Opera and Classical Music in Vienna: Tickets and Standing Room

In many capitals, the main opera house and symphony hall are priced and programmed for corporate hospitality. In Vienna, the State Opera (Wiener Staatsoper) puts on around 300 performances of more than 50 different operas and ballets between September and June, its pit orchestra is the pool from which the Vienna Philharmonic draws its players, and more than 400 standing places are sold for every show at the price of a metro pass.

How Vienna State Opera standing room works

You no longer have to queue outside on the pavement for three hours to get a standing-room ticket (Stehplatz):

• Online at 10am on the day: standing tickets go on sale strictly on the day of the performance, starting at 10am Vienna time in the official Wiener Staatsoper online ticket shop. You can pick your exact standing spot on the map and keep the ticket on your phone.
• In person before the curtain: a remaining quota is sold at the dedicated Standing Room Box Office under the arcade on the Operngasse side of the building, opening 80 minutes before the performance starts.
• Which zone to pick: Stehparterre (at the back of the ground-floor stalls) has the clearest view and sound and sells out fastest; Balkon and Galerie are higher up with a steep view down to the stage.
• Inside the hall: every single standing space has its own small electronic screen on the brass rail in front of you with live subtitles in English or German. If you enter early from the physical queue, tie a scarf around the rail at your assigned number to mark your place while you visit the cloakroom or buffet. Heavy coats and backpacks must be left at the free cloakrooms.

Seated tickets and the other opera houses

Seated tickets for the Staatsoper go on sale two months before the performance month (or can be requested earlier online). In April, May, June and September, selected performances are also broadcast live for free onto a big screen on Herbert-von-Karajan-Platz outside the building. Vienna has two other full-scale opera houses: the Theater an der Wien (near the Naschmarkt, where Beethoven's Fidelio premiered) and the Volksoper (at Währinger Straße on U6), which mixes opera, operetta and musicals at gentler prices.

The Musikverein and the Konzerthaus

Ten minutes' walk east along the Ring, near Karlsplatz, stands the Musikverein, famous for its Golden Hall (Goldener Saal), where the Vienna Philharmonic's New Year's Concert is broadcast every 1 January. You do not need to win the January ticket lottery to hear the room's acoustics: check the Musikverein website for regular evening or Sunday matinee concerts, which also sell cheap standing places behind the stalls. Nearby on Lothringerstraße, the 1913 Wiener Konzerthaus runs an equally rich schedule from baroque ensembles to jazz and modern works.

Why you should ignore the costumed street sellers

Around Stephansplatz, Kärntner Straße and the Hofburg, ticket sellers in powdered wigs and red frock coats hand out flyers for "Mozart and Strauss" concerts. These programmes are aimed purely at tourists, repeat the same greatest-hits excerpts and charge as much as a real seat at the Konzerthaus or Volksoper. Always book directly on the official websites of the Staatsoper, Musikverein, Konzerthaus, Theater an der Wien or Volksoper.