The first festival season under Milo Rau starts with Fuzzman & The Singin’ Rebels, Pussy Riot, Voodoo Jürgens, Bipolar Feminin, Elfriede Jelinek and many more
Vienna (OTS) – A republic is being formed: at least at Vienna’s Rathausplatz, where preparations for the opening of this year’s festival are currently in full swing. The festival, which will take place from May 17th to June 23rd, 2024, will show a completely new side under the artistic direction of its new artistic director Milo Rau and will become the “Free Republic of Vienna” – an art republic by everyone for everyone! The revolutionary program with 46 productions and projects from the fields of theater, opera, music, dance, performance, visual arts and activism relies heavily on discourse and participation. The ORF, as a long-standing media partner, will broadcast the spectacular opening event on Friday, May 17th, described by the festival as the “Proclamation of the Republic”, for an international television audience in Austria, Germany and Switzerland live at 9:20 p.m. on ORF 2 and 3sat. At a press conference today, Wednesday, May 15th, festival director Milo Rau presented details of the opening program in the presence of, among others, City Councilor for Culture Veronica Kaup-Hasler and ORF broadcaster Karin Veitl. Also present were, among others, the musical director of the opening, Herwig Zamernik, Diana Burkot, singer of the activist Russian performance collective Pussy Riot, as well as members of the choir of the “Free Republic of Vienna”, who sang one of the anthems – reinforced by Milo Rau on the tambourine, among others , “Happiness is in all colors”.
“Proclamation of the Republic”: Extraordinary opening performance live on ORF 2 and 3sat
Milo Rau’s “Free Republic of Vienna” is also musically all about resistance. The festival weeks open on Friday, May 17th, at Vienna’s Rathausplatz with an extraordinary performance. Under the musical direction of Herwig Zamernik, alias Fuzzman, things get wild: Fuzzman & The Singin’ Rebels lead with musical accomplices – the Russian, feminist, government and church-critical performance collective Pussy Riot, the Austrian singer-songwriter Voodoo Jürgens, who with the FM4 Amadeus Award 2024-winning band Bipolar Feminin, Gustav, Paula Carolina and Monobrother – through the spectacular evening. Prominent activists and artists such as Nobel Prize winner for literature Elfriede Jelinek, ecologist Carola Rackete, fictional character KDM Queen of Power, hip-hop musician Kid Pex and author Sibylle Berg contribute with concise statements. Powerful visual projections by Moritz von Dungern, Mehrdad Darafshi, Szymon Olszowski and 4youreye Projection Art bathe the Vienna City Hall in a new light. The contributions of local and international activists and bands culminate in the joint singing of the new republican anthem “Stand up, stand up” and in the “Proclamation of the Free Republic of Vienna”. ORF director Felix Breisach sets the opening of the 2024 Vienna Festival with six HD cameras skilfully capture the scene.
Kaup-Hasler: “The unseen, the unheard and sometimes the unheard of”
“The Vienna Festival Weeks have been one of the most renowned interdisciplinary art and culture festivals in Europe for more than half a century. Over the five and a half weeks, the festival presents its visitors with the unseen, unheard and sometimes unheard of – spread across the entire city: I’m looking forward to a fireworks display of top international productions, collaborations, project work as well as diverse encounters and exchanges until late into the night,” says City Councilor for Culture Veronica Kaup-Hasler. And further. “Under the new leadership of Milo Rau, the festival weeks bring art and artistic formats to the city that consciously move into the tension between politics and society and open up new spaces for discourses and debates that we urgently need in challenging times. With the traditional opening on Rathausplatz, the Vienna Festival Weeks start next Friday evening and open the window to the world with music, projections and numerous artists and partners,” said the city politician,
Rau: Vienna will become a “place of wild world theater, exchange, debate and celebration”
“With the proclamation of the Free Republic of Vienna at the opening of the Vienna Festival Weeks, we are transforming the city into a place of wild world theater, exchange, debate and celebration for five and a half weeks,” says the new festival week director Milo Rau, announcing his first season. “Vienna will burn. They are the flames of love, reconciliation, turmoil and beauty. With its extensive reporting, the ORF is an important partner so that as many people as possible can follow the program and the discussions.”
Veitl: “ORF makes an important and substantial contribution to the programmatic festival discourse”
“As an art and culture festival, the Vienna Festival Weeks is one of the most important European cultural events. With the live broadcast of a visually stunning opening from Rathausplatz, the accompanying reporting lasting several weeks and a final documentary on the “Vienna Processes,” the ORF is making an important and substantial contribution to the programmatic festival discourse under the new artistic director Milo Rau,” emphasizes Karin Veitl , ORF department head for music and theater in charge of broadcasting.
Vienna Festival Weeks also featured in “kulturMontag”, “Kultur Today” and the documentary “The Vienna Process”
The Vienna Festival Weeks are also featured several times on the ORF “kulturMontag” (10:30 p.m., ORF 2). The broadcast on May 13th gave an insight into the program of the first edition of the festival by the new director Milo Rau, who was also a personal guest in the studio. On May 27th, the ORF cultural magazine reports on the first of three weekends of the “Vienna Processes” and finally takes stock of the festival in the June 24th issue. ORF 2 also shows the “kulturMontag” documentary “The Vienna Process” (June 10, 11:30 p.m.) by Tatjana Berlakovich.
ORF III accompanies the Wiener Festwochen 2024 as part of “Culture Today” (7:45 p.m.) with current reporting on the most important productions. A special issue will report from the “Haus der Republik” on the opening day (Friday, May 17th) and meet director Milo Rau for a discussion at the festival headquarters. In addition, cultural critic Heinz Sichrovsky devotes himself to five selected productions in the section “Sichrovsky’s Foyer”.
ORF’s current TV cultural reporting as part of “Zeit im Bild”, the “Daytime” programs and “Wien aktuell” is also dedicated to the productions and events of the 2024 Wiener Festwochen.
Comprehensive reporting on ORF radios
The ORF radios Ö1 and FM4 also report in detail about the 2024 Vienna Festival, including in the Ö1 “Journalen” and the Ö1 “Kulturjournal” (Monday to Friday, 5:09 p.m.).
“I don’t want any theater!” is the title of Ö1’s “Diagonal” (Saturday, May 18, 5:05 p.m.). Neo-Intendant Milo Rau invites you to the “Haus der Republik” for the duration of the festival and explains why the Vienna Festival Weeks are proclaiming the “Free Republic of Vienna” this year. A festival project that strives for greater diversity in art music will take place at the ORF RadioKulturhaus in Vienna on June 8th and 9th: ten female composers* are invited to present their works for the “Academy of Second Modernism”, interpreted by Klangforum Wien. Ö1 broadcasts the recordings of the two concert evenings in “Supernova” (August 4th and 11th, 7:45 p.m.).
FM4 reports from the opening of the festival week at Rathausplatz and presents selected projects over the entire duration of the festival, including the “Blutstück” based on the sensational novel “Blutbuch” by the non-binary Kim de l’Horizon or the first opera work by extreme choreographer Florentina Holzinger called “SANCTA”. FM4 will also follow the “Vienna Trials”, in which Neo-Intendant Milo Rau, among others, will put himself in the dock. Various ticket raffles and event information relating to the music and party program complement the program.
ORF.at, ORF-TVthek and ORF TELETEXT
In the ORF.at network, numerous channels from news about Vienna and Ö1 to sound are dedicated to the 2024 Vienna Festival. As part of its focus reporting, ORF TOPOS offers, among other things, a detailed look at the artistic festival events and presents previews, current reports and reviews. The streaming offer around the festival on ORF ON and in the ORF TVthek starts again this year with the opening on Vienna’s Rathausplatz, which will be made available live (also on ORF Topos) and on demand. Culture fans will find all other TV programs and contributions to the festival (if the relevant online license rights are available) in their own video collection. The ORF TELETEXT provides information about the opening, highlights and program (page 415) as part of the culture top story (page 110) and the magazine “Kultur und Show” (from page 190).