Brand New Classics

Forwards into the past, back to the future: the Vienna Festival (Wiener Festwochen) | Free Republic of Vienna artists of 2025 will be even more radical as they tackle the canon of world literature and rewrite it for the 21st century!

From Sophocles to Aeschylus, from Shakespeare to Chekhov, from Jelinek to Bernhard, from Scheherazade to Robin Hood, from Kleist to Pergolesi and from Brecht to Duras, we will globalise the classics and catapult the great legends into our day. Revolutionary, profound, irreverential but full of love is how the most important directors, actors and companies are adapting twelve classic works for (music) theatre for our times. Together, we will travel to Victorian England and the Peloponnesian War, fall head over heels in love with Chekhov and into despair with Kleist, grieve with Mother Courage, listen to Scheherazade and fight at Robin Hood’s side! Everything you have always wanted to know about Shakespeare, Aeschylus, the Holy Mother of God and Elfriede Jelinek, but were afraid to ask: the BRAND NEW CLASSICS series is your ticket!