Vienna Festival

From 13 May, the Vienna Festival will be showing 41 productions of contemporary stage art. Performances will be held at 17 locations across Vienna. The elite of opera and theater directors, conductors and orchestras set international standards during the Vienna Festival with modern stagings and new works.

At the free open-air opening on 13 May at City Hall, Genia Kühmeier, Robert Holl and Michael Schade sing to the accompaniment of the ORF Radio-Symphony Orchestra Vienna. A highlight is the final of the choral competition "Austria sings".

The program of musical theater starts with the open-air performance on Karlsplatz of "Orestreïa" by composer Iannis Xenakis, who died in 2001. This is followed by Verdi's "Rigoletto", in the production by festival director Luc Bondy, and Beat Furrer's "Wüstenbuch", staged by Christoph Marthaler.

Nobel literature prize winner Toni Morrison, African singer Rokia Traorè and director Peter Sellars develop the "Desdemona project". Alvis Hermanis, a dramatist from Riga, shows his work "Latvian Loves" for the first time outside his homeland. Canadian Robert Lepage brings his perhaps poetic work "The Far Side of the Moon" to Vienna for the first time. The festival program has plenty more to offer...

www.festwochen.at

Copyright: Mike Ranz

Event starts May 13, 2011 and ends June 19, 2011