The Nibelungenlied from Kriemhild’s perspective in Passau, Mozart under laboratory conditions in Würzburg, music cures in Italian in the World Heritage Site of Bad Kissingen or Berlin conditions in the Allgäu: When the festival season begins, classical music fans no longer only look to Salzburg, Bayreuth or Munich. After all, exciting programs, great voices, world-class conductors and orchestras are offered throughout Bavaria. Here is a selection.
The Mozart Laboratory in Würzburg
The role of the percussion in Mozart’s day: Leoni Klein, who has won several awards and is a former MozartLaborary scholarship holder, has conceived a concert in the form of a radio play.
(Photo: Ras Rotter)
“Decoding the fascination of Mozart anew” – with great enthusiasm for experimentation, the Würzburg Mozart Festival takes on this task year after year with concerts and projects. Of course they are also this year – from June 2nd to July 2nd – in the baroque city on the Main, the great soloists and ensembles, above all pianist Ragna Schirmer as artiste étoile of the 2023 vintage, or soprano Marlis Petersen, the organ phenomenon Kit Armstrong or the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra. Away from the glamorous setting, the World Heritage Residence, one can experience Mozart in all sorts of laboratory experiments and aggregate states in unexpected places: as an interactive radio play concert in the Bürgerbräu, as a string quartet marathon in the Jewish cultural center Shalom Europa or in lectures, panel discussions and open rehearsals in the retreat house Gates of Heaven, where the guiding principle of the festival “speculire – study – consider” which originated from Mozart’s pen becomes totally meaningful.
Mozart Festival Würzburg, 2.6. – 2.7., info and tickets at www.mozartfest.de
Classic cures in Bad Kissingen
Venue for special spa concerts: The “Kissinger Sommer” in the Lower Franconian spa town, which has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2021.
(Photo: Hannah Becker)
Anyone who has ever been to Italy for a cure, for example on Ischia, where the Roman emperors had themselves wrapped in healing fango, knows: the strict sippy cup culture that was cultivated north of the Alps for a long time is unknown there. You let yourself go well so that you can go well again. This year’s top-class program of the “Kissinger Sommer” (June 16 to July 16) aims to “dream of the sweet life”, of the “dolce vita”. In the famous spa town, where the Empress Sisi, who was not at all well-known for her carefree spirit, hoped to alleviate her many neurotic ailments, we head to the motherland of European music. This year’s “spa guests” include Anne-Sophie Mutter, who is appearing at the Kissinger Sommer for the first time, conducting her colleagues Lisa Batiashvili and Veronika Eberle, pianist Grigory Sokolov, Kent Nagano, Herbert Blomstedt and Christian Thielemann. And, it really doesn’t get any more Italian: the Munich Radio Orchestra plays film music by Ennio Morricone and Nino Rota, including the suite from “La Dolce Vita”.
Kissinger Sommer, June 16 to July 16, info and tickets at www.kissingersommer.de
Soul migration in the Chiemgau
Seduction with fruit: Salome (Lidia Fridmann) with Herod (Hans-Georg Priese).
(Photo: Nicole Richter)
Jerusalem, Babylon, Buenos Aires, China, this summer visitors to Gut Immling can get around quite a bit. The program promises “transmigration of souls around the world” from the Chiemgau. For more than 25 years, this small opera festival has not shied away from any challenge, no matter how big. So this year from June 10th to August 13th there will not only be Verdi’s “Nabucco”, the tango opera “María de Buenos Aires” and the operetta “The Land of Smiles”, but also Richard Strauss’ “Salome”. According to Cornelia von Kerssenbrock, musical director, this is an enormous challenge for the house: there is the huge orchestra and, above all, the “incredibly difficult” solo parts. With Lidia Fridmann, however, a Salome was found that would meet all requirements. The premiere is on June 10th.
Immling Festival, June 10th – August 13th, information and tickets at www.immling.de
World noise on the island
Special service: As always, concert guests can be taken to Herrenchiemsee Castle by horse-drawn carriage.
(Photo: Herrenchiemsee Festival)
He is definitely someone who turned his back on the noisy and dirty world and lived in his dreams: This year, the Herrenchiemsee Festival (July 18th to 30th) refers to the enraptured palace builder King Ludwig II, with its motto “World roar ” it goes through musical epochs and European history. Whether with Bach’s powerful “Archangel Michael” cantatas, the roaring of the elements in Vivaldi, the big bang in Haydn’s “Creation”, Beethoven’s “Eroica” or Mendelssohn Bartholdy’s “The Hebrides”. The patron of the festival is Kent Nagano, a well-known conductor of soft tones.
Herrenchiemsee Festival, 18.-30. 7., information and maps below www.herrenchiemsee-festspiele.de
The big lot in Isny
At the beginning of a world career: Marlene Dietrich with Hans Albers in the Berlin revue “Two Ties” (1929), which was staged at the Isny Opera Festival.
(Photo: Scherl/Süddeutsche Zeitung Photo)
The intoxicating, inexplicable beauty of art is that it knows neither time nor space. So you can sit in the courtyard of Isny im Allgäu on June 29, 2023 in the evening and dream away to Berlin in the vibrant 1920s. On September 5, 1929, Mischa Spoliansky’s revue “The Two Ties” premiered there at the Berlin Theater. A memorable evening: not only they sang Comedian Harmonists, there was also a certain Hans Albers, who played the waiter Jean, and in the role of Mabel, Marlene Dietrich was able to impress Josef von Sternberg so lastingly that he cast her in his film “The Blue Angel”. How wonderful, then, that Hans-Christian Hauser rediscovered this confusion about life’s big fate for the 35th edition of the Isny Opera Festival. Of course there are also classics: “Peter and the Wolf” for the children in the castle park and at the festival concert on June 25 in the Nikolaikirche Isny an amazing program combination: synagogue Shabbat songs and excerpts from Wagner operas.
35th Isny Opera Festival 2023, June 29-July 2, more information and tickets at www.isny-oper.de
New address for old worlds of sound
The Frenchwoman Lucile Boulanger plays works by Antoine Forqueray, one of the most important gamba players at the court of Louis XIV, on her viola da gamba in Regensburg.
(Photo: Richard Dumas)
The sound worlds of bygone epochs, music from the Middle Ages to Romanticism – people make pilgrimages throughout Europe to discover them. There is now one more address for them, a new entry in the calendar: from June 7th to 11th the “Füssen Festival of Early Music” will premiere. With concerts on his organs in the Füssen churches, the festival commemorates the 250th anniversary of Andreas Jäger’s death and wants to bring the once rich musical life, especially around the former Benedictine monastery of St. Mang, to life – in historical performance practice, of course. It is not without reason that Füssen, with its dense spruce forests, was considered the “cradle of European lute making”.
The Regensburg Early Music Days, the 38th edition of which takes place on the Pentecost weekend from May 26th to 29th, have long been a top address for this genre. Renowned soloists and ensembles from Great Britain, France, the Netherlands, Belgium and even Australia come to Regensburg for the 16 concerts at historical sites such as the former cathedral parish church of St. Ulrich, built in 1150, or the Gothic Imperial Hall.
Füssen Festival of Early Music, June 7th – 11th, info and tickets at www.allgaeuer-heimatwerk.de
Days of Early Music Regensburg, May 26 – 29, info and tickets below www.tagealtermusik-regensburg.de
Where Kriemhild made her revenge plans
Before Kriemhild married Etzel, king of the Huns, she stayed in the three-river city of Passau. At the music festival European Weeks in Passau, a symphonic play is dedicated to this myth.
(Photo: European Weeks Passau)
“A myth shows its presence,” was the motto this year in Passau. Which myth? Well, the “Nibelungenlied” was written there around 800 years ago. At least from the point of view of the “Friends of the Nibelungenstadt Passau eV” there is a lot to be said for it. Even if art can free itself completely from historical evidence, Enjott Schneider’s “Kriemhild. A Symphonic Game” is a musical homage to this myth, which says that Kriemhild stopped in Passau during the journey to her bridegroom, Etzel, King of the Huns . Opera is certainly a highlight of this year’s European Weeks (June 29th to July 29th). “A big event where the Nibelungenlied is seen from Kriemhild’s female perspective,” says the composer about his work. The world premiere is on Saturday, July 1, at 7.30 p.m. in the Dreiländerhalle: Theresa Pilsl sings the title role, the symphony orchestra of the Passau Concert Association and the festival choir can be heard. Miroslav Nemec is the reciter.
European Weeks Passau, June 29th – July 29th, info and tickets below www.ew-passau.de