The Staatsoper, or Vienna State Opera, is one of the greatest companies in the world and has an audience that typifies Austria's love of music and the theatre. The tenor José Carreras has said that it is "every singer's dream" to sing there. "Every time I come", he says, "I can feel the warmth and affection of that audience."
The Hapsburg royal family's interest in the arts encouraged musicians and performers to come to Vienna from all parts of Europe. As early as 1622, Italian musicians were performing in the city for the marriage of Ferdinand II to Eleonora Gonzaga.
During the reign of Leopold I (1657-1705) over four hundred new operas were performed and a theatre was built to house them. This became the Burgtheater, where the emphasis was on German opera. There, under the auspices of the newly-established National Theatre Company, Mozart's opera Entf├╝hrung aus dem Serail (The Seraglio) was premiered, in 1782, followed by Figaro (1786) and Cosi fan tutte (1790). (The Magic Flute was first heard at Emanuel Schikaneder's Theater auf den Wieden, which he replaced with the Theater an der Wien in 1801. This still remains and has become the official base of the annual Vienna festival.)
From the 1780s the Imperial Court Opera had its home in the Karntnertortheater which was demolished in 1857, when the centre of Vienna was largely reconstructed. A new opera house was built, which opened in 1869 and became the most important centre of music in Europe. It was here that Mahler was music director between 1897 and 1907, revolutionising operatic standards in close collaboration with his chief designer, Alfred Moller.
The company was renamed the Vienna State Opera after World War I, when it attracted singers of the calibre of Richard Tauber and conductors including Richard Strauss. The building was extensively bombed in 1945. As a result the company was forced to remove to the Theater an der Wien and the Volksoper, Vienna's second opera house, which had opened in 1898. It returned to its gloriously restored home in 1955, opening with a production of Beethoven's Fidelio.
The following decade saw the introduction of many 20th century works under the directorship of the conductor, von Karajan. Between 1964 and 1982 standards declined. They were raised again under the directorship of Maestro Lorin Maazel, who was succeeded in 1986 by Claus Helmut Drese, as intendant (director), and, until recently, Maestro Claudio Abbado, as music director.
