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Bonnie Tyler and RAF Camora: Austria’s 2023 Donauinselfest kicks off

Austria is home to Europe's largest free open-air festival. Here's what to expect from the Donauinselfest in 2023, starting on Friday and lasting through the weekend.

Published: 25 May 2023 16:46 CEST
Updated: 23 June 2023 10:04 CEST
Bonnie Tyler and RAF Camora: Austria's 2023 Donauinselfest kicks off
Austria's Donauinselfest lineup confirmed ((c) Alexander Müller)

The Austrian Donauinselfest is known as the largest free open-air music festival in Europe, and it happens yearly on Vienna’s Danube island. The festival attracts around three million visitors over its three days of events starting Friday the 23rd until Sunday the 25th.

The festival has been happening yearly since 1983 on the 21.1-kilometre river island. This year, it has several different areas and 13 stages, according to the official website. Visitors can expect more than 700 hours of the program.

The Donauinselfest aims to foster curiosity and facilitate meaningful encounters, according to Barbara Novak, the SPÖ regional party secretary. During the program presentation, Novak emphasised the festival’s diverse offerings, ranging from a wide selection of music to various recreational and sporting activities and gastronomic delights.

From RAF Camora to Bonnie Tyler

At the festival’s heart is the large stage, featuring different themes each day curated by FM4, Radio Wien, and Ö3. On Friday, the focus will be on rap sounds, with local chart-topper RAF Camora and German artist Greeen among the performers. The following day will showcase country and rockabilly music with The BossHoss, while Bonnie Tyler will entertain fans of the 80s. In addition, local artists such as Julian Le Play and Alle Achtung will contribute with typical Austrian songs.

READ ALSO: Why are people in German-speaking countries so obsessed with Schlager music?

On Sunday, Michael Patrick Kelly’s performance will evoke nostalgic memories of the legendary Kelly Family concert on the Danube Island in 1995, which drew approximately 200,000 visitors.

In addition, jazz Gitti, a popular artist, will make her sixth appearance at the festival, performing on the Schlager stage on Friday. Other notable acts throughout the event include Insieme, Münchener Freiheit, and the Spider Murphy Gang, offering a diverse range of musical experiences.

The festival will also feature various cultural highlights. ORF III’s Culture Time on Friday will showcase the popular K-pop genre in different facets. Literature and humour will take centre stage on Saturday and Sunday, with notable contributors such as Julya Rabinowich, Angelika Niedetzky, Vea Kaiser, and Christoph Fritz.

READ ALSO: How much are Austrians into Eurovision?

Sunday will see the gathering of hundreds of rock fans for the “Rocktogether” event organised by radio station 88.6, featuring a collective performance of Metallica’s song “Enter Sandman.” 

Additionally, a design market will be held on Friday, attracting visitors to the island, while the Action & Fun Island will offer various obstacle courses for participants to enjoy.

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VIENNA

Vienna Festival director Milo Rau hits back at anti-Semitism accusations

One of the latest events in Europe to be hit with accusations of anti-Semitism, the Vienna Festival kicks off Friday, with its new director, Milo Rau, urging that places of culture be kept free of the "antagonism" of the Israel-Hamas war while still tackling difficult issues.

Published: 17 May 2024 14:48 CEST
Vienna Festival director Milo Rau hits back at anti-Semitism accusations

As the conflict in Gaza sharply polarises opinion, “we must be inflexible” in defending the free exchange of ideas and opinions, the acclaimed Swiss director told AFP in an interview this week.

“I’m not going to take a step aside… If we let the antagonism of the war and of our society seep into our cultural and academic institutions, we will have completely lost,” said the 47-year-old, who will inaugurate the Wiener Festwochen, a festival of theatre, concerts, opera, film and lectures that runs until June 23rd in the Austrian capital and that has taken on a more political turn under his tenure.

The Swiss director has made his name as a provocateur, whether travelling to Moscow to stage a re-enactment of the trial of Russian protest punk band Pussy Riot, using children to play out the story of notorious Belgian paedophile Marc Dutroux, or trying to recruit Islamic State jihadists as actors.

Completely ridiculous 

The Vienna Festival has angered Austria’s conservative-led government — which is close to Israel — by inviting Greek former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis and French Nobel Prize winner for literature Annie Ernaux, both considered too critical of Israel.

A speech ahead of the festival on Judenplatz (Jews’ Square) by Israeli-German philosopher Omri Boehm — who has called for replacing Israel with a bi-national state for Arabs and Jews —  also made noise.

“Who will be left to invite?  Every day, there are around ten articles accusing us of being anti-Semitic, saying that our flag looks like the Palestinian flag, completely ridiculous things,” Rau said, as he worked from a giant bed which has been especially designed by art students and installed at the festival office.

Hamas’ bloody October 7th assault on southern Israel and the devastating Israeli response have stoked existing rancour over the Middle East conflict between two diametrically opposed camps in Europe.

In this climate, “listening to the other side is already treachery,” lamented the artistic director.

“Wars begin in this impossibility of listening, and I find it sad that we Europeans are repeating war at our level,” he said.

As head of also the NTGent theatre in the Belgian city of Ghent, he adds his time currently “is divided between a pro-Palestinian country and a pro-Israeli country,” or between “colonial guilt” in Belgium and “genocide guilt” in Austria, Adolf Hitler’s birthplace.

Institutional revolution

The “Free Republic of Vienna” will be proclaimed on Friday as this year’s Vienna Festival celebrates. according to Rau, “a second modernism, democratic, open to the world” in the city of the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, and artist and symbolist master Gustav Klimt.

Some 50,000 people are expected to attend the opening ceremony on the square in front of Vienna’s majestic neo-Gothic town hall.

With Rau describing it as an “institutional revolution” and unlike any other festival in Europe, the republic has its own anthem, its own flag and a council made up of Viennese citizens, as well as honorary members, including Varoufakis and Ernaux, who will participate virtually in the debates.

The republic will also have show trials — with real lawyers, judges and politicians participating — on three weekends.

Though there won’t be any verdicts, Rau himself will be in the dock to embody “the elitist art system”, followed by the republic of Austria and finally by the anti-immigrant far-right Freedom Party (FPOe), which leads polls in the Alpine EU member ahead of September national elections.

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