If you look at the annals of Viennese ballet, you will repeatedly come across periods in which the ensemble held a leading position among companies worldwide, but also periods in which it was groundbreaking for the genre itself.
At the beginning of this development was an empress: Eleonore Gonzaga, the wife of Emperor Ferdinand II, performed a ballet in Vienna for the first time in 1622 - around 400 years ago. This was followed by the first flourishing of the new art form, which at that time was practiced exclusively by aristocrats. This "noble" ensemble, which only gradually included professional dancers, was led by the emperor himself. It was not until the beginning of the 18th century that a purely professional troupe was formed.
The dancers and choreographers working in Vienna included personalities whose names are legendary today. Their origins from the most diverse countries underline the internationality of the art form. Santo and Domenico Ventura, Gasparo Angiolini, Gaetano Vestris, Salvatore Viganò, Jean Coralli, Filippo, Marie and Paul Taglioni, Carlotta Grisi and Fanny Cerrito came from Italy; Jean Georges Noverre, Louis Duport, Jean Aumer and Jules Perrot from France; the Danes August Bournonville and Lucile Grahn and the German Heinrich Kröller. Of the Austrians who wrote ballet history, Franz Hilverding, Fanny Elßler, Josef Hassreiter, Grete Wiesenthal and Erika Hanka should be mentioned.
With Josef Hassreiter, the creator of the worldwide success "The Doll Fairy", the formation of a national ensemble began in the second half of the 19th century - hand in hand with the institutionalization of the ballet school. Since then, local artists have dominated the ballet scene in Vienna, even if singular personalities from abroad have repeatedly set highlights in Vienna. Rudolf Nureyev is representative of them all.
After Erika Hanka, the ballet directors who have had a lasting influence on ballet since the reopening of the Vienna State Opera in 1955 have been Aurel von Milloss and Gerhard Brunner. From 1995 to 2005, Renato Zanella was ballet director and chief choreographer of the State Opera Ballet. With the aim of increasing the ballet's performance opportunities, the ballet ensembles of the Vienna State Opera and Volksoper Vienna were merged in 2005 under ballet director Gyula Harangozó.
The appointment of Manuel Legris as Director of the Vienna State Ballet in 2010 opened up new artistic perspectives for the ensemble, which is steeped in tradition. After ten very successful years, during which the Vienna State Ballet was also able to demonstrate its skills on many tours abroad, the Swiss Martin Schläpfer, who most recently led the multi-award-winning Ballett am Rhein Düsseldorf Duisburg to international standing, succeeded him on September 1, 2020.