Emotional summer night concert in Graz: commemorate for amoclauf victims

Emotional summer night concert in Graz: commemorate for amoclauf victims

Graz, Österreich - On June 13, 2025, the Midsummer Night Concert of the Vienna Philharmonic took place in the baroque park of Schönbrunn Castle. This year, however, the event was overshadowed by the tragic events in Graz. A killing spree at a school had asked for eleven lives and injured many more, which put the entire event in a difficult context. For this reason, the opening piece of the concert was changed by the originally planned "Cancan" from Jacques Offenbach's "Orphée aux Enfers" to "Air" by Johann Sebastian Bach to commemorate the victims. Around 53,000 visitors took part in a silence in silence to commemorate the victim. The Philharmonic board member Daniel Froschauer spoke of a deep dismay about events and conductor Tugan Sokhiev expressed the hope that the music could help to alleviate the pain.

This year's concert offered a varied program that consisted of known opera and operetta melodies. Three debuts shaped the evening: Tugan Sokhiev, the Viennese singing boys and the star tenor Piotr Beczała, who enchanted the audience with chants from Puccini's "Turandot" and Bizets "Carmen". The elven choir of the Viennese singing boys sang the play "Come" to us and sing "and dance" from "Rheinnixen". The program focus also included works such as the "Hungarian March" by Hector Berlioz, "Danse Bacchanale" by Camille Saint-Saëns and the "Blumenwalzer" from Tschaikovsky's "Nusscracker".

a concert full of emotions

The event had a certain basic difficulty, which, however, gradually dissolved in the course of the evening. As part of the concert, the overture for the comic opera "The Funny Women from Windsor" was also performed in honor of the 25th anniversary of the music. The crowning glory of the evening was the play "When it gets evening (greet me my Vienna)" by Emmerich Kálmán, followed by the last encore "Viennese blood" by Johann Strauss. The transmission was carried out by the ORF and reached over 80 countries worldwide with millions of viewers.

The opening of the summer night concert was part of the ORF culture summer in 2025 and was already inseparable with the aftermath of events in Graz. Established with 17 cameras, the ORF broadcast offered the audience an emotional and intoxicating musical experience in over 150 countries, which took into account the tragic circumstances, but still set a sign of hope and community. 3sat sends the concert on Saturday at 8:15 p.m.