ViennaVolksoper

Complete Volksoper Productions

Alongside the orchestra, we place complete stage productions of the Vienna Volksoper: opera, operetta and musical as full-length performances for your house or festival – on request with a cast of soloists, chorus and the entire scenic staging.

Symphony Orchestra of the Vienna Volksoper

The Symphony Orchestra of the Vienna Volksoper was founded in 1917 by the musicians of the house under the name “Wiener Volksopernorchester”. Today it is known internationally as a concert orchestra, above all for Viennese operetta and for concerts with great singers.

The first concert took place on 11 November 1917 on the stage of the Volksoper. In 1939 the orchestra was dissolved by the authorities and re-founded after the Second World War as an association of interests. Numerous record productions date from that period; the recording of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony was named the best technical and musical reproduction on LP in 1953.

In 1978 the concert association Wiener Volksopernorchester was established, born of the musicians’ wish to play symphonic repertoire alongside their work in the pit. Two fields in particular brought the orchestra international standing: accompanying singers, and concerts with works by Johann Strauss father and son, Josef Strauss, Franz Lehár and Franz von Suppè.

The orchestra appears worldwide, among other venues at the Vienna Musikverein and Konzerthaus, the Theater an der Wien, the Vienna State Opera, the Konzerthaus Berlin, Suntory Hall Tokyo, Salle Pleyel Paris, the Seoul Arts Center, the Sala Verdi in Milan, the Beethovenhalle Bonn, City Hall Hong Kong, Festival Hall Osaka, the Philharmonie im Gasteig in Munich, the Liederhalle Stuttgart, the Jahrhunderthalle Frankfurt and the Brucknerhaus Linz.

Asia has been a focus since 1988, with tours to Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, Thailand, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia, and above all to Japan, where the orchestra has performed every year since 1994. In the anniversary year “30 Years of Suntory Hall Tokyo” it played both the opening New Year’s concert and the closing New Year’s Eve concert.

Its partners have included José Carreras, Agnes Baltsa, Luciano Pavarotti and Plácido Domingo, and more recently Elīna Garanča, Jonas Kaufmann, Angela Gheorghiu, Piotr Beczała, Annette Dasch, Diana Damrau and Juan Diego Flórez.

Musical flexibility is a basic requirement. The repertoire ranges from the Baroque through opera, operetta, symphonic music, musical theatre and ballet to film music and the music of our time. Performances of Mendelssohn Bartholdy’s “Elijah” and “St Paul”, Handel’s “Judas Maccabaeus”, Haydn’s “Creation” and Brahms’s “German Requiem” stand alongside contemporary programmes at the Wiener Festwochen.

The symbiosis of symphony and opera orchestra works in both directions. Playing symphonic repertoire on the concert platform sharpens quality, while accompanying an operatic aria trains sensitivity. A particular concern remains the cultivation of Viennese operetta and of the Viennese sound.

The members of the orchestra are women and men from many countries and cultures. Taking on new challenges while remaining true to the orchestra’s own tradition describes the standard these musicians set themselves.