It was built from 1861 to 1869 following plans by August Sicard von Sicardsburg and Eduard van der Nüll, and designs by Josef Hlávka.

The opera house was the first major building on the Vienna Ringstrasse commissioned by the Viennese "city expansion fund".

Work commenced on the house in 1861 and was completed in 1869, following plans drawn up by architects August Sicard von Sicardsburg and Eduard van der Nüll.

The somewhat coarser-grained Kelheimerstein (also known as Solnhof Plattenstein) was intended as the main stone to be used in the building of the opera house, but the necessary quantity was not deliverable.

Eduard van der Nüll committed suicide, and barely ten weeks later Sicardsburg died from tuberculosis so neither architect saw the completion of the building.

[citation needed] The auditorium and stage were destroyed by flames, as well as almost the entire décor and props for more than 120 operas with around 150,000 costumes.

The front section, which had been walled off as a precaution, however, remained intact including the foyer, with frescoes by Moritz von Schwind, the main stairways, the vestibule and the tea room.

Eventually the decision was made to rebuild the opera house as it had been, and the main restoration experts involved were Ernst Kolb (1948–1952) and Udo Illig (1953–1956).

It was not until 5 November 1955, after the Austrian State Treaty, that the Staatsoper could be reopened with a performance of Beethoven's Fidelio, conducted by Karl Böhm.

The Austrian conductor Josef Krips was the founder and mentor, who had only survived the Nazi era (given his Jewish heritage) thanks to luck and help from colleagues.

At the end of the war, Krips started the renovation of the Staatoper, and was able to implement his aesthetic principles, including the departure from the Romantic Mozart ideal with a voluminous orchestral sound.

As early as 1947, the Mozart-Ensemble was playing guest performances at the Royal Opera House in London, with Mozart's Don Giovanni.

Herbert von Karajan introduced the practice of performing operas exclusively in their original language instead of being translated into German.

This created an opening for the prominent members of the Viennese ensemble to appear in Milan, especially to perform works by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Richard Strauss.

At the beginning of the 2005–2006 season, the ballet companies of the Staatsoper and the Vienna Volksoper were merged under the direction of Gyula Harangozó, which led to a reduction in the number of performers in the resulting ensemble.

Legris eliminated Harangozós's policy of presenting nothing but traditional narrative ballets with guest artists in the leading roles, concentrated on establishing a strong in-house ensemble and restored evenings of mixed bill programs, featuring works of George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, Jiří Kylián, William Forsythe, and many contemporary choreographers, as well as a reduced schedule of the classic ballets.

In four months live broadcasts of over 60 famous operas were transmitted in this way, including performances of Madama Butterfly, The Magic Flute and Don Giovanni.

During daytime the screen displays a replica of the Opera House's façade, as it obstructs a considerable part of the building, along with information about upcoming performances.

[4] These are popular with all age groups, and now have an almost legendary regular clientele, which is merciless in showing its displeasure with a performance loudly and unambiguously, but is even louder in voicing approval.

There is an online version[10] parallel to the publication, which receives (as of March 2007) an average of 10,000 visitors a week, and therefore is one of the most successful German-language opera portals.

[11] A jury (Daniel Birnbaum and Hans-Ulrich Obrist) selects the artists whose works are attached to the safety curtain by means of magnets and are shown during the course of a season.

Artists up to date: Pierre Alechinsky, Tauba Auerbach, John Baldessari, Matthew Barney, Thomas Bayrle, Tacita Dean, Cerith Wyn Evans, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Richard Hamilton, David Hockney, Christine & Irene Hohenbüchler, Joan Jonas, Martha Jungwirth, Jeff Koons, Maria Lassnig, Oswald Oberhuber, Giulio Paolini, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Rosemarie Trockel, Cy Twombly, Kara Walker, Carrie Mae Weems and Franz West.