When Tchaikovsky premiered his famous ballet The Nutcracker in Saint Petersburg 130 years ago, it was presented as a double bill, as standard at the time, together with the opera Iolanta. The Volksoper Wien, being part home to the famous Wiener Staatsballett, under the helm of the new artistic director Lotte de Beer and music director Omer Meir Wellber presents both works again in one evening, but not as two separate pieces, but by fusing the two works into one. It’s a “successful debut that is also musically convincing” and the “two pieces intertwine like gears”. Jorine van Beek’s costumes make it a “feast for the eyes” (Die Presse). “This imaginative ‘music theatre for the whole family’ enchants above all the numerous children and young people. (...) The Volksoper Orchestra once again demonstrated its power of performance” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung). In short: it’s a family-show to the core!

Cast:
- Iolanta: Olesya Golovneva
- René: Stefan Cerny
- Count Vaudémont: Georgy Vasiliev
- Robert: Andrei Bondarenko
- Ibn-Hakia: Szymon Komasa
- Alméric: David Kerber
- Bertrand: Yasushi Hirano
- Marta: Stephanie Maitland
- Brigitta: Anita Götz
- Laura: Annelie Sophie Müller
- Dancers: Mila Schmidt, Felipe Vieira, Sofia Božović, Christopher Krasnansky, Olivia Poropat, Keisuke Nejime, Sarah Branch

Choreography: Andrey Kaydanovskiy
Staged by Lotte de Beer

Recording date: Volksoper Wien, November 2022
Sound format: PCM Stereo, DTS 5.0
Picture: NTSC, 16:9
Subtitles: German (original language), English, Korean, Japanese
Booklet: German, English
Total running time: 97 mins