The traditional New Year’s concert (of which there are now two)

In my house – that of my parents, I mean – it was a usual event: in the late morning of January 1st, the television was turned on because attending the New Year’s Concert broadcast from the hall of the Musikverein in Vienna was an indisputable tradition. At the house of my uncle Edoardo, Trieste by birth and Austro-Hungarian by faith, it was more than a tradition: it was a sacred ceremony, concluded as always in glory with the rhythmic clapping of the third encore, the “Radetzky March” by Johann Strauss senior. Started in 1941, the series of New Year’s concerts from Vienna has never stopped, even in the Covid years.

For rather parochial reasons, the first New Year’s concert was held in Venice on January 1, 2004, as an extraordinary event to celebrate the reconstruction of the Gran Teatro La Fenice destroyed by arson in 1996; from then on, the Venice New Year’s concert, which became a regular event, was also regularly broadcast by RAI.

The two concerts will also be held next year and will both be broadcast by RAI.

Below are the details.

Thursday 1 January at 12.20 pm Rai Cultura offers live on Rai1 the traditional musical event at the beginning of the year.

From “No one sleeps” to “Casta Diva”passing through “Think about it.” and the inevitable toast from the “Traviata”. The twenty-third edition of the New Year’s Concert at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice is a program that spans the great classics of the Italian opera tradition, which Rai Cultura offers on Thursday 1 January at 12.20pm live on Rai 1. Repeats on Rai 5 on the same day, at 9.20pm and again on Sunday 4 January at 8.00am. Michele Mariotti is called to lead the Orchestra and Choir of the Teatro La Fenice this year, making his debut on the podium of the Venetian institution. The orchestra conductor from Pesaro, awarded the 36th Abbiati Prize, currently holds the role of Musical Director of the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma. Next to him on stage are the soprano Rosa Feola and the American tenor Jonathan Tetelman, engaged in arias and duets taken from works by Puccini, Rossini and Ponchielli. The dance performances are instead entrusted to the Étoiles Eleonora Abbagnato and Friedemann Vogel, who together with Étoiles, Principal Dancers and soloists of the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma are engaged in the choreography of Diego Tortelli. All the dancers wear clothes designed by Laura Biagiotti. The TV direction is by Claudia De Toma.

Among the pieces on the programme, choral moments also stand out, such as the closed-mouthed chorus of the second act from “Madame Butterfly” by Puccini and “Parties! Bread! Parties!” taken from Mona Lisa by Ponchielli, and symphonic, like the interludes fromWilliam Ratcliff” and from the “Cavalleria Rusticana” by Mascagni. The solo voices, in addition to the most famous arias, are also entrusted with “Forest shadows”Matilde’s aria from the second act of “William Tell” by Rossini, played by Feola, and “Sky and sea”the aria by Enzo Grimaldo still from “Mona Lisa” by Ponchielli, sung by Tetelman. There is no shortage of duets, again with Puccini, of which “O sweet girl” from “La bohème”.

Thursday 1 January at 1.30pm on Rai2 with a repeat on Rai5 at 10.20pm: between waltzes, polkas and quadrilles, the traditional New Year’s Concert of the Wiener Philharmoniker is this year entrusted to the baton of Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Canadian maestro currently Musical Director of the Metropolitan Opera in New York and of the Philadelphia Orchestra. The event is proposed by Rai Cultura on Rai2 on Thursday 1 January 2026 at 1.30 pm. There will be two reruns on Rai5: always on New Year’s Day at 10.20pm and on Saturday 3 January at 8.00am. For Nézet-Séguin, who boasts a consolidated collaboration with the Wiener Philharmoniker – he made his debut there in 2010 at the Mozart Week in Salzburg – this is however the first experience conducting the prestigious event at the beginning of the year, which since 1939 has been held every January 1st in the splendid golden hall of the Musikverein.

The Concert offers a brilliant journey through the Viennese musical tradition, which opens with the Overture from the operetta Indigo and the bright Räuber by Johann Strauss fils. Alongside this, as usual, dance pieces such as waltzes, polkas and marches by Josef and Eduard Strauss, Carl Michael Ziehrer, Josephine Weinlich, Florence Price and by Johann Strauss son are also performed, whose Bat Quadrille op. 363 (Fledermaus-Quadrille) and the Galop Der Karneval in Paris op. 100.

Originally from Montreal, Yannick Nézet-Séguin regularly collaborates with prestigious orchestras such as the Berliner Philharmoniker and the Bayerischer Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester. For twenty-five years he has conducted the Orchester Métropolitain of Montréal and from 2008 to 2018 he was Principal Conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, of which he is now Honorary Conductor. He has appeared on the podium of major theaters at European festivals, in Salzburg, Edinburgh, Lucerne and London for the BBC Proms. In 2025 he conducted the Vienna Philharmonic on tour in Europe and North America, also stopping at the Salzburg Festival. His orchestral recordings have earned five Grammy Awards.