The 2018 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.

For the 2018 Summer Night Concert, the Vienna Philharmonic invited Valery Gergiev to spend a splendid Italian evening al fresco with them—as well as soprano Anna Netrebko, luminous in famous arias like "Vissi d'arte" from Tosca and "O mio babbino caro" from Gianni Schicchi. Maestro Gergiev and the ensemble conjure the Italian spirit in popular works by Rossini, Verdi, Mascagni, Puccini, and Leoncavallo—as well as Italian-inspired pieces by Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, and Czech composer Julius Fučík.

Photo © Max Parovsky