The Opera Europa Spring Conference in Vienna was very much under the banner of “Audiences”. How can you find new audiences? A younger audience? A more diverse audience? How can you make opera more “relevant” to today’s audience? So when Bogdan Roščić answered Karen Stone’s question about how the Wiener Staatsoper finds new audiences with the decisive response, “Without sounding smug, but this is a question we actually never ask ourselves”, I could almost hear the frowns on the participants’ faces. Being Viennese, I have to admit I had a smug little grin on my face. Despite a comparably small population of two million, the seats of the three big opera houses – Wiener Staatsoper, Volksoper, MusikTheater an der Wien – are filled to capacity. How? In short, by putting on high-quality productions, by celebrating their different identities and by being proud of representing the art form of opera.
Opening with Don Giovanni in 1869, the Wiener Staatsoper is the city’s oldest company and, with 1,709 seats (and 435 standing places), the largest of the three houses. To give you an idea of the scale of the biggest repertoire house in the world, next season there will be 44 staged productions, six of them new, with most of them having multiple runs spread over the season. It is a well-oiled machine capable of putting three or four productions on stage in any given week, but it also comes with an obvious problem: lack of stage and rehearsal time. When Bogdan Roščić took over as Staatsoperndirektor in 2020 he addressed the problem by slightly reducing the number of titles a year and by renewing and re-evaluating what should be considered the core repertoire.
With Roščić also came a much-needed wind of change into the house: bolder productions, interesting and sometimes unknown directors, and more exciting voices, all without ignoring the more conservative wing of the audience. “I don’t think you can make or change the identity of a house like the Staatsoper. You can find it, you can find the audience. The question is how not to screw it up.” In the current 2023–24 season, the Wiener Staatsoper has sold 99.94% of their tickets – even 100% in December 2023. In the 2022–23 season, 43.5% of the Staatsoper’s expenditure was covered by ticket sales, which were at a dizzying 98% capacity.
The Volksoper is the “little sister” of the Staatsoper and also a federal theatre. The house opened in 1898 as “Kaiserjubiläum-Stadttheater”, a traditional theatre, and turned into an opera house and renamed as Volksoper in 1904. It is – the clue is in the name – an opera house for the people, with artistic director Lotte de Beer being “glad that the big works are taken care of” elsewhere. As the leading operetta house in the city, the Volksoper has the freedom to create new forms of music theatre, for example by combining opera with ballet (Iolanta and the Nutcracker) or bringing operetta face to face with the horrors of National Socialism in their sold-out productions of Lass uns die Welt vergessen – Volksoper 1938. A mixture of musicals, opera, ballet and crossover concerts means that 25% of the audience is under 30. In the 2022–23 season, 19.2% of the Volksoper’s expenditure was covered by ticket sales, which were at 78% capacity. In the current season the capacity is at 86.4%, in March 2024 even 94.8%.
The MusikTheater an der Wien is the youngest of the three companies – yet it “lives” in the oldest house, the Theater an der Wien, built in 1801 by Emanuel Schikaneder (the impresario who created the role of Papageno in Die Zauberflöte). After two years of renovations, during which the MTadW played at the MuseumsQuartier, it will move back to its main house at Linke Wienzeile for their 2024–25 season. The MTadW is not a federal theatre, but part of the Vereinigte Bühnen Wien and run as a stagione house, working together with different orchestras: the Wiener Symphoniker, ORF Radio-Symphonieorchester, Klangforum Wien, Bach Consort Wien and the Arnold Schoenberg Chor.
Since its foundation in 2006, the MTadW has always had a different and more unusual repertoire – which they relish. Stefan Herheim, artistic director since the 2022–23 season, is willing to take risks, “even if it means we fail”. There are bold productions, opera rarities or, as Cunegonde would say in this year’s sold-out run of Candide, “Glitter and be Gay”. To get a sense of MTadW’s inventiveness, take a look at their – again, sold-out! – production Freitag, der Dreizehnte, celebrating Arnold Schoenberg in style.
There are common names and threads across the three houses. Lydia Steier, for example, directed the sparkling Candide at the MTadW this season and will return to Vienna in May 2025 to direct a new Tannhäuser at the Staatsoper. With some postponements due to Covid, a more obvious (and exciting) overlap are the two new Normas in the 2024–25 season, one at the Staatsoper (directed by Cyril Teste, Federica Lombardi in the title role) and one at the MTadW (directed by Vasily Barkhatov, Asmik Grigorian sings Norma). Both Normas will premiere in February 2025 but, as Roščić would say, Vienna can afford this clash. And isn’t it exciting to see the two houses going head-to-head? What might seem problematic to the outside opera world is already considered the highlight of next year, with Viennese audiences marking the opening dates of ticket sales into their calendars.
But the biggest similarity between the three houses – which sadly is no longer a given in other cities – is their pride and confidence in what it means to be an opera house. While some houses don’t even hold press conferences to announce new seasons, the three Viennese houses organised season launches for their audiences (all live-streamed). Each house had a sold-out, two-hour event on their main stage, some with full orchestra, presented by their respective artistic directors, with singers, directors and conductors introducing the upcoming season. Can you imagine any other opera city where you’d hear Anna Netrebko, Sonya Yoncheva, Xabier Anduaga, Federica Lombardi and Georg Zeppenfeld sing at a season launch?
The Viennese opera audience is treated with respect. Their knowledge of – and love for – the art form is recognised and appreciated. “A state theatre doesn’t have to have a target audience, it’s for anyone. There is not the audience,” says Bogdan Roščić. “We are grateful for any age of audience and get very different responses from the public [about our productions],” Stefan Herheim says. “It’s a delicate balance of reaching out to the young, but also being respectful to the people feeling connected to the house,” says Lotte de Beer.
Instead of twisting and bending themselves, the houses are proud to put on high quality opera productions – including several aimed at families, to address the “much sought-after young audience”. The Volksoper is premiering three new productions for children and families on their main stage next season. MusikTheater an der Wien usually dedicates one or two out of their 12 or 13 new productions a season to families: Stefan Herheim himself directed Amahl and the Night Visitors in his first season as artistic director at the house. Meanwhile, the Staatsoper is opening a completely new venue dedicated to young people just a few minutes away from the main house. The programme will be announced in June, but it will include five world premieres and 180 events overall. It is funded by the Official Friend Circle of the Staatsoper which, with €1.9m a year, is now the single biggest sponsor of the house.
The answer to my opening questions, confirming Bogdan Roščić’s statement? I’ll let Lotte de Beer and Stefan Herheim reply. De Beer: “Art makes reality bearable, art should disturb comfort. We need to laugh about what hurts, about taboos, laugh against the grotesque truth together. Our heartbeats are synchronised by the same music.” Herheim: “If we don’t believe that this art form is able to connect people, then we are doomed!” As in other aspects in life, be true to yourself, take the risk and fail at times, the rest – and loyal audiences – will follow and thank you for it.
