Easter Festival Baden-Baden 2026
Lohengrin, St. Matthew Passion, and top international orchestras
The Baden-Baden Easter Festival looks to the future in 2026 with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Mahler Chamber Orchestra and German National Youth Orchestra. From 28 March – 6 April the Festival presents a wide-ranging programme of opera, passion and symphonic concerts in Germany’s largest opera house, featuring conductors Klaus Mäkelä and Joana Mallwitz and an array of international star soloists – advance ticket sales start: Monday, April 14, 2025.
Richard Wagner's opera Lohengrin will open the Baden-Baden Easter Festival 2026. From 28 March to 6 April 2026, two top international orchestras, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw Orchestra and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, will feature at Germany's largest opera house. The Bundesjugendorchester will be the third orchestra to take part in the Baden-Baden Easter Festival.
"The Baden-Baden Easter Festival continues to develop further throughout Europe" says Festspielhaus director Benedikt Stampa, who welcomed Joana Mallwitz and Klaus Mäkelä along with the orchestra's Managing Directors to the Festspielhaus for the programme announcement (28 February 2025). "Baden- Baden stands for forward-looking decisions. We are presenting the next generation of outstanding musical personalities whilst simultaneously sustaining our musical heritage. Joana Mallwitz and Klaus Mäkelä epitomize a new and already extremely successful generation of musicians," notes Benedikt Stampa.
“It is a great honour for me to be able to help shape a new beginning with the musicians of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra at this unique venue. Together with the wonderful Festival team and everyone involved, I am looking forward to our long-term collaboration, a fresh look at traditional repertoire and great musicmaking” says Joana Mallwitz. "Together with the wonderful musicians of the Concertgebouw Orchestra, I am really looking forward to the start of our partnership with the Baden Baden Easter Festival next year," says Klaus Mäkelä. “What I am personally looking forward to in particular is presenting the St. Matthew Passion – a truly inspirational work and one which is embedded in this orchestra’s tradition.”
In addition to Richard Wagner's Lohengrin (Music Director: Joana Mallwitz, Director: Johannes Erath), Johann Sebastian Bach's St. Matthew Passion will be a 2026 festival highlight, performed by the Concertgebouw Orchestra under the direction of its chief conductor designate Klaus Mäkelä. In the Baden-Baden Easter Festival's symphonic programme, Klaus Mäkelä will also conduct the Concertgebouw Orchestra in performances of Gustav Mahler's Fifth Symphony and Anton Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony.
On Good Friday 2026, the audience can look forward to Benjamin Britten's War Requiem – a moving choral and orchestral work of timeless significance. The conductor will be Joana Mallwitz, who has won international acclaim both as an opera conductor and as chief conductor of the Berlin Konzerthaus-Orchester. "We look forward to welcoming the international music world, which will once again be converging on Baden-Baden," says Benedikt Stampa. The title roles in Lohengrin will be sung by Rachel Willis-Sørensen (Elsa) and Piotr Beczała (Lohengrin). Other prominent soloists at the Baden-Baden Easter Festival in 2026 will be mezzo-soprano Elína Garanča and French pianist Hélène Grimaud, as well as violinist Daniel Lozakovich, an outstanding young talent affiliated with the Musikhochschule Karlsruhe.
