Vienna is truly the capital city of classical music. On every street corner you see plaques commemorating composers who lived here or posters for concerts and productions. Opera is part of the daily landscape. With a population of just under two million, Vienna boasts three thriving opera companies – the Staatsoper, MusicTheater an der Wien and the Volksoper – coexisting harmoniously. All three have seen new management in recent years: Bogdan Roščić started at the Staatsoper in 2020, while stage directors Stefan Herheim and Lotte de Beer took up artistic director posts at MusicTheater an der Wien and the Volksoper in 2022.

A brutal Carmen at the Volksoper

De Beer and Herheim both direct at their houses. The Volksoper – literally The People’s Opera – gives German language performances of opera, operetta and musicals, although the language policy is being relaxed. Its 2024-25 season began with de Beer’s new staging of Carmen, sung in French but with German dialogue. De Beer has had mixed successes with her productions here thus far, but this Carmen was among the most powerful I’ve seen.

Before the curtain, after the usual mobile phone notices comes a warning, voiced by de Beer herself. ‘Unfortunately, we are not allowed to depict smoking on stage, so the production has been adapted,’ she begins. ‘Fortunately, we are still allowed to portray femicide…’ Boom! De Beer has fun with a running gag preventing any of the characters smoking, but the brutality of Carmen’s murder really hits home.

In a staging that seems to be picture postcard Seville, very Opéra-Comique in style, Annelie Sophie Müller’s Carmen steps beyond the fourth wall, removes her costume and spends the evening in a black jumpsuit, an ironic observer – and Müller does a good line in ironic looks. Everyone else is a stock operatic figure, as cardboard cutout as the scenery, but Carmen is the only ‘real’ character. When a backdrop rises to reveal an on-stage chorus in opera boxes, she is gawped at, trapped, even prevented from escaping the psychotic Don José by the on-stage audience who then applaud her death. Who is Carmen? De Beer indicates that she could be any woman in the audience.

Apart from Tomislav Mužek’s inelegant Don José, the cast was serviceable, with Müller slightly under-powered in the title role. But the Volksoper Orchestra was in rip-roaring form under new music director Ben Glassberg in the best conducted account of Bizet’s score I’ve heard, bright and zesty.

Theater an der Wien reopens

Stefan Herheim should also have directed a new production to open the season. His company has been absent from its Theater an der Wien home for two seasons while the historic house underwent renovation, but technical delays meant that although the house reopened in October, the scheduled staging of Mozart’s Idomeneo had to be given as a concert performance.

Although the house was built in 1801, it wasn’t until 2006 that it became a regular opera company, opening with Willy Decker’s production of Idomeneo, hence the apt choice of work to reopen the theatre. With cuts, it was still a lengthy evening, notable for a spitfire Elettra courtesy of Elena Tsallagova, a gutsy Idamante from Emily Sierra and a shimmering Ilia from soprano Slávka Zámečníková, a Staatsoper ensemble member who rode to the rescue when Jeanine de Bique had to withdraw. Her rendition of ‘Zeffiretti lusinghieri’ was superb. Attilio Glaser made a good fist of Idomeneo’s ‘Fuor del mar’, one of Mozart’s most fiendish tenor arias.

David Bates’ energetic conducting was not quite repaid by a Wiener Symphoniker on sluggish form, but the Arnold Schoenberg Choir was outstanding, singing with urgency and passion. It is hoped that Herheim’s staging can finally hit the stage in a future season.

Dark Kosky at the Staatsoper

Bogdan Roščić has made it his mission to renew the Staatsoper’s core repertoire. He’s bought in wisely (Calixto Bieito’s Carmen, Simon Stone’s Traviata, Anthony Minghella’s Butterfly) but also commissioned directors unafraid to provoke, such as Kirill Serebrennikov (Parsifal and Don Carlo). In recent years, Barrie Kosky has delivered a Mozart-Da Ponte trilogy which played together for the first time this autumn.

Gerald Finley (Wiener Staatsoper)

I saw Don Giovanni, which plays on a landscape of black rock and is deliberately enigmatic. The Commendatore gets his head smashed in with a rock, Leporello reels off a list of the Don’s conquests by counting pebbles into Elvira’s hands, Masetto wields two large stones as his ‘weapons’. What is the power that Giovanni has over these people? It’s almost magnetic or like shockwaves that ripple through them. When the Don meets his death, that spark is extinguished.

There were plenty of sparks in the lively performances. Davide Luciano and Peter Kellner created a terrifically funny double act as Giovanni and Leporello, while Louise Alder, essaying her first Donna Anna, sang with bright tone and fearsome agility. Bogdan Volkov’s velvet tenor impressed as Don Ottavio and mezzo Patricia Nolz, now a veteran of this staging, sang Zerlina splendidly, gorgeously caressing ‘Vedrai carino’.

Kosky’s Macbeth is even darker, in all senses of the word. The chorus, covered in black, is hidden in the shadows, a spotlight literally focusing attention on to the Macbeths, Gerald Finley in his role debut and Liudmyla Monastyrska. The witches are represented by a semi-naked ensemble who ominously carry around dead ravens (never a good sign). When Macbeth is stabbed by Macduff, black feathers are plucked from his back. Lady Macbeth delivers her Sleepwalking Scene to an attentive raven.

The most powerful moment comes during the chorus of Scottish refugees ‘Patria oppressa’; a black mass huddled together in the middle of the stage, they gradually remove their hoods, as if regaining their identity, the Staatsoper Chorus singing resplendently.

Finley sang with immaculate legato and attention to text, his baritone lacking a little juice for Macbeth’s great ‘Pietà, rispetto, amore’. Monastyrska was off form; she still has a powerful soprano, but her lower register is now hollow. Roberto Tagliavini’s sonorous, soft-grained bass made for a fine Banquo. Axel Kober conducted an invigorating account of Verdi’s score, the heavy brass especially bracing. ON

This article originally appeared in the Spring 2025 issue of Opera Now. Never miss an issue – subscribe today