2 Best Performing Arts Venues in District 2/Leopoldstadt, Vienna

A play on the words music and theater, MuTh is the concert hall and permanent home of the world-famous Vienna Boys' Choir (Wiener Sängerknaben). Since it opened in 2012, the 400-seat theater has become the official music center inside the Augarten, the oldest Baroque garden in Vienna. Here the legendary Vienna Boys' Choir performs music that ranges from classical to world music to pop. The vast stage has some of the finest acoustics in Vienna and is equipped with an orchestra pit, specially designed seating, and distinctive acoustic panels. The building itself combines a unique mix of Baroque and modern architecture and includes a café, shop, and seminar room where musical education and other performances take place.

The beloved Vienna Boys' Choir, known here as the Wiener Sängerknaben, isn't just a set of living dolls out of a Walt Disney film (like the 1962 movie Almost Angels); its pedigree is royal, and its professionalism such that the choir regularly appears with the best orchestras in the world. The troupe was founded by Emperor Maximilian I in 1498, but with the demise of the Hapsburg Empire in 1918, it became its own entity and began giving public performances in the 1920s to keep afloat.

From mid-September to late June, the apple-cheeked lads sing mass most Sunday mornings at 9:15 am in the Hofburgkapelle. Tickets for all their concerts (including mass at the Hofburgkapelle) must be bought through the individual venues. Purchase early. Tickets without a view of the choir start at €12; going up to €53 with a view.  You can also purchase tickets at the Hofburgkapelle box office (open Friday 11–1 and 3–5). They also have concerts at MuTh.