Time for New Gods!

Introduction
Vienna Festival 2026

In its third year, the Free Republic of Vienna declares itself the Republic of Gods. Which old myths – from the Iliad to the Nibelung, from the Arab Banū Hilāl Epic to Wagner’s Parsifal – still hold a message for us? Are Allah, Yahwe, Thor and co still relevant at all? Which new gods and goddesses do we need to invent together? The Republic of Gods is calling out a ‘Holy Spring’ in 2026 for the 75th anniversary of the Vienna Festival (Wiener Festwochen): a mythical celebration of questioning and craving the gods.

‘God is dead’, as the philosopher Nietzsche already knew to proclaim 140 years ago. But are we really so very godless? Are we not in fact more than ever seriously affected by faith and superstition, by fear of the apocalypse and hope for salvation? Is a life without myth and spirituality (humanly) possible at all? Together with artists and activists from twenty countries, the Free Republic of Vienna is setting out to search for old and new deities and myths this spring – in Austria and the world, from the Amazon to the Near East, from New York to Tokyo, from Vienna’s Heldenplatz square to the Arena venue and from mythical prehistoric times to the day after tomorrow. Spirits meet the living, atheists meet priests and priestesses, and the legends and icons of 75 years of the Vienna Festival (Wiener Festwochen) meet the epics of our day. Because alive or dead, newborn or in the guise of the old: It’s Time for New Gods!

Of course, the Republic of Gods is one thing first and foremost: radical art! This year’s programme is all about new and old belief systems, ecclesiastical, art historical and popular culture gods and goddesses, about images and legends that determine our feelings, our life and our society. It feels close to blasphemy to list all the events, artists and debates of the Republic of Gods, but let’s try: From the American performance icon Narcissister to Thorsten Lensing’s actors’ party Dancing Idiots, from Rébecca Chaillon’s rebellious sci-fi religion to the quiet, spiritual works by Cris Moreira and Kurō Tanino, and finally to the globally celebrated Chineke! Orchestra – artists are pouring into the Republic of Gods from all continents! Vienna’s darling Susanne Kennedy is giving a spiritual new interpretation to Wagner’s Parsifal; there is a solo exhibition about mythomaniac Christoph Schlingensief; Vienna’s enfant terrible Florentina Holzinger is staging a Pentecost Play, and Romeo Castellucci questions our playing at god over death. While the ‘godmother of punk’ Patti Smith will take the stage for no less than three events, the Vienna Festival legend Robert Wilson is making a posthumous appearance at the Republic of Gods with one of his last productions, The Tempest – and Inna Shevchenko of the Ukrainian activism group Femen holds a feminist performative sermon!

Indeed, the list of grand names of world theatre is simply endless this jubilee year: Gob Squad create their new show Doppelgänger/Doppelganger; Marta Górnicka gives a stage to the chorus of today’s seers in CASSANDRA; Angélica Liddell stages a radical performance ritual with SEPPUKU. Mishima’s Funeral or the Pleasure of Dying, and the laureate of Venice and the Berlinale Alice Diop presents a postcolonial retelling of the Venus myth in The Voyage of the Sable Venus. Trajal Harrell creates an entirely new ‘History of the Theatre’ from the songs of his life (Music Music), and the two Lebanese artists Lina Majdalanie and Rabih Mroué contribute this year’s pièce commune with The Tragic Fate of Sonata No. 2, which tours through (almost) all districts. The young Serbian artist Andreja Kargačin leaps straight into the current political battles in Serbia in DORA or Who’s Going To Stitch the Vests, while choreographers Angietė Lisičkinaitė and Igor Shugaleev from Lithuania and Belarus reflect on personal and collective responsibility in the intense global situation (Clap & Slap). In our cooperation with the Schauspielhaus Wien, a number of authors examine the consequences of 9/11.

That was just the beginning: From the immortal myth of vampires – reanimated by French star director Philippe Quesne in Vampire’s Mountain – to Brazilian resistance strategies and myths (Repertório N.1), from the legend of the Wild West (Dark Noon) and the Arab Banū Hilāl Epic to the Iliad, which gets an utterly new retelling in The Day Before by composer Brigitta Muntendorf and director Christiane Jatahy, no myth, no deity, no legendary figure remains untouched. Plus Thai director Wichaya Artamat deconstructs what is probably the most effective myth of the arts in Juggle & Hide: that of the omnipotent director. And what follows the Twilight of the Gods? In Wallden, the Viennese group Nesterval creates an entire post-apocalyptic commune. With Mōdraniht. Songs of Winter War, the Kyiv collective Opera Aperta takes the form of a mythological journey from the Uzbek Aral Sea via Ukraine’s Carpathian Mountains to the winter carnival in Cantabria to ask: how do we make opera and music theatre during a war of annihilation? And Swedish theatre maker Mattias Andersson gifts an entirely worldly epic to the Vienna Festival with Myths of Everyday Life: an evening fashioned from the Viennese’s own spiritual illuminations and twilights of the gods!

Moreover, the Republic of Gods will spotlight a very special legend in 2026: the Vienna Festival itself! For five and a half weeks, we follow the winding paths of the largest crossover festival in Europe – from its establishment in 1951 and the renewal movements of the 1960s and 1980s to the Free Republic of Vienna. The jubilee production The Best Play Ever brings back unforgettable moments as much as stories that have never been told – about love and death, scandal and beauty, art and rebellion. All of that as an extraordinary public revue! We open access to a comprehensive online archive, launch a Cinema of the Republic with films and recordings from 75 years of the Vienna Festival and on 22 May, we celebrate our art republic with a massive opening party on Heldenplatz with guests arriving from all over – from Ukraine to Afghanistan, from Vienna to New York.

All of that is completed by a poster exhibition and an entirely new documentary film about the Vienna Festival. And another return is due: the legendary Vienna Festival ‘W’, globally and syncretically updated for the Republic of Gods! That is still not enough, for in 2026 the Vienna Festival will once again become the discursive hotspot of the season! That includes a debate series (Holy Spring) and a performance series (Mythical Ark) at the House and Club of the Republic on the Badeschiff (Vienna Bathing Ship), where extremist believers and right-wing as well as left-wing prophets, preachers of the apocalypse and seekers of God share the microphone – and the Vienna Festival band, Gods Republic, gives as many as five concerts, from death metal to spiritual folk.

At the same time, the Council of the Republic will continue implementing the Vienna Declaration with the support of experts – because we want to become a true Republic of Gods, not just spiritually but also in practice: an art festival that is respectful and fair alike! The items to be addressed in 2026 are quotas and financing: the question of representation and capital, two secret deities (or sacred cows) of our times. Also, the all-female womxn composers academy, the Academy Second Modernism, is once again inviting ten globally leading womxn composers to Vienna and holds a summit meeting to discuss issues around appropriation in music. And finally, the faithful of this world demand their rights in a Tribunal of Faith: What are crucifixes and sacred chants doing onstage? Why are a rabbi and a Muslim woman kissing on the Vienna Festival posters? Why do the radical far right adorn themselves with Bible quotes and European museums with colonial cultic objects? Might it be true that our histories and traditions are in fact first and foremost profane and blasphemous, inconsiderate and transgressive?

So the Free Republic is inviting the whole world to Vienna – loudly and (self-)critically. Because even for the 75-year jubilee the Free Republic maintains the republican-anarchic tenet that tradition is not to preserve the ashes but to pass on the flame! It’s Time for New Gods – from everyone for everyone!

Milo Rau &
the artistic team
of the Vienna Festival (Wiener Festwochen) | Free Republic of Vienna