25 Best Performing Arts Venues in Vienna, Austria

What would La Traviata be like with two soloists and a piano? Or how about a Tosca where you can join in the chorus? Stefan Fleischhacker's Letztes Erfreuliches Operntheater (otherwise known as the Last Enjoyable Opera Theater, or L.E.O. for short) offers marvelously funny and entertaining performances of grand operas that are appropriate for audiences of all ages (and much shorter than their originals). For a small donation, bread and wine are also available.

The city's most important concert halls are in the 1869 Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, better known as the Musikverein. This magnificent theater holds six performance spaces, but the one that everyone knows is the venue for the annual New Year's Day Concert—the Goldene Saal. Possibly the world's most beautiful music hall, it was designed by the Danish 19th-century architect Theophil Hansen, a passionate admirer of ancient Greece who festooned it with an army of gilded caryatids. Surprisingly, the smaller Brahms Saal is even more sumptuous—a veritable Greek temple with more caryatids and lots of gilding and green malachite. What Hansen would have made of the four subsidiary halls added in 2004 and set below the main theater will forever remain a mystery, but the avant-garde Gläserne, Hölzerne, Metallene, and Steinerne Säle (Glass, Wooden, Metal, and Stone Halls) make fitting showcases for contemporary music. In addition to being the main venue for the Wiener Philharmoniker and the Wiener Symphoniker, the Musikverein hosts many of the world's finest orchestras.

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 most enchanting place to hear Mozart in Vienna (or anywhere, for that matter) is the exquisite 18th-century Sala Terrena, where Mozart himself played. In this intimate room (it seats a maximum of 80 people), a chamber group in historic costumes offers concerts in a jewel box overrun with Rococo frescoes in the Venetian style. Said to be the oldest concert hall in Vienna, the Sala Terrena is part of the German Monastery, where, in 1781, Mozart lived and worked for his despised employer, Archbishop Colloredo of Salzburg.

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.

Europe's largest contemporary dance festival takes place in venues large and small all over the city between mid-July and mid-August. In 2017, the festival venues were at nearly 100% capacity, with a record-breaking number of visitors; nearly 130,000 people packed into the halls, museums, and theaters to see some of the world's leading companies take the stage. Recent years have brought stars such as Alaine Platel, Jerome Bel, Mathilde Monnier, Anne Teresa De Keersmaker, and Marie Chouinard.

A former bread factory once slated for demolition is now the site of Vienna's most celebrated contemporary art venue. Ateliers, galleries, showrooms, and studios for artists-in-residence are set up inside, making it akin to an urban artists' colony. It showcases some of the country's premier artists, as well as many up-and-comers.

Carol Reed's Vienna-based classic The Third Man, with Orson Welles and Joseph Cotton, is screened two or three times a week in English. Hollywood's latest releases are usually shown here in the original English version.

The Austrian National Theater is among the leading German-language theaters of the world. The Burgtheater's repertoire frequently mixes German classics with more modern and controversial pieces. The Burg also emphasizes works by Austrian playwrights, including Elfriede Jelinek, who won the 2004 Nobel Prize for Literature. The Burg's smaller house, the Akademietheater, draws on much the same group of actors for classical and modern plays, but performances are in a more relaxing setting.

Located in the Albertina, the Filmmuseum has one of the most ambitious and sophisticated schedules around, with a heavy focus on English-language films. Its stylish Filmbar, serving drinks and snacks, spills out onto the street. It's open until well past midnight and often hosts lectures and retrospectives.

Much of the Imperial Palace is used today for orchestral concerts. The Festsaal, the largest hall of the Hofburg and originally conceived as a throne room, hosts frequent Strauss and Mozart concerts. If dripping opulence is a must, the Zeremoniensaal, considered the most magnificent hall of the palace, is an unparalleled venue for experiencing Vienna's classical soul.

Lesser-known and alternative operas and operettas are performed at the Kammeroper, the smallest and most intimate of Vienna's opera houses, to sold-out crowds under the artistic direction of Carolin Wielpuetz.

This well-respected theater offers a season of modern dramas and comedies.

The Konzerthaus is home to three performance halls: the Grosser Konzerthaussaal, Mozartsaal, and Schubertsaal are all esteemed venues for a range of musical genres, including classical, cabaret, pop, and jazz. The lineup has included greats like Mnozil Brass, Dianne Reeves, Goran Bregović, and the Herbert Pixner Projekt.

Historical recordings of Mozart's Magic Flute and other favorites are on the program at this magnificent puppet theater in Schönbrunn Palace. These outstanding performances fill a whole evening, with programs designed for adults as well as for children.

Originally built as a theater for the people, the Raimund staged popular folk plays in its early days. It then moved on to opera for a spell before becoming a leading venue for long-running musicals. Here, lovers of the genre can enjoy such hits as Rock Me Amadeus and The Phantom of the Opera.

Extensively restored in recent years, the Ronacher presents the latest musical smash hits from Broadway in a magnificent, traditional space with ornate details, a painted ceiling and a 2-ton chandelier.

For nearly 80 years, the theater has been associated with the University of Music and Performing Arts. Here visitors can watch student performances of both opera and dramatic arts.

Austria's foremost center for contemporary dance performances is Tanzquartier Wien. The season runs from October to June. From April to June, a program called Audiencing offers special formats for audiences to become better acquainted with contemporary dance.

This beautiful Rococo-style historic theater located in Mariahilf is more than 200 years old. It was used and abused for decades as a contemporary musical venue, but now the building—which is closely linked to Beethoven, who lived here—has renewed its role as an opera house, attracting an international crowd. It's open year-round, and hosts a premiere nearly every month. The selection of works performed here is tremendous, including Janáček, Prokofiev, Britten, Handel, Monteverdi, Rossini, and Bach.

The Theater in der Josefstadt, the oldest Vienna theater still in operation, stages classical and modern works in a space once run by the great producer and teacher Max Reinhardt. The theater had, of late, been seeming to gather layers of dust, but happily director Herbert Föttinger has restored its reputation for more avant-garde and daring productions.

One of the world's great opera houses, the Staatsoper has been the scene of countless musical triumphs and a center of unending controversy over how it should be run and by whom. A performance takes place virtually every night from September to June, drawing on the vast repertoire of the house, with an emphasis on Mozart, Verdi, and Wagner. Guided tours are given year-round.

For English-language theater—mainly classic comedies and dramas—head for this cozy and charming venue. The season runs early September to early July.

Opera, operetta, and ballet are performed at the Volksoper, just on the outer edge of the Innere Stadt at Währinger Strasse and Währinger Gürtel. Prices here are significantly lower than at the Staatsoper, and performances can be every bit as rewarding. This theater has a packed calendar, with offerings ranging from the grandest opera, such as Mozart's Don Giovanni; to an array of Viennese operettas, including Johann Strauss's Die Fledermaus; to Broadway musicals. Most operas and musicals are sung in German.

If the Mozart symphonies and the whirling waltzes of Strauss are your thing, catch a Mozart and Strauss concert at the Wiener Kursalon, a majestic palace-like structure built in the Italian Renaissance Revival style in 1865 and set in Vienna's sylvan Stadtpark. Here, in gold-and-white salons, the Salonorchester Alt Wien performs concerts of the works of "Waltz King" Johann Strauss and famous works by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. You'll hear waltzes, polkas, and operetta melodies.