16.05.2025 – 22.06.2025
The Wiener Festwochen | Freie Republik Wien celebrates the revolutionary power of love in the second year of Milo Rau’s directorship under the claim V is for loVe.
Sensational artists from all continents will cover Vienna with over 40 theatre and music productions, installations and community projects, including eleven world premieres and ten in-house productions. Never before have there been so many new and in-house productions, so many world and Austrian premieres at the festival as in this REPUBLIC OF LOVE!
The central BRAND NEW CLASSICS series catapults twelve great myths from the canon of world literature into the present day without reverence, but full of love: be it Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage in the production by shooting star director Lisaboa Houbrechts or Gorges Ocloo’s reworking of the iconic baroque work Stabat Mater by Giovanni B. Pergolesi with African traditions.
White Widow by Kurdwin Ayub reinterprets One Thousand and One Nights in a daring way as the story of a woman who will walk over dead bodies for her passion. With Ils nous ont oubliés – based on Thomas Bernhard’s Das Kalkwerk – French director Séverine Chavrier is showing a work in Austria for the first time.
The pulsating heart of the festival is the Haus and Club der Republik in the Funkhaus: theory icons such as Eva Illouz debate here as well as former RAF members, world stars such as Laurie Anderson sit around the campfire with sex workers – and as house artists, the SIGNA collective transforms the attic into an immersive performance installation with Das Letzte Jahr.
The Pelicot trial brings what is undoubtedly the most mediatised, discussed and symbolic trial of our time to the Funkhaus in cooperation with the Festival d’Avignon.
The concert performance series Caravan of LUV by Elia Rediger & int int irrit combines pop culture with healing rituals.
Japanese director Satoko Ichihara, for example, explores love, role models and the abuse of power in Kitty in a way that is both malicious and comical, while Carolina Bianchi scrutinises male bonding in The Brotherhood.
In the large discourse format, the Vienna Congresses I & II, the red lines of ‘Cancel Culture’ and the entanglements behind abuse of power and #MeToo will be renegotiated, with the Council of the Republic taking on an important function. The results of the work on the Vienna Declaration, formulated in 2024 and implemented since then, will be incorporated here, as will the experiences of the global RESISTANCE NOW!
The Akademie Zweite Moderne presents ten outstanding contemporary female* composers in two concerts with Klangforum Wien. Mariano Pensotti’s Ein gefräßiger Schatten continues the successfully established Volksstück series, and with the gigantic project Inselliebe, artist Thomas Verstraeten declares his love for an entire island – together with the communities of the Donauinsel.
Wiener Festwochen 2025
16.05.2025 – 22.06.2025
Vienna, various locations
www.festwochen.at
