Visitor figures set new record at Bregenz Festival

The festival programme featured around 80 events spread over five weeks. On the lake stage, Damiano Michieletto’s production of Giuseppe Verdi’s La traviata was seen by 193,474 enthusiastic visitors at 28 sold-out performances.

The huge success of the opera on the lake stage was only part of the story, however. Artistic director Lilli Paasikivi’s highly varied anniversary programme with Leoš Janáček’s The Excursions of Mr Brouček as the opera in the Festspielhaus, in addition to contemporary music theatre at the Werkstattbühne, an Opera Studio production, spoken theatre, orchestral and chamber concerts as well as the Young People’s Festival enjoyed great popularity with festival visitors, too.

A stand-out highlight came on 1 August, with about 15,000 visitors making it the busiest day in the festival’s 80-year history. This included a big sing-along by the lake. About 6,600 people gathered on the lakeside grandstand to sing popular opera arias from 80 years of festival history – accompanied by choirs, soloists and an instrumental ensemble from the Vorarlberg Symphony Orchestra.

Preview of 2027: Verdi on the lake, Schoeck at the Festspielhaus
The 2027 Bregenz Festival will open on 21 July with a performance of Penthesilea by Othmar Schoeck at the Festspielhaus. The rarely staged opera by the Swiss composer, based on Heinrich von Kleist’s tragedy with the same title, tells the story of the Amazon queen Penthesilea and her passionate, fateful love for Achilles. Giuseppe Verdi’s La traviata returns to the lake stage, commencing its second run on 22 July.