Autumn Festival Baden-Baden ''La Grande Gare'' 2026
About
Many visitors agree: autumn is the most beautiful time of the year in Baden-Baden. The trees in the parks glisten with a thousand colors and bathe the city in a warm light. And in this special atmosphere, the Autumn Festival unfolds all its magnificence – accompanied musically by the Balthasar Neumann ensembles.
“O friends, no more of these sounds! Let us sing more cheerful songs, more full of joy!” These words open the vocal part in the finale of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Did similar thoughts cross the mind of French composer Gabriel Fauré? In any case, in his Requiem he refrains from strongly dramatic passages, interpreting the traditional mass of the dead in a different way: lyrically, melodically, comfortingly. It is an immensely popular work – people appreciate music that approaches them in a human way. Things turn superhuman, as always, with Johann Sebastian Bach and his Brandenburg Concertos, archaic in Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, moving in Shostakovich's Violin Concerto. Here at the Festspielhaus, Autumn dazzles with many colors – along with the Balthasar Neumann ensembles, the Utopia Orchestra and Teodor Currentzis will also be joining us for this year’s festival.
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).
