Easter Festival Baden-Baden

Richard Wagner's redemption operas continually invite new interpretations. Joana Mallwitz was already deeply involved with the composer's oeuvre during her time as General Music Director in Nuremberg. Director and musician Johannes Erath will stage the Baden-Baden Lohengrin production. He began his directing career as an assistant to Willy Decker, worked at the Semperoper in Dresden among other venues, and has been awarded the Götz Friedrich Prize and the Austrian Music Theater Prize.

In Amsterdam, every Easter week begins with a performance of one of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Passions. After Willem Mengelberg, Bernard Haitink, and Mariss Jansons, new chief conductor designate Klaus Mäkelä is now continuing this tradition. The role of the Evangelist will be sung by Maximilian Schmitt, that of Christ by Matthew Brook, the two artists representing the German and British interpretations of great Baroque oratorios. In Amsterdam, both performance traditions merge into their own oratorio heritage, which we can now also experience in Baden-Baden.
 

At the ripe age of fifteen, violinist Daniel Lozakovich received an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon. With Max Bruch’s First Violin Concerto, he performs  one of the most popular concertos of the nineteenth century. In the concert’s second half, Klaus Mäkelä and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra interpret Gustav Mahler's Fifth Symphony. The Concertgebouw Orchestra can look back on one of the world’s longest Mahler traditions. It was the first orchestra to make the works known in Europe, and continues to perform them to this day.

Enthusiastic audience, horrified critics: this sums up the reactions to the premiere of Anton Bruckner's Eighth Symphony. Today, the symphony is considered one of the most important monuments of musical art. The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra made Amsterdam a mecca for Bruckner fans. Klaus Mäkelä looks forward to continuing this tradition, bringing along the magnum opus of the Austrian court organist and Wagner admirer for the orchestra's debut at the Baden-Baden Easter Festival.

Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem is based on Latin texts and poems by the English poet Wilfred Owen, who died in the war in 1918. At the work’s premiere in 1962 in the rebuilt Coventry Cathedral, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau sang alongside British artists: a statement of reconciliation by the composer. The oratorio features a mixed choir, a boys' choir, a symphony orchestra, a chamber orchestra, and vocal soloists. These large forces underline the composer's desire to mobilize all efforts towards overcoming war and violence.

Since her Salzburg Salome, she has enjoyed cult status among the divas of our time: anything Asmik Grigorian touches becomes a sensation. The New York Met, the Vienna State Opera, Milan's La Scala and Covent Garden are all in hot pursuit of her. In her roles, she comes across as a modern woman of today - direct, independent and approachable. The romances by Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov combine the intimacy of the salon with the expressiveness of an operatic aria. Grigorian's approach gives them a new, contemporary perspective.

For its Eastertime concerts, the Bundesjugendorchester has long since gained its own audience, who are inspired year after year by the young musicians’ tremendous talent. At the 2026 Easter Festival, the Bundesjazzorchester will be joining them for the first time. The program details are still being fine-tuned, but we are already looking forward to this youthful meeting of classical and jazz.