Baden-Baden Maps a 2027 Season Around Opera and Beethoven

Baden-Baden’s Festspielhaus has outlined a 2027 programme that spreads major operatic and symphonic projects across the year, with Beethoven providing a recurring thread. The Easter Festival, running from March 20 to 28, will centre on a new production of Fidelio conducted by Joana Mallwitz and directed by Krzysztof Warlikowski.

Vera-Lotte Boecker and Sean Panikkar are among the principal singers. Alongside the staging, Klaus Mäkelä will conduct the Missa solemnis on March 22. Mallwitz returns on March 26 with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra for a programme combining Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy, with Alice Sara Ott, and Mozart’s Requiem.

The operatic calendar continues at Pentecost, when François-Xavier Roth conducts The Flying Dutchman on May 15 and 17, with Tomasz Konieczny. Later in the year, a concert performance of Carmen on November 20 brings together Maria Kataeva, Freddie de Tommaso and Rosa Feola under Finnegan Downie Dear.

Dance also occupies a substantial place in the schedule. John Neumeier programmes are planned for September 24–26 and October 1–3, the latter devoted to the St Matthew Passion. These events extend the season beyond a sequence of visiting orchestras and opera stars.

December brings another concentrated operatic and symphonic pairing: Iván Fischer conducts The Marriage of Figaro on December 17 and 19, with Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony between the two performances on December 18.

The announcement presents Baden-Baden as a year-round destination with several festival peaks. Its Beethoven emphasis is especially timely in the bicentenary of the composer’s death, but the programme also reaches into Wagner, Mozart, French opera and ballet. Rather than relying on one headline event, the season distributes its principal attractions across spring, autumn and the closing weeks of the year.