Summer Festival Baden-Baden 2023
We will check for seats that still can be taken
Summer Festival Baden-Baden 2023
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.”
It is superfluous to mention that Baden-Baden has been included by UNESCO in its list of World Heritage Sites. On our first stroll through the historic center, the city opens up before us like a treasure chest. At the same time, many precious things remain invisible, hidden in traditions that are cherished in the city. For example, the fact that the idea of the music festival was invented in Baden-Baden by Hector Berlioz, who in the nineteenth century led the first ever festival here in the summer – a piece of history that we will commemorate at the summer festival with a special concert.
At this festive concert on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Festspielhaus, Joyce DiDonato will be accompanied by Yannick Nézet-Séguin and his Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. We will be hearing Brahms’s Symphonies Nos. 3 and 4, following Nos. 1 and 2 last year. A great deal could be said about Brahms and Baden-Baden; we will simply mention the composer's summer cottage here. Renée Fleming will also transport us to the world of nature – and finally, as Verdi's Ophelia, sing her way into all of our hearts.
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).
