Author: Nicole Restle
ca. 3 minutes
When the curtain falls after the last performance of Madama Butterfly and the final chords of Beethoven’s Ninth fade away on April 21, a brief era in Baden-Baden will come to an end. For 13 years, the spa town on the edge of the Black Forest has been the home of the Berliner Philharmoniker’s Easter Festival. We look back at memorable concerts and opera performances.
Next year, the Berliner Philharmoniker and Chief Conductor Kirill Petrenko will move their Easter Festival back to Salzburg, where it was originally founded by Herbert von Karajan in 1967. The Berliner Philharmoniker’s Festival had a long tradition in Salzburg; what led the orchestra to move to Baden-Baden in 2013? “The situation in Salzburg was difficult,” recalls Eva-Maria Tomasi, violinist and member of the orchestra’s board. “The orchestra wanted to break away from old conventions and update the Easter Festival programme. However, Salzburg was unwilling to make any concessions. The offer from Baden-Baden arrived at the perfect moment. Sir Simon Rattle, the chief conductor at the time, was convinced that we could create something new there, and the orchestra was also ready to explore new possibilities.”
Exciting opera productions
Optimism was in the air. The festival would be more modern and open to new ideas, but at the same time would not abandon its core principles. The festival’s centrepiece continued to be an opera production led by the chief conductor, with the Berliner Philharmoniker in the orchestra pit, a space which it seldom occupied. In this respect, the Festspielhaus in Baden-Baden, which opened in 1998 and had 2500 seats as well as modern stage technology, offered ideal conditions. While Salzburg had offered only two performances of the annual opera, Baden Baden scheduled four, a more reasonable return on the extensive time required for rehearsal and staging. And because there is a certain magic in every beginning, for the first season in Baden-Baden, the Berliner Philharmoniker and Simon Rattle chose Mozart’s Magic Flute, a work with enchantment in every bar. In Robert Carsen’s staging, Kate Royal and Pavol Breslik sang the main roles of Pamina and Tamino. In years that followed, Simon Rattle conducted further operatic blockbusters: Puccini’s Manon Lescaut with Eva-Maria Westbroek in the title role (2014), Strauss’ Rosenkavalier with Anja Harteros as the Marschallin and Magdalena Kožená as Octavian (2015), Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde (2016), Puccini's Tosca (2017), and Wagner’s Parsifal (2018).
International guest artists
The second pillar of the festival – concerts featuring world-class conductors and soloists – also remained intact. The program of the first Baden-Baden Easter Festival, with Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony conducted by Simon Rattle, seemed fitting for a new beginning. Violinist Maxim Vengerov and pianist Krystian Zimerman performed Brahms’ Violin Concerto and First Piano Concerto respectively. Brahms greatly admired the spa town: he regularly visited Baden-Baden during the summer months, and took advantage of the city’s peace and tranquillity to compose. In 2014, Rattle and the orchestra performed Peter Sellars’ staging of Bach’s St. John Passion. Long-time companions of the Berliner Philharmoniker who performed as the Festival’s guest artists included conductors Bernard Haitink, Riccardo Muti, Zubin Mehta, Andris Nelsons, Daniel Harding, and Tugan Sokhiev as well as soloists Anne-Sophie Mutter, Sol Gabetta, Joyce DiDonato, Yo-Yo Ma, Janine Jansen, Pinchas Zukerman, Lang Lang, and most recently Diana Damrau, Lisa Batiashvili, and Jan Lisiecki.
A special bonus: Philharmonic chamber music concerts
orchestra the opportunity to showcase the diversity of their chamber music activities – as soloists as well as in newly-formed and established ensembles of the Berliner Philharmoniker. The entire town of Baden-Baden was filled with music: in historic venues such as the Casino Baden-Baden’s Florentine Hall, the Town Hall’s Old Council Chamber, the Kulturhaus LA8, the Frieder Burda Museum, and the Collegiate Church. Concert programming often drew inspiration fromthe current opera production.. “It has been wonderful to see how well the orchestra established itself in this community over the years” says Andrea Zietzschmann, Managing Director of the Berliner Philharmoniker.”We developed a dedicated audience for these chamber music concerts, one that appreciates the unique proximity to the musicians.
Education and Outreach
The orchestra’s educational work also played a prominent role in Baden-Baden: as part of the Deutsche Bank Foundation’s Akademie Musiktheater Heute, each festival’s opera was adapted for children by a young opera team in cooperation with the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden. Thus, there was a Little Magic Flute, a Little Manon, a Little Rosenkavalier, etc... Aspiring opera singers were given the opportunity to gain their first experiences on an opera stage in a chamber opera with musicians from the Berliner Philharmoniker - for example Pauline Viardot’s Cendrillon and Jacques Offenbach’s La princesse de Trébizonde. In recent years, the Velostage, a mobile performance space, was added. With short concerts by members of the Berliner Philharmoniker at various locations in the city, including schools and social institutions, the mobile stage provided unique musical experiences. A concert with the National Youth Orchestra, of which the Berliner Philharmoniker is a patron, also became an Easter Festival fixture. At these concerts, young instrumentalists played alongside the experienced orchestra musicians.
Covid hiatus
The opera projects of the Berliner Philharmoniker’s Festival are normally chosen by the chief conductor. The only exception was in 2019, when Simon Rattle had left and his successor Kirill Petrenko had not yet been appointed: Zubin Mehta directedVerdi’s Otello as a guest conductor. In 2020, the orchestra looked forward to coming to Baden-Baden with new chief conductor Kirill Petrenko. Andrea Zietzschmann recalls: “As an outstanding opera conductor, Kirill Petrenko has many connections with stage directors and singers. That made planning his first festival a wonderful experience. .” There were ambitious plan. Thefestival was to be dedicated to the 250th anniversary of Ludwig van Beethoven’s birth – and would include performances of his only opera Fidelio, the Missa Solemnis, and all of his string quartets. But the Covid pandemic meant that all of these plans had to be suspended.
Operatic gems by Tchaikovsky and Strauss
The following year, Covid once again prevented the planned Festival.. Instead, the orchestra held an autumn residency in Baden-Baden, and Kirill Petrenko was able to realise a project that was close to his heart: a concert performance of Tchaikovsky’s opera Mazeppa. In 2022, Petrenko finally achieved his goal of presenting rarely performed operas by Tchaikovsky’s operas, with a staged production of The Queen of Spades as well as a concert performance of Iolanta. “Kirill Petrenko specifically chose these works because he viewed them as an opportunity to further develop the orchestra,” says Zietzschmann. “Under his direction, the performances of these relatively unknown operas became something very special. Tchaikovsky’s operas have been a true voyage of discovery for the orchestra.”
Two sensational productions were to follow, both of operas by Richard Strauss: Die Frau ohne Schatten, staged by Lydia Steier (2023), and Elektra, staged by Philipp Stölzl, with Nina Stemme in the title role (2024). For Andrea Zietzschmann and Eva-Maria Tomasi, these two productions were particularly unforgettable. And, of course, the orchestral concerts under Petrenko’s direction, like Strauss’ Ein Heldenleben and Brahms’ Fourth Symphony, were also among the highlights in recent years. Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, one of the most frequently-performed and popular operas, will be on the program in Baden-Baden for Easter 2025, before the orchestra returns to Salzburg in 2026.
Why the move back to Austria? “Our DNA is still closely linked to Salzburg,” explains Eva-Maria Tomasi. “Herbert von Karajan founded the Easter Festival in this city especially for the Berliner Philharmoniker almost 60 years ago; it was our festival. In the meantime, Salzburg has become more flexible, and therefore it makes sense to go back. But we are still very grateful to Baden-Baden for all the wonderful experiences we had there!” Andrea Zietzschmann also looks back with gratitude, while at the same time viewing the future with optimism: “We have had thirteen wonderful years here, and we appreciate the trust that the Festival and the audience have placed in our orchestra. Together with the Festspielhaus team, we were able to achieve quite a lot, and we are already looking forward to future collaborations. In 2026, we will be organizing a special weekend in Baden-Baden. So we can happily say that ourfarewell in 2025 will be directly followed by a return.”
