It is Vienna’s most popular stage for musicals and live performances and it’s been open since the 19th century. The Raimundtheater was named after the well-known Austrian playwright and actor Ferdinand Raimund and at the time that it opened was mainly showing dramas and serious plays in German or “Wiener Volkstheater” (which was also Raimund’s genre). The first play shown in the theater was Raimund’s “Die Gefesselte Fantasie.” It wasn’t long however when it changed its offering to operettas to cater to a more sophisticated audience. The light musical plays featured music written by famous composers such as Johann Strauss, Franz Schubert and Robert Stolz. It closed for a brief period during World War II but promptly re-opened in 1945 and became known among international audiences for staging German operettas with popular actors such as Marika Rokk, Attila Horbiger, Zarah Leander and Johannes Heesters. It was extensively renovated in the mid-1980s after which it became part of the “Vereinigte Buhnen Wien” (United Stages Vienna) and offered locally-produced or first musical performances. In the 1990s it featured adaptations of big Broadway hits such as Grease, Beauty and the Beast, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and Hair. Its biggest hit was the musical “We Will Rock You” which featured the music of Queen – advance tickets sold for the performances reached over 90,000. Since last year it has been showing the wildly successful musical “Elisabeth.”
The Raimundtheater has a seating capacity of about 1,180 and is open from Tuesday to Sunday with about 7 performances every day.
