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Marlene Monteiro Freitas directs her first opera, in which Lulu, if not buried alive, is certainly left completely unrecognizable. 

Vasily Barkhatov directs a new production of Mieczysław Weinberg's rarely staged, massive and unwieldy opera at the MuseumsQuartier. 

“Lima darf nicht Österreich werden!” Offenbach's operetta is set in Lima, but really it’s Vienna in director Nikolaus Habjan uproarious production. 

There is magic aplenty in director Stefan Herheim’s bold recontextualization of Gian Carlo Menotti's holiday opera. 

Herheim’s maiden voyage in his new capacity as Intendant confirms his ability to deftly negotiate a less-than-straightforward work with care and ambition and add his own voice enthusiastically to the mix.

Director Lotte De Beer's thoroughly realized, aesthetically rich and beautifully executed production of Janáček's masterpiece is anchored by strong performances from Nina Stemme and Svetlana Aksenova.

“How Excellent.”  The first words sung in Handel’s Saul are in praise of God and were first uttered in a performance nearly three centuries ago. But they apply equally to Claus Guth’s interpretation of the work staged by Theater an der Wien.

Leoncavallo's opera is a rare example of a tragic, verismo opera where not a soul dies... neither by natural causes nor foul play.  

Keith Warner directs a new opera which packs in betrayal, murder, oppression, freedom, love and the Spanish Inquisition into a mere 90 minutes.

Sam Brown's sparse production leaves nothing to focus on but the individual protagonists on stage. 

Director Nikolaus Habjan took Oberon’s inherent miscellany and ran with it, straight into a retro-futurism aesthetic.

It is all very easy on the eyes, although pondering what it is all supposed to mean is a recipe for a migraine.

Vienna's Theater an der Wien stage a seldom performed opera by Carl Maria von Weber with an excellent cast, orchestra, and chorus.  

Osborn absolutely lives the part; he negotiated formidable heights, intricate passage work and the sheer volume of notes with style and clarity as well as colour and nuance. 

Marlis Petersen's Alcina bloomed for a knockout “Ah! mio cor!” just in time for intermission.

A staged performance of Handel’s pasticcio opera Oreste shows a strong narrative structure and provides a vehicle for promising young singers.

Hagen, the first chapter in the Theater an der Wien's reimagining of The Ring, features music from Das Rhinegold and Götterdämmerung woven seamlessly together, telling the story from the perspective of Hagen, son of Nibelung dwarf, Alberich.

Beethoven lovers were expecting an authentic recreation of the first version of Fidelio but instead they got Leonore à la Jacobs.

An outstanding cast under Ottavio Dantone at the Theater an der Wien was headed by Lawrence Zazzo and Emőke Baráth.

Without glitz, extravagance or the need to be expressly shocking, Robert Carsen's new production of Wozzeck at the Theater an der Wien is exceptional.

Ann Hallenberg shines in an amazing cast in a concert performance of Handel's Ottone in Vienna. 

Kay Link's new production of Handel's pasticcio Oreste is surprisingly strong theatrically, often musically too. 

At the Theater an der Wien, director Mariame Clément and novelist Lucy Wadham have crafted innovative material that brings the old-fashioned lyrics to life in a coherent and contemporary dramatic setting.

To those unfamiliar with Victor Ullman’s Der Kaiser von Atlantis, oder Die Tod-Verweigerung, the story of the work’s inception is almost as gripping as the libretto itself. 

Anno Schreier's successful new opera Hamlet is the first of a series of three Shakespeare-inspired offerings from Theater an der Wien this season. 

A very creative reading – both scenically and musically – of Engelbert Humperdinck’s fairy tale opera Hänsel und Gretel for Theater an der Wien's final production of the season at the Kammeroper.

Early Mozart opera seria triumphs in Vienna’s ‘other house’.

Requiring trained opera singers to focus primarily on acting and asking actors to sing in a renowned opera house puts everyone out of their comfort zone, which is not necessarily a bad thing.

Though certainly not the most heartwarming of tales this Christmas season, this is a production one shouldn’t miss.

Not the Barbiere you might have been expecting if you hadn't paid attention to the small print at the Theater an der Wien... 

Out of the swamp: Marcel Beekman rocks the house in Robert Carsen’s glittering take on Platée.

If you are going to see Verdi’s I due Foscari, this production is likely the way to do it. Although this production is by no means unflawed, there are several reasons that it is a must-see for opera fans in Vienna.

An excellent cast headed by Franco Fagioli makes this concert version of Rinaldo at the Theater an der Wien unforgettable; Il Pomo d'Oro shine in the pit.

Schubert's unfinished oratorio Lazarus joined with other interesting works by both Schubert and Charles Ives in a staged performance at the Theater an der Wien, directed by Claus Guth. Strongly cast, the musical juxtaposition works better than the oratorio itself, and the rather cold dramaturgy.

Iain Bell’s new opera A Harlot’s Progress, premièred at the Theater an der Wien this month, has much going for it. Its chances for making it into modern repertory are good – if people can handle the depressing plot.

My mother always told me not to sit too close in the theatre, and after seeing this revival of Martin Kusej’s modern realization of Stravinksy’s The Rake’s Progress at the Theater an der Wien, I think I know what she was talking about.Act I begins innocuously enough in a sparse apartment, unfurnished apart from a mattress and a television.

Giuseppe Verdi’s Attila is not an opera that one hears often. Composed during his self-styled “galley period” – before he found his mature musical voice with Rigoletto – Attila has inherent musical and dramaturgical weaknesses. With one foot still firmly rooted in bel canto tradition, the numerous cabalettas can be exhausting, even ridiculous, considering the dramatic nature of the text.

Il Trovatore has doggedly survived in opera’s hit charts despite dispensing generous quantities of hair-raising as well as eyebrow-raising content. Verdi’s music is intoxicating, of course, but there is something to this work that makes it accessible beyond reasoning.

Béatrice et Bénédict is Hector Berlioz’s last work; he wrote it between 1860 and 1862 for the theatre that patron Edouard Bénazet had built in Baden-Baden, then Germany’s most chic health resort.

The Theater an der Wien has a storied history with Fidelio, having hosted the première of the work’s first and second versions in 1805 and 1806 respectively.

In times where musical luxury is sometimes associated with having a pop star perform a short “Happy Birthday” and a handful of songs in a private performance – and for a usually undisclosed (and indecent) fee, having a whole piece of music composed for an occasion, or organising a private performance by a famous orchestra, is almost unimaginable.

When Jean-Christophe Spinosi stepped onto the podium to conduct Le Comte Ory that night, he didn’t wait for his applause to cease, but instantly cued a hearty forte from the Ensemble Matheus, and consequently a few incredulous looks from the audience.

When the Theater an der Wien’s in-house magazine featured an article about costumes created by none other than Christian Lacroix for this new production of Radamisto, I was intrigued by the pictures, but also a bit nonplussed by the idea that his gowns had been hand-painted in order to illustrate the different levels of Radamisto’s nightmare.

Over the 60 years of its existence, the Vienna Kammeroper has commissioned chamber operas by Maxwell Davies, Henze and Glass and made figures including Reimann and Birtwistle better known to the Viennese.

Institutional violence has been a running theme in Torsten Fischer’s series of Gluck operas at the Theater an der Wien, albeit with a lid kept firmly on the idea of actual conflict.

A cast of five countertenors and one tenor performing an opera by Handel contemporary Leonardo Vinci may look like a long evening to those who don’t appreciate the high male voice, but Baroque lovers hoping for a triplet and trill fest as well as some vocal drag got all they wanted in this concert version of Artaserse.

A father having marriage plans for his daughter of which the latter does not approve may not be the most original plot, but it has inspired operas throughout the centuries, with well-known examples being The Bartered Bride and Arabella.

Following a string of misses, the Theater an der Wien emerges from its recent dry patch with a new production of Puccini’s triptych which offers a winning cast, the best playing heard at the house in months, and a smart production.

Productions of Monteverdi’s Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria which make the title character a returning war veteran, preferably one returning from a juicy topical war, are nothing new, and director Claus Guth doesn’t stretch the well-worn conceit much further in this listlessly vague staging for the Theater an der Wien.