Winter Festival
Baden-Baden
A triad for Christmas: with Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, Mozart's Magic Flute, and Bach's Christmas Oratorio, we truly can’t wait for the big holiday. The Winter Festival invites us to stop and reflect – and awakens collective memories: of our first Magic Flute with our grandparents, of the "ahs" and "ohs" on seeing the White Act in Swan Lake, of going to church to hear Bach's festive oratorio. Create new and fresh memories with your friends, children, and grandchildren! We are supplying the very best artists: the National Ballet Bratislava with Nureyev's virtuoso version of Swan Lake in a magnificent staging. It will be followed by Iván Fischer and his Budapest Festival Orchestra, ensuring the highest quality and a musical voice all their own. All splendid gift ideas – help yourself!
The Program 2026
FRI 11.12.26/SAT 12.12.26/SUN 13.12.26
SWAN LAKE
Nureyev's MasterpieceWith the National Ballet Bratislava, an exciting young ensemble presents itself to the Baden-Baden ballet audience. Viewers will have the rare opportunity to experience two interpretations of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake in one season: after a version by John Neumeier in autumn, Rudolf Nureyev's classic will follow at the Winter Festival. Nureyev's virtuoso choreography focuses on the prince's inner development.
FRI 18.12.26/SUN 20.12.26
THE MAGIC FLUTE
Iván Fischer stages MozartIván Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra present Mozart's Magic Flute in a semi-staged format which Fischer developed at his opera festival in Vicenza. He traveled to the city to work on his "third way": a new unity of sound and directing where the ear guides the body. After last year’s Don Giovanni, Fischer is now conducting an opera at the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden for the second time.
SAT 19.12.26
CHRISTMAS ORATORIO
Johann Sebastian Bach"Our native language is the music of the Habsburg monarchy," says Iván Fischer about his Budapest Festival Orchestra. From a "Catholic perspective," the Hungarian conductor is once again exploring the work of Johann Sebastian Bach. He will perform Bach’s popular Christmas Oratorio for the second time in Baden-Baden – including cantatas that were not heard last year.