Milo Rau takes over the management of the Wiener Festwochen and thus succeeds Christophe Slagmuylder following the coming edition. This was announced by City Councilor for Culture Veronica Kaup-Hasler on Friday.
The request to apply was “a surprise” for Milo Rau as well: It was a “great task to think regarding what can be done here in the last month and a half”, which might be “a possible vision”, he said at the presentation. He has known since Thursday that he will. “I want to do a big, mythical theater festival,” he said.
“In Vienna there is a canon that you can’t deal with your whole life. Everyone has an opinion. That’s the process that starts now: Who do you work with?” He wanted to bring “big things”, the first names he mentioned were Kirill Serebrennikov or Elfriede Jelinek. “It was my birthday the day before yesterday. I was immediately kindly given a thick Karl Kraus tome. As you can see, I have a lot to do before I can announce my program. I also got a Sacher cake.“