic tenor who sang professionally from the late 1940s until the early 1990s. He was known as the "Golden voice" or "The most beautiful voice", as the true successor of Beniamino Gigli...
  
  
• Giuseppe Taddei
  Giuseppe Taddei
  Giuseppe Taddei was an Italian baritone, who performed mostly the operas of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Giuseppe Verdi....
  
  
• Martti Talvela
  Martti Talvela
  Martti Talvela was a Finnish operatic bass.Born in Hiitola, Finland , he studied in Lahti and Stockholm, and made his operatic debut in Helsinki in 1960 as Sparafucile. At , he was the tallest singer of his century. He trained as a boxer in his youth and developed the stamina necessary for the...
  
  
• Richard Tauber
  Richard Tauber
  Richard Tauber was an Austrian tenor acclaimed as one of the greatest singers of the 20th century. Some critics commented that "his heart felt every word he sang".-Early life:...
  
  
• Renata Tebaldi
  Renata Tebaldi
  Renata Tebaldi was an Italian lirico-spinto soprano popular in the post-war period...
  
  
• Bryn Terfel
  Bryn Terfel
  Bryn Terfel Jones CBE is a Welsh bass-baritone opera and concert singer. Terfel was initially associated with the roles of Mozart, particularly Figaro and Leporello, but has subsequently shifted his attention to heavier roles, especially those by Wagner....
  
  
• Rolando Villazón
  Rolando Villazón
  Emilio Rolando Villazón Mauleón is a Mexican tenor. He settled in France and in 2007 became a French citizen.-Early life and education:...
  
  
• Eberhard Wächter
• Otto Wiener
  Otto Wiener
  Otto Wiener was an Austrian baritone, notable for his performances in the operas of Richard Wagner.He was born in Vienna, joined the Vienna Boys' Choir at the age of six, and started his adult career as a concert singer before making his stage debut in 1953 at Graz in the title-role of Simon...
  
  
• Fritz Wunderlich
  Fritz Wunderlich
  Friedrich "Fritz" Karl Otto Wunderlich was a German lyric tenor, famed for his singing of the Mozart repertory and Italian and German opera and lieder. He died in an accident when he was only 35...
  
  
• Heinz Zednik
  Heinz Zednik
  Heinz Zednik is an Austrian operatic tenor, closely associated with the character tenor roles of Wagner such as Mime and Loge and David...
  
  

Conductors

• Kurt Adler
  Kurt Adler
  Kurt Adler was an Austrian classical music conductor, chorus master and pianist with a European musical education. He was best known as the chorus master and conductor of the Metropolitan Opera in New York City from 1943 to 1973...
  
  
• Gerd Albrecht
  Gerd Albrecht
  Gerd Albrecht is a German conductor. He was a first-prize winner at the International Conductors Competition in Besançon at age 22. His first post was as a repetiteur at the Stuttgart State Opera. Later, he became Senior Kapellmeister at the Mainz Municipal Theatre, and Generalmusikdirektor in...
  
  
• Ernest Ansermet
  Ernest Ansermet
  Ernest Alexandre Ansermet was a Swiss conductor.- Biography :Ansermet was born in Vevey, Switzerland. Although he was a contemporary of Wilhelm Furtwängler and Otto Klemperer, Ansermet represents in most ways a very different tradition and approach from those two musicians. Originally he was a...
  
  
• Leonard Bernstein
  Leonard Bernstein
  Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...
  
  
• Semyon Bychkov
• Riccardo Chailly
  Riccardo Chailly
  Riccardo Chailly, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI is an Italian conductor. He started his career as an opera conductor and gradually extended his repertoire to encompass symphonic music.-Biography:...
  
  
• André Cluytens
  André Cluytens
  André Cluytens was a Belgian-born French conductor who was active in the concert hall, opera house and recording studio. His repertoire extended from Viennese classics through French composers to 20th century works...
  
  
• Colin Davis
  Colin Davis
  Sir Colin Rex Davis, CH, CBE is an English conductor. His repertoire is broad, but among the composers with whom he is particularly associated are Mozart, Berlioz, Elgar, Sibelius, Stravinsky and Tippett....
  
  
• Victor de Sabata
  Victor de Sabata
  Victor de Sabata was an Italian conductor and composer. He is widely recognized as one of the most distinguished operatic conductors of the twentieth century, especially for his Verdi, Puccini and Wagner. He is also acclaimed for his interpretations of orchestral music...
  
  
• Antal Doráti
  Antal Doráti
  Antal Doráti, KBE was a Hungarian-born conductor and composer who became a naturalized American citizen in 1947.-Biography:...
  
  
• Christoph von Dohnányi
  Christoph von Dohnányi
  Christoph von Dohnányi is a German conductor of Hungarian ancestry.- Youth and World War II :Dohnányi was born in Berlin, Germany to jurist Hans von Dohnányi and Christine Bonhoeffer. His uncle on his mother's side was Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran pastor and theologian/ethicist...
  
  
• Wilhelm Furtwängler
  Wilhelm Furtwängler
  Wilhelm Furtwängler was a German conductor and composer. He is widely considered to have been one of the greatest symphonic and operatic conductors of the 20th century. By the 1930s he had built a reputation as one of the leading conductors in Europe, and he was the leading conductor who remained...
  
  
• John Eliot Gardiner
  John Eliot Gardiner
  Sir John Eliot Gardiner CBE FKC is an English conductor. He founded the Monteverdi Choir , the English Baroque Soloists and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique...
  
  
• Daniele Gatti
  Daniele Gatti
  Daniele Gatti is an Italian conductor.Official website: He is currently Music Director of the Orchestre National de France, a role he assumed in September, 2008 , and also Chief Conductor of the Zurich Opera, a position he began in September, 2009; his contract is for three seasons, after which...
  
  

• Gianandrea Gavazzeni
  Gianandrea Gavazzeni
  Gianandrea Gavazzeni was an Italian pianist, conductor , composer and musicologist.Gavazzeni was born in Bergamo. For almost 50 years, starting from 1948, he was principal conductor at La Scala, Milan, in 1966-68 being its music and artistic director.He had his Metropolitan Opera debut on 11...
  
  
• Michael Gielen
  Michael Gielen
  -Professional career:Gielen was born in Dresden, Germany, to opera director Josef Gielen. Through his mother, Rose, he is the nephew of Eduard Steuermann and Salka Steuermann Viertel. He began his career as a pianist in Buenos Aires, where he studied with Erwin Leuchter and gave an early...
  
  
• Leopold Hager
  Leopold Hager
  Leopold Hager is an Austrian conductor , known for his interpretations of works from the First Viennese School ....
  
  
• Nikolaus Harnoncourt
  Nikolaus Harnoncourt
  Nikolaus Harnoncourt is an Austrian conductor, particularly known for his historically informed performances of music from the Classical era and earlier. Starting out as a classical cellist, he founded his own period instrument ensemble in the 1950s, and became a pioneer of the Early Music movement...
  
  
• Paul Hindemith
  Paul Hindemith
  Paul Hindemith was a German composer, violist, violinist, teacher, music theorist and conductor.- Biography :Born in Hanau, near Frankfurt, Hindemith was taught the violin as a child...
  
  
• Heinrich Hollreiser
  Heinrich Hollreiser
  Heinrich Hollreiser was a German conductor.Born in Munich, he attended the State Academy of Music there, and went on to serve as the conductor at the opera houses in Wiesbaden, Darmstadt, Mannheim, and Duisburg. From 1942-1945 he served as the principal conductor of the Bavarian State Opera, while...
  
  `
• Philippe Jordan
  Philippe Jordan
  Philippe Jordan is a Swiss conductor, and the son of conductor Armin Jordan. He began to study piano at age 6. At age 8, he joined the Zürich Sängerknaben. His violin studies began at age 11....
  
  
• Carlos Kleiber
  Carlos Kleiber
  Carlos Kleiber was a German-born, Austrian classical conductor who spent most of his early life in Berlin, Buenos Aires, Vienna and New York City, and from the early 1960s his professional career in Germany.- Early career :...
  
  
• Erich Kleiber
  Erich Kleiber
  Erich Kleiber was an Austrian conductor.- Biography :Born in Vienna, Kleiber studied in Prague...
  
  
• Hans Knappertsbusch
  Hans Knappertsbusch
  Hans Knappertsbusch was a German conductor, best known for his performances of the music of Richard Wagner, Anton Bruckner and Richard Strauss....
  
  
• Clemens Krauss
  Clemens Krauss
  Clemens Heinrich Krauss was an Austrian conductor and opera impresario, particularly associated with the music of Richard Strauss.-Biography:...
  
  
• Josef Krips
  Josef Krips
  Josef Alois Krips was an Austrian conductor and violinist.-Biography:Krips was born in Vienna and went on to become a pupil of Eusebius Mandyczewski and Felix Weingartner. From 1921 to 1924, he served as Weingartner's assistant at the Vienna Volksoper and as répétiteur and chorus master...
  
  
• Rafael Kubelík
  Rafael Kubelík
  Rafael Jeroným Kubelík was a Czech conductor and composer.-Early life:Kubelík was born in Býchory, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary, today's Czech Republic. He was the sixth child of the Bohemian violinist Jan Kubelík, whom the younger Kubelík described as "a kind of god to me." His mother was a Hungarian...
  
  
• Erich Leinsdorf
  Erich Leinsdorf
  Erich Leinsdorf was a naturalized American Austrian conductor. He performed and recorded with leading orchestras and opera companies throughout the United States and Europe, earning a reputation for exacting standards as well as an acerbic personality...
  
  

• Charles Mackerras
  Charles Mackerras
  Sir Alan Charles Maclaurin Mackerras, AC, CH, CBE was an Australian conductor. He was an authority on the operas of Janáček and Mozart, and the comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan...
  
  
• Zubin Mehta
  Zubin Mehta
  Zubin Mehta is an Indian conductor of western classical music. He is the Music Director for Life of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.-Biography:...
  
  
• Dimitri Mitropoulos
• Francesco Molinari-Pradelli
  Francesco Molinari-Pradelli
  Francesco Molinari-Pradelli was a prominent Italian opera conductor. He studied piano and composition at Bologna, and graduated from the Accademia di Santa Cecilia, Rome in 1938. He made his debut at La Scala in 1946 and his Covent Garden debut in 1956...
  
  
• Pierre Monteux
  Pierre Monteux
  Pierre Monteux was an orchestra conductor. Born in Paris, France, Monteux later became an American citizen.-Life and career:Monteux was born in Paris in 1875. His family was descended from Sephardi Jews who came to France in the wake of the Spanish Inquisition. He studied violin from an early age,...
  
  
• Rudolf Moralt
  Rudolf Moralt
  Rudolf Moralt was a German conductor, particularly associated with Mozart and the German repertory....
  
  
• Lovro von Matačić
  Lovro von Matacic
  Lovro von Matačić was a Croatian conductor and composer.-Biography:Lovro von Matačić was born in Sušak to a family that was granted a noble title in the early 17th century. Growing up, he was always surrounded by music and art: his father had a career as an opera singer, and his mother as an actress...
  
  
• Riccardo Muti
  Riccardo Muti
  Riccardo Muti, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI is an Italian conductor and music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.-Childhood and education:...
  
  
• Andris Nelsons
  Andris Nelsons
  Andris Nelsons is a Latvian conductor.Nelsons was born in Riga. His mother founded the first early music ensemble in Latvia, and his father was a choral conductor, cellist, and teacher...
  
  
• Roger Norrington
  Roger Norrington
  Sir Roger Arthur Carver Norrington, CBE is a British conductor. He is the son of Sir Arthur Norrington and his brother is Humphrey Thomas Norrington....
  
  
• Daniel Oren
  Daniel Oren
  -Biography:Daniel Oren was born in Israel. When he was 13 years old, Oren was chosen by Leonard Bernstein to perform the boy solo part in Chichester Psalms. In 1975 he won first prize in the first Herbert von Karajan Conducting Competition.-Music career:...
  
  
• Antonio Pappano
  Antonio Pappano
  Antonio Pappano is a British conductor and pianist of Italian parentage.Pappano's family relocated to England from Castelfranco in Miscano near Benevento, Italy in 1958 and at the time of his birth his parents worked in the restaurant business, but Pasquale Pappano, his father, was by vocation a...
  
  
• John Pritchard
• Simon Rattle
  Simon Rattle
  Sir Simon Denis Rattle, CBE is an English conductor. He rose to international prominence as conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and since 2002 has been principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic ....
  
  

• Fritz Reiner
  Fritz Reiner
  Frederick Martin “Fritz” Reiner was a prominent conductor of opera and symphonic music in the twentieth century.-Biography:...
  
  
• Hans Richter
  Hans Richter (conductor)
  Hans Richter was an Austrian orchestral and operatic conductor.-Biography:Richter was born in Raab , Kingdom of Hungary, Austro-Hungarian Empire. His mother was opera-singer Jozsefa Csazenszky. He studied at the Vienna Conservatory...
  
  
• Mario Rossi
  Mario Rossi
  Mario Rossi was an Italian conductor, noted for his solid and meticulous readings of a repertory ranging from Italian classics to Russian moderns such as Prokoffiev, to the German operatic classicist Christoph Willibald Gluck.He studied composition in Rome with Respighi and conducting with Giacomo...
  
  
• Nello Santi
  Nello Santi
  Nello Santi is an Italian conductor. He is often called "Papa Santi" by his fellow musicians to show their high respect for his work.-Biography:...
  
  
• Michael Schønwandt
  Michael Schønwandt
  Michael Schønwandt is a Danish conductor. In Denmark, he studied piano, theory, and composition, and later continued musical studies at the Royal Academy of Music in London....
  
  
• Leif Segerstam
  Leif Segerstam
  Leif Segerstam is a Finnish conductor and composer.He studied violin, piano and conducting at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki and conducting at the Juilliard School in New York with Jean Morel....
  
  
• Tullio Serafin
  Tullio Serafin
  -Biography:Tullio Serafin was a leading Italian opera conductor with a long career and a very broad repertoire who revived many 19th century bel canto operas by Bellini, Rossini and Donizetti to become staples of 20th century repertoire...
  
  
• Giuseppe Sinopoli
  Giuseppe Sinopoli
  -Biography:Sinopoli was born in Venice, Italy, and later studied at the Benedetto Marcello Conservatory in Venice under Ernesto Rubin de Cervin and at Darmstadt, including being mentored in composition with Karlheinz Stockhausen...
  
  
• Leonard Slatkin
  Leonard Slatkin
  Leonard Edward Slatkin is an American conductor and composer.-Early life and education:Slatkin was born in Los Angeles to a musical family that came from areas of the Russian Empire now in Ukraine. His father Felix Slatkin was the violinist, conductor and founder of the Hollywood String Quartet,...
  
  
• Georg Solti
  Georg Solti
  Sir Georg Solti, KBE, was a Hungarian-British orchestral and operatic conductor. He was a major classical recording artist, holding the record for having received the most Grammy Awards, having personally won 31 as a conductor, including the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In addition to his...
  
  
• Horst Stein
  Horst Stein
  Horst Walter Stein was a German conductor.- Biography :...
  
  
• Pinchas Steinberg
  Pinchas Steinberg
  Pinchas Steinberg is an Israeli conductor.He was a violin student in the USA and a composition student in Berlin. His conducting debut was in 1974 with the RIAS Symphony Orchestra, Berlin. He was a regular guest conductor with the Vienna State Opera from 1986-1993...
  
  

• Igor Stravinsky
  Igor Stravinsky
  Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
  
  
• Otmar Suitner
  Otmar Suitner
  Otmar Suitner was an Austrian conductor who spent most of his professional career in East Germany. He was born in Innsbruck and died in Berlin. He was Principal Conductor of the Staatskapelle Dresden from 1960 to 1964, and then Music Director at the Berlin State Opera from 1964 to 1990...
  
  
• Robert Stolz
  Robert Stolz
  Robert Elisabeth Stolz was an Austrian songwriter and conductor as well as a composer of operettas and film music.- Biography :...
  
  
• Richard Strauss
  Richard Strauss
  Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
  
  
• Christian Thielemann
  Christian Thielemann
  -Career:Thielemann studied viola and piano at the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin and took private lessons in composition and conducting before becoming répétiteur aged 19 at the Deutsche Oper Berlin with Heinrich Hollreiser and working as Herbert von Karajan's assistant...
  
  
• Arturo Toscanini
  Arturo Toscanini
  Arturo Toscanini was an Italian conductor. One of the most acclaimed musicians of the late 19th and 20th century, he was renowned for his intensity, his perfectionism, his ear for orchestral detail and sonority, and his photographic memory...
  
  
• Silvio Varviso
  Silvio Varviso
  Silvio Varviso was a Swiss conductor who spent most of his career devoted to conducting operas. He began his conducting career working in minor opera houses in Switzerland in the mid 1940s. He became the principal conductor of the opera house in Basel in 1956 where he served for six years...
  
  
• Marcello Viotti
  Marcello Viotti
  Marcello Viotti was a Swiss classical music conductor, best known for opera.Viotti was born in Vallorbe, in the French-speaking region of Switzerland, to Italian parents. He studied cello, piano and singing at the Conservatory of Lausanne. Wolfgang Sawallisch was a mentor to Viotti and encouraged...
  
  
• Antonino Votto
  Antonino Votto
  Antonino Votto was an Italian operatic conductor. Votto developed an extensive discography with the Teatro alla Scala in Milan during the 1950s, when EMI produced the bulk of its studio recordings featuring Maria Callas...
  
  
• Bruno Walter
  Bruno Walter
  Bruno Walter was a German-born conductor. He is considered one of the best known conductors of the 20th century. Walter was born in Berlin, but is known to have lived in several countries between 1933 and 1939, before finally settling in the United States in 1939...
  
  
• Felix Weingartner
  Felix Weingartner
  Paul Felix von Weingartner, Edler von Münzberg was an Austrian conductor, composer and pianist.-Biography:...
  
  
• Alberto Zedda
  Alberto Zedda
  Alberto Zedda is an Italian conductor and musicologist, a specialist of the 19th century Italian repertoire.Zedda studied in his native Milan with Antonino Votto and Carlo Maria Giulini, and made his debut there as conductor in 1956, with Il barbiere di Siviglia...
  
  

Conductors who also held the position of music director

• Claudio Abbado
  Claudio Abbado
  Claudio Abbado, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI , is an Italian conductor. He has served as music director of the La Scala opera house in Milan, principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, principal guest conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, music director of the Vienna State Opera,...
  
   (1986–1991)
• Seiji Ozawa
  Seiji Ozawa
  is a Japanese conductor, particularly noted for his interpretations of large-scale late Romantic works. He is most known for his work as music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and principal conductor of the Vienna State Opera.-Early years:...
  
   (2002–2010)
• Franz Welser-Möst
  Franz Welser-Möst
  Franz Welser-Möst is an Austrian conductor who is currently the music director for the Cleveland Orchestra and the Vienna State Opera.- Biography :...
  
   (2010–present)

Directors, set designers, and costume designers

Opera title and year of debut at the Vienna State Opera in parentheses:

• Gae Aulenti
  Gae Aulenti
  Gae Aulenti is an Italian architect, lighting and interior designer, and industrial designer. She is well known for several large-scale museum projects, including Musée d'Orsay in Paris , the Contemporary Art Gallery at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Palazzo Grassi in Venice , and the Asian Art...
  
   (Il viaggio a Reims, 1988)
• Boleslaw Barlog (Salome, 1972)
• Sven-Eric Bechtolf (Arabella, 2006)
• Ruth Berghaus
  Ruth Berghaus
  Ruth Berghaus was a German choreographer and opera and theatre director.Berghaus was born in Dresden and studied Expressionist dance and Dance direction with Gret Palucca there and was an advanced student at the German Academy of Arts in Berlin, at least part of the time under Walter Felsenstein -...
  
   (Fierrabras, 1990)
• Milena Canonero
  Milena Canonero
  Milena Canonero is an Italian costume designer, working both for films and stage productions. She has won three Academy Awards for Best Costume design, and been nominated for it eight times.-Career:...
  
   (Il trittico, 1979)
• Robert Carsen (Jérusalem, 1995)
• Giulio Chazalettes
  Giulio Chazalettes
  Giulio Chazalettes is an Italian opera director and former actor.-Biography:He was born in Verona . He was taught in music by his mother, a German pianist. After having settled in Milan, he was accepted by the Piccolo Teatro's acting school...
  
   (Attila, 1980)
• Luciano Damiani
  Luciano Damiani
  Luciano Damiani was an Italian stage and costume designer, who worked both for theatre and opera productions.- Theatre and opera productions :...
  
   (Don Giovanni, 1967)
• Dieter Dorn
  Dieter Dorn
  Dieter Dorn is a German theatre director, also for the opera, the manager of the Münchner Kammerspiele from 1983 to 2001 and now manager of the Bavarian Staatsschauspiel.- Biography :...
  
   (Die Entführung aus dem Serail, 1979)
• August Everding
  August Everding
  August Everding was a German opera director and administrator. He studied at the Universities of Bonn and Munich, where launching his career in the 1950s...
  
   (Tristan und Isolde, 1967)
• Piero Faggioni (Norma, 1977)
• Jürgen Flimm
  Jürgen Flimm
  Jürgen Flimm is a German theater and opera director, and theater manager. After establishing himself as one of the exponents of Regietheater, Flimm was called to manage renowned theaters and festivals...
  
   (Der ferne Klang, 1991)
• Götz Friedrich
  Götz Friedrich
  Götz Friedrich was a German opera and theatre director.He was a student and assistant of Walter Felsenstein at the Komische Oper Berlin in Berlin, where he went on to direct his early productions...
  
   (Moses und Aron, 1973)
• Ezio Frigerio, (Norma, 1977)
• Josef Gielen (Madama Butterfly, 1957)
• Peter J. Hall
  Peter J. Hall
  Peter John Hall , was a British-born American costume designer who spent most of his career as costumer for the Dallas Opera, in addition to his work for Covent Garden, La Scala, the Old Vic and the Vienna State Opera, as well as productions in New York City for the American Ballet Theater, the...
  
   (Le nozze di Figaro, 1991)
• Karl-Ernst Herrmann (Die Entführung aus dem Serail, 1989)
• Václav Kašlík
  Václav Kašlík
  Václav Kašlík was a Czech composer, opera director and conductor, known for his operas, both on the stage and on television....
  
   (Idomeneo, 1971)
• Jorge Lavelli
  Jorge Lavelli
  Jorge Lavelli is a French theater director of Italian ethnicity and Argentine origin.The son of Italian immigrants in Argentina, Lavelli has lived in France since the early 1960s. He became a French citizen in 1977....
  
   (Der Prozess, 1970)

• Alfred Kirchner (Khovanchina, 1989)
• Harry Kupfer
  Harry Kupfer
  Harry Kupfer is a German opera director. He studied theatre in Leipzig and directed his first opera, Antonín Dvořák's Rusalka, in 1958....
  
   (Die schwarze Maske, 1986)
• Lotfi Mansouri
  Lotfi Mansouri
  Lotfollah “Lotfi” Mansouri is an Iranian-born opera director and manager. He was an opera director from about 1960 onwards, and is most well known for being the General Director of the Canadian Opera Company and of the San Francisco Opera from 1988 through 2001...
  
   (La fanciulla del west 1978)
• Gian Carlo Menotti
  Gian Carlo Menotti
  Gian Carlo Menotti was an Italian-American composer and librettist. Although he often referred to himself as an American composer, he kept his Italian citizenship. He wrote the classic Christmas opera, Amahl and the Night Visitors, among about two dozen other operas intended to appeal to popular...
  
   (La Cenerentola, 1981)
• Jonathan Miller
  Jonathan Miller
  Sir Jonathan Wolfe Miller CBE is a British theatre and opera director, author, physician, television presenter, humorist and sculptor. Trained as a physician in the late 1950s, he first came to prominence in the 1960s with his role in the comedy revue Beyond the Fringe with fellow writers and...
  
   (Le nozze di Figaro, 1991)
• Giancarlo del Monaco
  Giancarlo del Monaco
  Giancarlo del Monaco, born on 27 December 1943 in Venice, Italy, is a stage director primarily known for his opera productions. In 1991, he staged La fanciulla del West at the Metropolitan Opera and went on to direct Stiffelio, Madama Butterfly, Simon Boccanegra and La forza del destino for the...
  
   (La forza del destino, 1989)
• Hans Neuenfels
  Hans Neuenfels
  Hans Neuenfels is a German writer, poet, film producer, librettist, theatre director and opera director.- Biography :...
  
   (Le Prophète, 1998)
• Hermann Nitsch
  Hermann Nitsch
  Hermann Nitsch is an Austrian artist who works in experimental and multimedia modes.Born in Vienna, Nitsch received training in painting during the time he studied at the Wiener Graphische Lehr-und Versuchanstalt. He is called an "actionist" or a performance artist...
  
   (Hérodiade, 1995)
• Adrian Noble
  Adrian Noble
  Adrian Keith Noble is a theatre director, and was also the artistic director and chief executive of the Royal Shakespeare Company from 1990 to 2003.-Education and career:...
  
   (Alcina, 2010)
• Timothy O'Brien
  Timothy O'Brien (theatre designer)
  Timothy O’Brien RDI, is a British theatre designer. [1]Educated at Cambridge University 1949-52 and as a Henry Fellow at the Yale School of Drama 1952-3, his career began in television at the BBC in 1954...
  
   (Turandot, 1983)
• Tom O'Horgan
  Tom O'Horgan
  Tom O'Horgan was an American theatre and film director, composer, actor and musician. He is best known for his Broadway work as director of the hit musicals Hair and Jesus Christ Superstar...
  
   (Les Troyens, 1976)
• Laurent Pelly
  Laurent Pelly
  Laurent Pelly is a French opera and theatre director. At the age of 18, he founded the Compagnie Théâtrale du Pélican which, since 1982, has been co-directed by Agathe Mélinand...
  
   (La fille du régiment, 2007)
• Pier Luigi Pizzi
  Pier Luigi Pizzi
  Pier Luigi Pizzi is an Italian opera director, set designer, and costume designer.-Biography:Pizzi was born in Milan, Italy, and earned a degree in architecture at the Politecnico of Milan...
  
   (as stage designer: La forza del destino, 1974; as director: Don Carlo, 1989)
• Jean-Pierre Ponnelle
  Jean-Pierre Ponnelle
  Jean-Pierre Ponnelle was a noted French opera director.-Biography:Ponnelle was born in Paris. He studied philosophy, art, and history there and, in 1952, began his career in Germany as a theatre designer for Hans Werner Henze's opera Boulevard Solitude...
  
   (Manon, 1971)
• David Pountney
  David Pountney
  David Pountney is a British theatre and opera director and librettist internationally known for his productions of rarely performed operas and new productions of classic works...
  
   (Rienzi, 1997)
• Harold Prince (Turandot, 1983)
• Gianni Quaranta
  Gianni Quaranta
  Gianni Quaranta is an Italian production designer and art director. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Art Direction and won the BAFTA Award for Best Production Design and the Nastro d'Argento for Best Production Design for La Traviata . He won the Oscar for Best Art Direction for the...
  
   (Samson et Dalila, 1988)
• Günther Rennert
  Günther Rennert
  Günther Rennert was a German opera director and administrator.Rennert was born in Essen, Rhine Province. Starting as a film director in 1933, he then became involved in the operatic theatre, becoming an assistant to Walter Felsenstein at the Oper Frankfurt...
  
   (Il barbiere di Siviglia, 1966)
• Luca Ronconi
  Luca Ronconi
  Luca Ronconi is an Italian actor, theater director, and opera director.- Biography :After growing up in Tunisia, where his mother was a school teacher, he graduated from the Academy of Dramatic Art in Rome in 1953. He acted in productions of Luigi Squarzina, Orazio Costa, Michelangelo Antonioni...
  
   (Il viaggio a Reims, 1988)

• Ken Russell
  Ken Russell
  Henry Kenneth Alfred "Ken" Russell was an English film director, known for his pioneering work in television and film and for his flamboyant and controversial style. He attracted criticism as being obsessed with sexuality and the church...
  
   (Faust, 1985)
• Filippo Sanjust (Ariadne auf Naxos, 1976)
• Johannes Schaaf (Idomeneo, 1987)
• Otto Schenk
  Otto Schenk
  Otto Schenk is an Austrian actor, and theater and opera director.-Life and career:Schenk was born to Catholic parents. His father, a lawyer, had Jewish roots and therefore lost his job after the Anschluss in 1938...
  
   (Jenůfa, 1964)
• Franca Squarciapino
  Franca Squarciapino
  Franca Squarciapino is an Italian costume designer who won the Academy Award for Costume Design in 1990 for Cyrano de Bergerac. She has spent much of her career designing costumes for major theatres and opera houses, including the Burgtheater in Vienna, Royal Opera at Covent Garden, the...
  
   (Norma, 1977)
• Peter Stein
  Peter Stein
  Peter Stein is a critically acclaimed German theatre and opera director who established himself at the Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz, a company that he brought to the forefront of German theatre....
  
   (Simon Boccanegra, 2002)
• Giorgio Strehler
  Giorgio Strehler
  Giorgio Strehler was an Italian opera and theatre director.-Biography:Strehler was born in Barcola, Trieste to an Austrian father and a Franco-Slovene mother; he grew up speaking Italian but spoke French well and his German was passable. He became suddenly fatherless at the age of three, his...
  
   (Simon Boccanegra, 1984)
• Josef Svoboda
  Josef Svoboda
  Josef Svoboda was a Czech artist and scenic designer.Svoboda was born in Čáslav, Czechoslovakia . He began his training as an architect at the Central School of Housing in Prague. At the end of World War II he became interested in theatre and design...
  
   (Idomeneo, 1971)
• István Szabó
  István Szabó
  István Szabó is a Hungarian film director, screenwriter, and opera director.Szabó is the most internationally famous Hungarian filmmaker since the late 1960s. Working in the tradition of European, auteurist art cinema, he has made films that represent many of the psychological and political...
  
   (Il trovatore, 1993)
• Carl Toms
  Carl Toms
  Carl Toms OBE was a British set and costume designer who was known for his work in theatre, opera, ballet, and film.- Education :...
  
  , (Faust, 1985)
• Luchino Visconti
  Luchino Visconti
  Luchino Visconti di Modrone, Count of Lonate Pozzolo was an Italian theatre, opera and cinema director, as well as a screenwriter. He is best known for his films The Leopard and Death in Venice .-Life:...
  
   (Falstaff, 1966)
• Antoine Vitez
  Antoine Vitez
  Antoine Vitez was a French actor, director, and poet.He was born in Paris, France and became an actor at the age of 19. He was director of the Théâtre national de Chaillot for seven years before being named to head the Comedie Francaise, a French theater company.-References:...
  
   (Pelléas et Mélisande, 1988)
• Wieland Wagner
  Wieland Wagner
  Wieland Wagner was a German opera director.- Life :Wieland was the elder of two sons of Siegfried and Winifred Wagner and grandson of composer Richard Wagner....
  
   (Lohengrin, 1965)
• Margarete Wallmann
  Margarete Wallmann
  Margarete Wallmann or Wallman was a ballerina, choreographer, stage designer, and opera director....
  
   (Tosca, 1958)
• Anthony Ward (Alcina, 2010)
• Herbert Wernicke
  Herbert Wernicke
  Herbert Wernicke was a German opera director and a set and costume designer. He was born in Auggen, Baden-Württemberg. He studied piano, flute, and directing at the conservatory in Braunschweig and set design at the academy in Munich...
  
   (I vespri siciliani, 1998)
• Peter Wood
  Peter Wood (director)
  Peter Wood is an English award-winning theatre and film director.-External links:...
  
   (Macbeth, 1981)
• Franco Zeffirelli
  Franco Zeffirelli
  Franco Zeffirelli KBE is an Italian director and producer of films and television. He is also a director and designer of operas and a former senator for the Italian center-right Forza Italia party....
  
   (La bohème, 1964)

See also

• Carltheater
  Carltheater
  The Carltheater was a theatre in Vienna. It was in the suburbs in Leopoldstadt at Praterstraße 31 .It was the successor to the Leopoldstädter Theater. After a series of financial difficulties, that theater had been sold in 1838 to the director, Carl Carl, who continued to run it in parallel to his...
  
  
• Repertory of the Vienna Court Opera under Gustav Mahler
  Repertory of the Vienna Court Opera under Gustav Mahler
  Gustav Mahler joined the Vienna Court Opera in May 1897 as a staff conductor and director-designate, pending confirmation of his appointment as director. After the appointment was confirmed in October 1897 Mahler remained in post until his resignation in November 1907...
  
  
• Ringtheater
  Ringtheater
  The Ringtheater was a popular theater in Vienna, Austria. It was located in the First District , Schottenring 7. It was destroyed in a fire in 1881, and today the site is the federal headquarters of police for Vienna.-Construction:...
  
  
• Theater an der Wien
  Theater an der Wien
  The Theater an der Wien is a historic theatre on the Left Wienzeile in the Mariahilf district of Vienna. Completed in 1801, it has seen the premieres of many celebrated works of theatre, opera, and symphonic music...
  
  
• Theater am Kärntnertor
  Theater am Kärntnertor
  Theater am Kärntnertor or Kärntnertortheater was a prestigious theatre in Vienna during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries...
  
  
• Vienna Volksoper
  Vienna Volksoper
  The Vienna Volksoper is a major opera house in Vienna, Austria. It gives about three hundred performances of twenty-five productions during an annual season running from September through June....
  
  

External links

• Wiener Staatsoper official website
• Vienna State Opera
• History of the Opera before Mahler