5 Best Performing Arts in Carinthia and Graz, Austria

A 19th-century opera house, the Opernhaus Graz, with its resplendent Rococo interior, is a showcase for young talent and experimental productions as well as more conventional works; it stages three to five performances a week during its late September to June season. Tickets are generally available until shortly before the performances; prices start at €11.50. Call for information or stop by the office.

This five-day festival during mid-June, the largest of its kind in the country, serves as a showcase for the Austrian and European electronic music and art scene. Concerts take place across Graz in venues ranging from clubs and beaches to empty plots of land. Tickets can be purchased online in advance or during festival week at the various spots where performances take place.

A large variety of operas, operettas, plays, and ballets are performed year-round at the Stadttheater in Klagenfurt, an inviting Art Nouveau building designed by the famous theater architects Helmer and Fellner of Vienna and completed in 1910. The box office is open Monday through Saturday 9–6.

The annual Steirischer Herbst, or Styrian Autumn Festival, a celebration of the avant-garde with the occasional shocking piece in experimental theater, music, opera, dance, jazz, film, video, and other performing arts, is held in Graz from the end of September to the middle of October.

The Styriarte festival (late June to mid-July) gathers outstanding classical musicians from around the world. Performances take place throughout the city including the Helmut-List-Halle and Schloss Eggenberg. The ticket office is located in the center of the city.