2025 is the year of Strauss: Vienna will be celebrating the bicentenary of the birth of the Waltz King and operetta composer with a packed and very contemporary program lasting the whole year. 

All the info about Johann Strauss 2025

Countdown Strauss “Danube Waltz”

To kick off the new year, Vienna’s Rathausplatz is a performance hotspot on the New Year’s Eve Trail: After the last chime of the Pummerin bell in St. Stephen’s Cathedral, Ankathie Koi and Max Mutzke will perform a new arrangement of the Danube Waltz live with percussion superstar Martin Grubinger and his hundred-strong “super band”. With a text written by Tex Rubinowitz, what is probably Johann Strauss’ most frequently performed work will officially open the Strauss festival year.

Where the bat flutters

Strauss music is always ever-present at the turn of the year in Vienna. Two opera houses perform the most famous of all operettas, Johann Strauss' Die Fledermaus, over the New Year period: The Vienna Volksoper (December 31 and January 1) and the Vienna State Opera (December 31, January 1 & 4). Rarely has a work with such immediacy left its mark on Vienna like this one. From the premiere in 1874 onwards, the pieces has been performed incredibly often and almost always over New Year's since 1900. Die Fledermaus takes a light-hearted look at the varieties of erotic and social affectation and gets the bourgeois façades dancing, political and social commentaries included.

Show all pictures

1 /of 3

3 pictures

New Year's Concert by the Vienna Philharmonic

The most famous concert in the world – the New Year’s Concert – takes place on the morning of January 1st every year in the Golden Hall of the Vienna Music Society (preview and New Year’s Eve concert with the same program are held on December 30 and 31). Riccardo Muti will be conducting the first concert of 2025. As always, the program includes works by the Strauss dynasty and their contemporaries and represents an expression of pure joie de vivre. Eight pieces by the composer of the year – Johann Strauss II – will be performed! You can be there again this year by watching the event on TV in over 90 countries.

A few days before that, the Tonkünstler Orchestra of Lower Austria, conducted by Alfred Eschwé, will get the audience in the mood for the New Year with its New Year’s Eve concert at the Vienna Music Society. In addition to waltzes and polkas, there will be rousing orchestral works, grand overtures and vocal delights from operetta and opera (December 28, 29).

The musicians behind the Vienna Ring Ensemble are members of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. This chamber orchestra ensemble will perform another classical New Year’s Eve concert in the atmospheric Brahms Hall of the Vienna Music Society. (December 30 & 31)

Show all pictures

1 /of 4

4 pictures

Beethoven and Strauss at the Konzerthaus

A densely packed musical New Year’s Eve program makes the Wiener Konzerthaus the place to be. A performance will be held in every concert hall:

•  Erwin Steinhauer sends his best wishes in the form of cabaret and music, accompanied by Georg Graf, Joe Pinkl and Peter Rosmanith (December 28).
• “Be Embraced, You Millions!” – a musical love letter to Vienna by the Strauss Festival Orchestra Vienna (December 29)
• Stefanie Dvorak and Sven-Eric Bechtolf take a literary approach with readings from Schnitzler’s “Reigen”, accompanied by music from the Musicbanda Franui (December 29).
• The best tradition is Beethoven’s Ninth, played by the Wiener Symphoniker (December 30, 31).
• The King’s Singers give an insight into their broad repertoire with the theme “Long Live the King” (December 30).
• The Wiener Symphoniker’s grand New Year’s Eve gala, under the baton of Petr Popelka, features a “Kick-off with Strauss”. Piper Nikolaus Habjan (pictured) will perform with the nexus now ensemble, which effortlessly transcends genre boundaries, mezzo-soprano Anna Lucia Richter and Ines Schüttengruber on piano and organ. At midnight, he will blow the whistle to mark the start of the Strauss Year, after which pop singer Ankathie Koi and rapper Def III will join him on stage.

© Marija Kanižaj

Wienerisch and different

Naturally, there are also unusual stage art formats at New Year's: in the crypt of the Peterskirche (Church of St. Peter), the operetta ensemble Oper@Tee thrills in a lively and punchy way with its Fledermaus performance with piano accompaniment (December 29, 31 & January 4). Minimalist and up close and personal to the very small audience.

For the more courageous: the L.E.O – Letztes Erfreuliches Operntheater takes a humorous, entertaining and downright strange approach at the L.E.O. New Year’s Eve Gala, combining opera highlights, chansons, hits and operetta earworms and – watch out! – audience participation. There will also be snacks and drinks (December 31). On January 4 and 7, the L.E.O. will present the anniversary stars of 2025 in its New Year’s Concert 2025, from Johann Strauss to Giacomo Casanova.

Finding your favorite event

There is a lot more happening on Vienna’s stages at the turn of the year – from concerts (Karl Ratzer New Year’s Eve Special at the Porgy & Bess jazz club) to theater (Holzfällen by Thomas Bernhard at the Burgtheater, Neil Simon’s Sonny Boys at the Theater in der Josefstadt) and musicals (Rock me Amadeus – The Falco Musical, The Phantom of the Opera). 

Events in Vienna