Festspielhaus Baden-Baden

The Grandbrothers will kick off the Takeover Festival 2023. With classical piano and electronics, the duo recently transformed Cologne Cathedral into a cathedral of sound – now it will be building musical dreamscapes in the Festspielhaus. Because at Takeover, it is all about dreaming, inventing, dancing, and above all trying things out. For the future. For the spirit of togetherness. For music. With stunning acts and exciting workshops in a stylish atmosphere. BMX and a string quartet? Why not? Give it a try at Takeover!

It was to be a grand fairy tale, and the "last Romantic opera": Richard Strauss and the poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal dreamed up a monumental, dazzling musical drama for fin de siècle Vienna – Die Frau ohne Schatten. Kirill Petrenko, who will be conducting the cult opera in a new production, sees it as the Magic Flute of the 20^th century. No wonder he chose this work to celebrate ten years of the Easter Festival with the Berliner Philharmoniker in Baden-Baden.

How does immortality sound?

It simply can’t be: Isolde isn’t dead. She passes over – into another world, into another state, into something that entices us, that we have been longing for all along. Teodor Currentzis will be giving us an intimation of this when he conducts Isoldes Liebestod at the Whitsun Festival, from Wagner's ecstatic, uninhibited music drama Tristan und Isolde. We will then be hearing sweet transfiguration without eroticism in the Third Act of Parsifal, sung by Bayreuth star Andreas Schager. Also to die for – and also by Wagner, who will be the focus of this Whitsun Festival.

The Big Apple in Baden-Baden: The New York Metropolitan Opera brings glamor to the Black Forest. With its orchestra, with principal conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin and two of its goddesses: Renée Fleming and Joyce DiDonato. The program will pay tribute to the festival and world heritage city. Arias from Hector Berlioz’s Les Troyens will feature in the "25 Years of the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden" Gala Concert. It was Berlioz who invented the festival idea in Baden-Baden in the mid-nineteenth century. At that time, the city was known as the "summer capital of Europe." With this Festival, the tradition is being carried forward: Baden-Baden is “La Capitale d'Été.”

The premiere of The World of John Neumeier dance festival in autumn 2022 was met by audiences with enthusiastic acclaim. With The Sleeping Beauty, a favorite of his repertoire, John Neumeier will be building on this success in 2023. In his version of the fairy-tale ballet after Tchaikovsky and Petipa, the prince, a man of our time, meets Sleeping Beauty – a dream princess from the era of classical ballet. The question is, will it be a good awakening? Dona Nobis Pacem, John Neumeier's latest choreography, is a prayer for peace in the language of dance. Because in The World of John Neumeier, there is room for the hope shared by all art lovers: that dreams can move mountains.

A quick read in a pub in Wetzlar – and Jules Massenet was on fire. What followed was the ingenious transformation of Goethe's Werther into a Romantic opera. Massenet frees himself from the original: his Werther might just as well be called Charlotte – a moving psychological drama that the French composer weaves around the young woman who, with Werther, is swept away in a stormy love affair. In Robert Carsen's new production, Jonathan Tetelman and Kate Lindsey sing the leading roles. With the opera, Thomas Hengelbrock opens the “La Grande Gare” Autumn Festival, which will be dedicated to the cultural ties between Germany and France.

The time when wishes can come true returns again every year: at Advent, when people in Baden-Baden stroll through the Christkindlsmarkt and think about how they can make their loved ones happy. Our proposal: Cinderella with the Bayerische Staatsballett, choreographed by Christopher Wheeldon. The Briton knows how to entertain: his art is at home not only in the ballet theater, but also on Broadway. His majestic version of the fairy-tale ballet to music by Sergei Prokofiev enchants us with its stunning stage magic.