Autumn Festival Baden-Baden 2023
We will check for seats that still can be taken
We will check for seats that still can be taken
Autumn Festival Baden-Baden 2023
The Autumn Festival in 2023 will be held from 18 to 26 November. With the opera, Thomas Hengelbrock opens the “La Grande Gare” Autumn Festival, which will be dedicated to the cultural ties between Germany and France.
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.
Franco-German history in the nineteenth century is a chapter in its own right, and is still very much worth perusing. The fact that one of the most important cultural magazines of the time was published in Paris is not surprising, until we learn its title: La Revue wagnérienne. Goethe’s writings were also influential. A few years ago, Gounod's opera Faust was performed at the Festspielhaus, the Berliner Philharmoniker once presented Berlioz's La Damnation de Faust here, and now we will experience the new production of Jules Massenet's opera Werther. The finesse of the score is already evident in the fact that the role of Charlotte is sung by a mezzo-soprano, in our case by splendid American mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey. But back to the cultural magazine: festivals can also play the very same role. This is clear not only in the panel discussion, but also in the intellectual depth of the programs, which, as always, are co-curated by the conductor of the opera premiere, Thomas Hengelbrock.
About the Festival Baden-Baden
Festspiel Baden-Baden (Baden-Baden Festival) is a series of festivals presented by the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden in Baden-Baden, Germany. The programme is structured around five annual festival periods dispersed throughout the year. The Easter, Whitsun, Summer, Autumn and Winter Festivals each incorporate at least one opera production and several classical concerts.
A typical year contains four festivals of one week each:
Autumn Festival in early October.
Winter Festival from mid-January.
Easter Festival during Holy Week.
Herbert von Karajan Whitsun Festival in late May to early June.
Summer Festival from early July.
Major opera productions at Festspielhaus Baden-Baden to date include La traviata (Valery Gergiev, conductor / Philippe Arlaud, director, 2001), Fidelio (Simone Young, conductor / Philippe Arlaud, director, 2002), Die Entführung aus dem Serail (Marc Minkowski, conductor / Macha Makeïeff and Jérôme Deschamps, directors, 2003), The Ring of the Nibelung (Valery Gergiev, musical direction and concept / George Tsypin, stage design, 2003/2004), Rigoletto (Thomas Hengelbrock, conductor / Philippe Arlaud, director, 2004), Parsifal (Kent Nagano, conductor / Nikolaus Lehnhoff, director, 2004) and Die Zauberflöte (Claudio Abbado, conductor / Daniele Abbado, director, 2005).
