About the show
Duration: 70-90 min
Highlights:
- Attend a stunning Lipizzaner pshow at the 450-year-old Spanish Riding School
- Admire a display of the highest standard of classical dressage
- Experience the magnificent riding arena in Vienna’s Hofburg Palace
Ticket information
- Select a date an book
- Booking Confirmation by email
- Ticket pick-up at the box office of the Spanish Riding School
Spanish Riding School
Michaelerplatz 1, 1010 Vienna Show in Google Maps
How to get there:
Subway: U1, U2, U4 to Karlsplatz; U3 to Herrengasse
Trams: 1, 2, D to Burgring
Buss: 2A to Michaelerplatz; 3A to Habsburgergasse
- Steps and Movements of the High School, including the flying change, passage, pirouette, and piaffe
- Pas De Deux
- Work in Hand
- On the Long Rein
- Airs Above the Ground: levade, capriole and courbette
- School Quadrille
The Lipizzan horses perform an equine ballet at the palatial Winter Riding School in Vienna. The elaborate dressage displays are accompanied by classical Viennese music. Elegantly dressed, the riders are turned out in the same outfits that their predecessors have worn for 200 years: brown coat, white buckskin breeches, high boots, and the traditional bicorne hat.
The Lipizzaner demonstrate different classical jumps and moves in the School Quadrille, in the Schools on and above the ground and on the Long Rein. The quadrille is the spectacular end of the program in which eight riders work in formation at the walk, trot, and canter, with flying changes, pirouettes, the half pass and the passage. The School Quadrille of the Spanish Riding School lasts twenty minutes and is considered the longest and most difficult in the world. Apparently effortless, it takes years of intensive training to arrive at this level of expertise.
The Lipizzaner breed
The Lipizzan or Lipizzaner breed was founded in the 16th century. The ancestry is Spanish, Arabian, and Berber. The name comes from the Austrian imperial stud at Lipizza, near Trieste.
Today there are eight recognized foundation strains for Lipizzans, meaning that all modern Lipizzaners trace their bloodlines to eight stallions (Pluto, Conversano, Maestoso, Favory, Neapolitano, Siglavy, Tulipan, Incitato).
Traditionally Lipizzans are given two names: the first is the name of the foundation stallion, the second is the name of the dam. Roman numerals are assigned to distinguish between horses.
Originally of all colours, most Lipizzaners today are gray. They have black skin, and as adult horses, a white hair coat. Lipizzans are born dark (bay or black), and gradually lighten with age, not achieving the white hair coat for which they are known until around 6-10 years of age.
Confirmation will be received within 48 hours of booking, subject to availability.
You can pick up your tickets at box office of the Riding School directly before the performance. Please bring your printed Booking Confirmation.
Your seats will be together, unless noted.
Your seats will be within the selected category. You will be assigned the best available seats at the time of booking. It is not possible to request specific seats.
We kindly ask for your understanding that children under 3 years are not admitted.
