In 2025, the whole of Vienna will be celebrating the 200th birthday of waltz king and operetta superstar Johann Strauss. The celebratory year will fascinate with unique productions that convincingly transport the composer's oeuvre into the present day.

In Vienna, the metropolis of joie de vivre and the waltz, the coming year 2025 is all about Johann Strauss Sohn, who was born in the suburb of St. Ulrich on October 25, 1825. From 1 January to 31 December, the Danube metropolis will be celebrating "200 years of Johann Strauss" with a superb program (artistic director: Roland Geyer) that includes a broad spectrum of unique productions, innovative projects and visionary interpretations: classical concerts as well as newly interpreted operettas, circus as well as dance and film, performances as well as installations and scientific projects. There will be 65 productions and three exhibitions at locations in all districts of Vienna, divided into the program pillars PUR, MIX and OFF - depending on the extent to which the works of Johann Strauss and his biography have been reworked and reinterpreted in the respective artistic realizations. This comprehensive interpretation of Strauss' oeuvre becomes visible in a concentrated form and in an excitingly contemporary way on "Fledermaustag", a wonderful highlight of the first half of the year. The composer's operettas, which were overloaded with clichés by later generations, are also convincingly brought into the present day in the anniversary year. In addition, several very special projects will be presented below, including a unique happening and a captivating circus spectacle.

Projection artist MODULUX © Modulux

April 5, 2025: Long live Die Fledermaus!
On the birthday of Die Fledermaus - it premiered at the Theater an der Wien on April 5, 1874 - Johann Strauss' most famous operetta flutters through springtime Vienna in various guises. The anniversary year is dedicating an all-day, varied program to this day for bat enthusiasts aged 3 to 99, and the MuseumsQuartier (MQ) in particular will be the venue for a series of extraordinary events:
For example, you can experience a highly topical examination of the bat and the resulting inspiring visions of the future as part of "Creatures of the Night". Here, the internationally renowned techno producer, DJ and ecologist Dominik Eulberg counters the dark side of current social and ecological developments with a multimedia biodiversity show and the subsequent techno club "Bat Rave" with a positive new utopia: Biodiversity versus monoculture, socially and ecologically. With "Im Takt der Zeit", an audiovisual mapping show created by the projection artists MODULUX is on the program from dusk in the main courtyard of the MQ, in which projection and sound merge into a spectacular homage to the bat: the façade of the MuseumsQuartier becomes a magical screen that takes the audience on an overwhelming journey through time through the Strauss universe from 1825 to the present day. The brilliant Janoska Ensemble, whose incredibly imaginative improvisations regularly cause ovations in concert halls, also dedicates itself to Die Fledermaus at the MQ and presents the famous melodies from the operetta in captivating arrangements and with virtuoso spontaneity. There's also plenty for kids to experience on "Bat Day", with great events at Dschungel Wien and the ZOOM Children's Museum! Finally, a few more tips: In the adjacent Volkstheater, the famous melodies from Strauss' Die Fledermaus are overwritten with modern instruments in the exemplary production Villa Orlofsky, which was conceived especially for the anniversary year (director: Paul-Georg Dittrich). A new production of Die Fledermaus by Stefan Herheim will also be staged at the Musiktheater an der Wien this autumn (from October 4, 2025). Otto Schenk's famous production of Die Fledermaus will also be staged at the State Opera on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, and there will be around 15 opportunities to experience this legendary operetta, which is so closely associated with Vienna, at the Volksoper in 2025.

Premiere of Zeitenwalzer by theaternyx* in the Vienna Giant Ferris Wheel

Curtain up: six very special Strauss projects
Fortunately, Johann Strauss is also highly present in the Prater: the highly recommended world premiere Zeitenwalzer by theaternyx* allows you to dance back and forth through the centuries on the Vienna Giant Ferris Wheel. The wagons float as time capsules through almost 400 years of the city's history, while the characters and voices accompanying the journey reveal excerpts of a process of change with their stories and performances. Visitors travel through time to the music of Johann Strauss and move from one century to the next in the wagons. With each turn, the "Wheel of Time" provides a view of a city that appears anew - a utopia hovers over Vienna (January 19 to December 14, 2025). Also on the program for the first time in Austria is the mammoth work Sleep by British composer Max Richter: this "lullaby for a hectic world" focuses on human life and invites participants to the Arsenal's Malersaal on an eight-hour nocturnal journey in which they drift off to sleep to the music of Strauss and Richter. Richter invites us to pause and understand sleep not as a mere interruption of the day, but as a conscious, valuable state that regenerates and grounds us. Specially designed to accompany listeners through all phases of the sleep cycle, the screening of this mammoth work ends with the first rays of sunshine over a leisurely Viennese breakfast (March 8, 2025). Another exemplary project is the escape room "Schatten des Zweifels - Im Kopf des Genies" by renowned Austrian artist Deborah Sengl in collaboration with Time-Busters at the MQ. Based on the historical figure of Johann Strauss, an unusual escape room is created that allows participants to explore the inner and outer life of the artist. At the same time, a reflection on their own wishes, desires and fears is to be triggered. In this way, walking through the inner life of Strauss and oneself could lead to a different way of thinking and acting (January 3 to December 31, 2025). In cooperation with the Ars Electronica Futurelab, an exceptional new waltz symphony will also be created in the anniversary year 2025 and premiered at the MQ: A pioneering collaboration between man and machine, it will be created by four up-and-coming composers who will collaborate with the AI-based composition system "Ricercar" (November 27, 2025).

"Lightning and Thunder" at the Odeon © Kat Menschik

In the magnificent Odeon, the world premiere of "Blitz und Donner" by Jacqueline Kornmüller explores Johann Strauss' unfulfilled love for the young Russian composer Olga Smirnitskaja. Milena Michiko Flašar responds to Johann Strauss' letters to Olga Smirnitskaja with music by Johanna Doderer and Johann Strauss (January 25 to February 15, 2025). And the brilliant musical circus spectacle Cagliostro can be experienced at the Roncalli Circus Theater on Vienna's Heumarkt. Based on motifs from the operetta Cagliostro in Vienna, successful author Thomas Brezina has written a circus operetta for the whole family: In the magical atmosphere of the circus tent, the rousing melodies of Johann Strauss meet impressive acrobatic acts (September 10 to 28, 2025).

Sparkling stars from the Strauss operetta cosmos
The anniversary year 2025 also offers an incomparable journey through Strauss' operetta cosmos with top-class performances of masterful compositions and convincing scenic interpretations that anchor the operettas of the Waltz King in the here and now. For example, the operetta Das Spitzentuch der Königin is on the program as a new production at the Musiktheater an der Wien (director: Christian Thausing; from 18 January 2025). The Carnival in Rome, an adventurous, gender-confused love story from the carnivalesque artistic milieu, can also be experienced at the same venue, fittingly in the middle of Carnival; the concert performance with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra under conductor Patrick Hahn is presented by Nikolaus Habjan together with a puppet and boasts a wonderful ensemble (February 22, 2025). The world premiere of Das Lied vom Rand der Welt oder Der Zigeunerbaron (director: Nuran David Calis) is of course eagerly awaited: to mark the 200th anniversary of its composer's birth, Andreas Schett and Markus Kraler (Musicbanda Franui) and librettist Roland Schimmelpfennig will give this controversial operetta a musical and literary reworking that makes the tensions it contains visible and places them in a contemporary context (from 25 March 2025, MQ/Hall E).

Star conductor Franz Welser-Möst also embarks on a journey of discovery into the operetta cosmos of Johann Strauss at the Musikverein with Christiane Karg, Piotr Beczała and the Vienna Philharmonic: the internationally acclaimed artists present a dazzling "Operetta Pasticcio" (March 29, 2025). With the operetta Waldmeister, a very special gem will be presented in the Strauss anniversary year: Around two decades after Die Fledermaus, the composer and his librettist Gustav Davis (1856-1951) had created this paean to the joy of the senses, in which the aim is to bring order not only to matters of love, but also to botany. The successful Austrian director Josef E. Köpplinger is now rediscovering this wonderful but little-known gem for the stage (from April 25, 2025, MQ/Hall E). In June 2025, Strauss' first operetta will also be performed - with a slightly adapted title: Indigo und die 23 Räuber*innen (Indigo and the 23 Robbers) - will travel through all 23 Viennese districts, and in August, the aforementioned young director Nikolaus Habjan will stage Wiener Blut (Viennese Blood) imaginatively and with wit in the fantastically beautiful Schönbrunn Palace Theater (from 10 August 2025).
Finally, let's take a brief look into the fall of 2025, as the Volksoper will be staging two spectacular new productions for its anniversary year: we can look forward to an exciting interpretation of the dazzling operetta A Night in Venice (directed by Nina Spijkers; from October 25, 2025) as well as a new fairytale operetta based on Strauss' ballet fragment Cinderella, which will be premiered (from November 29, 2025).
www.johannstrauss2025.at