What’s on in Vienna this week

Where to go in Vienna: events, concerts and shows worth your night

Vienna stages more classical music on any given night than any other city, in halls that the rest of the world knows from television, and it prices a good deal of it for students and standing room. It also has a club scene along the Danube canal, a museum quarter built for evenings, and a ball season that takes over the winter. Below is where to go in Vienna for a night out, with addresses, and what tends to be on when.

Classical music in Vienna: the Musikverein, the Konzerthaus and the State Opera

The Wiener Staatsoper (Opernring 2, 1010, wiener-staatsoper.at) performs around 300 nights a season, September to June, with a different opera or ballet almost every evening; cheap standing tickets go on sale on the day, and the queue forms about two hours before. The Musikverein (Musikvereinsplatz 1, 1010, musikverein.at) is the home of the Vienna Philharmonic, its Golden Hall the room from the New Year’s Concert; the Konzerthaus (Lothringerstraße 20, 1030) across the park is its more adventurous rival, with jazz and contemporary music alongside the symphonies. The Volksoper in the 9th district does operetta and musicals with more relaxed prices.

Concerts and Vienna nightlife: the canal, the Gürtel and the Arena

The Arena Wien (Baumgasse 80, 1030, arena.wien), a former slaughterhouse in the 3rd district, is the rock, metal and indie venue, with an open-air stage in summer. Flex (Augartenbrücke 1, 1010, flex.at), in a disused tunnel by the Danube canal, has run club nights and gigs since the nineties; the bars along the canal itself are the summer meeting point. The railway arches under the Gürtel, between Josefstädter Straße and Nussdorfer Straße, hold the small clubs and live bars. The U-Bahn runs all night on Fridays and Saturdays.

Theatre and dance in Vienna

The Burgtheater (Universitätsring 2, 1010) is the German-speaking world’s most important stage, and the Theater in der Josefstadt its elegant counterpart; both are in German, though the Burg surtitles selected performances in English. Contemporary dance lives at the Tanzquartier in the MuseumsQuartier, and the Theater an der Wien on the Naschmarkt stages opera in a 1801 house.

Museums and galleries in Vienna for an evening

The MuseumsQuartier (Museumsplatz 1, 1070, mqw.at) puts the Leopold Museum, with the largest Schiele collection anywhere, and mumok, the modern art museum, around a courtyard that fills with people on the outdoor furniture on summer evenings; the museums open late on Thursdays. The Belvedere (Prinz-Eugen-Straße 27, 1030, belvedere.at) holds Klimt’s The Kiss in the Upper Palace and contemporary shows in the Belvedere 21 pavilion by the station. The Albertina, by the opera, stays open until nine on Wednesdays and Fridays.

Vienna festivals and events by season

• Winter: the ball season from November to the end of Carnival in February, with the Opera Ball as its peak; Christmas markets from mid-November, the one in front of the Rathaus the largest; and the New Year’s Concert on 1 January.
• Spring: the Wiener Festwochen, five weeks of theatre, music and performance from May into June, opening with a free concert on the Rathausplatz.
• Summer: the free Donauinselfest, Europe’s largest open-air festival, on the Danube island in June; the film festival on the Rathausplatz with free screenings of opera and concerts all July and August; and Popfest on the Karlsplatz.
• Autumn: Vienna Design Week and Viennale, the film festival, in October, and the new opera and concert seasons from September.

Things to do in Vienna tonight and this weekend

The listings above are the live version of all this: every concert, show, club night and exhibition on in Vienna tonight, tomorrow and this weekend, with times, prices and tickets, updated every hour.