You celebrate a proper birthday at the stroke of midnight! Especially when it's the birthday of a composer who not only made Vienna dance, but the whole world. That's why Petr Popelka, actor, puppeteer and artistic whistler Nikolaus Habjan and the Wiener Symphoniker will ring in the year 2025, the 200th anniversary year of Johann Strauss (son), on 1 January at zero sharp in the Great Hall of the Wiener Konzerthaus - with the Danube Waltz, of course!

The whole of Vienna will then pay homage to the Waltz King, the composer of the Tritsch-Tratsch-Polka and Annen-Polka, Fledermaus and Night in Venice. To the composer who made people dance to his works from the Casino Dommayer in Vienna to St. Petersburg and North America. One of the highlights of the Strauss celebrations will be the performance of the rarely performed operetta Carnival in Rome. A classic farce of jealousy between a country girl and a painter, set in a Tyrolean mountain village and the Italian capital. Conductor Patrick Hahn will conduct a concert version of this operetta trouvaille. And Grand Master Manfred Honeck will congratulate Johann Strauss with a big celebratory concert on his actual anniversary, 25 October. Known and unknown works by the king of waltzes will be performed under the title "Zum Geburtstag das Beste".