The 2017 Vienna Philharmonic Summer Night Concert

Every year, as the days grow longer, Austria gets ready for one of the classical calendar’s highlights: the Vienna Philharmonic’s Summer Night Concert. This event, inaugurated in 2004, brings the prestigious ensemble together with some of the world’s most illustrious soloists—in front of an audience that regularly numbers more than 100,000—in the gardens of Vienna’s world-famous Schönbrunn Palace, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Three years after his first successful Summer Night Concert, the Vienna Philharmonic welcomes back the wonderful Christoph Eschenbach for the 2017 edition, as well as star soprano Renée Fleming. The program, centered around a theme of "Marches and Myths," begins with an overture and two arias by Dvořák, including Fleming's deeply moving rendition of the "Song to the Moon" from Rusalka. The orchestra also performs Russian masterpieces by Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov, the famous "Dance of the Comedians" from Smetana's The Bartered Bride—and even an excerpt from John Williams's whimsical Harry Potter score.

Photo © Arve Dinda