Press conference: provisional attendance figures for 2025

Der Freischütz, which opened for its second season on the lake stage on 17 July 2025, has continued to draw visitors in droves. Providing no performances are cancelled due to bad weather before the Sunday evening finale, 180,687 people will have seen the visually stunning production by director and set designer Philipp Stölzl. That means 97 percent of available tickets have been sold for 27 performances in all, including the dress rehearsal and Young People’s Night (with two cancellations for bad weather). The Freischütz production on the lake stage will therefore have been seen by a total of approx. 374,000 people in its two-season run in 2024/25. The tours of the lake stage and introductory talks about the opera have proved very popular as well, with a projected 37,300 people taking part.

Before the final day of the festival (Sunday) there are four more performances of Der Freischütz, two of La Cenerentola at the Kornmarkt Theater, as well as the world premiere and second night of Emily – No Prisoner Be at the Werkstattbühne. Also on the programme is the matinee concert of the Vorarlberg Symphony Orchestra in the Festspielhaus on Sunday 17 August.

Tickets for La traviata go on sale on 29 September
The first new production on the lake stage under Lilli Paasikivi is La traviata, to be performed there for the first time in 2026 and 2027. Giuseppe Verdi’s famous opera will open the Bregenz Festival in its 80th season on 22 July 2026. The opera in the Festspielhaus will be The Excursions of Mr Brouček by Leoš Janáček, which opens on 23 July 2026. Booking for next year’s festival opens on 29 September 2025.

Acclaim for George Enescu’s masterpiece Œdipe
This year’s opera at the Festspielhaus, Andreas Kriegenburg’s production of George Enescu’s rarely staged masterpiece Œdipe, was enthusiastically received at its three performances. It was seen by a total of 4,411 people, which corresponds to 96 percent capacity. There was praise for the nuanced production, Hannu Lintu’s precise musical direction, the strong performance of both orchestra and ensemble, the Prague Philharmonic Choir’s spellbinding sound as well as for Lilli Paasikivi’s shrewd programming choice.

“Nordic DNA” fascinates Vorarlberg audiences
In her first festival season, Lilli Paasikivi has presented her own personal, artistic DNA in an impressive manner with a Nordic-themed programme. The audience at Lake Constance accepted her invitation with curiosity and enthusiasm – almost all the “Nordic” events on the programme were sold out.

Jean Sibelius’s seldom played orchestral work Kullervo, heard in a concert by the Vienna Symphony Orchestra under Jukka-Pekka Saraste, bore evocative witness to the depth of the Nordic narrative tradition. With Borrowed Light and Study for Life, the Tero Saarinen Company brought contemporary dance from Finland to the Werkstattbühne theatre space – as an intense fusion of movement, music and light. The choral concert Waldeinsamkeit (“forest solitude”) was given by the YL Male Voice Choir from Helsinki in the Herz Jesu church with a typically Nordic a cappella sound – clear, melancholy and powerful. The chamber music programme forged links between tradition and the present day; the kantele and the saxophone joined forces with electronic music in Nordic Cool, while soprano Hedvig Haugerud demonstrated Norwegian vocal art with dramatic renditions. Finally, Finnish tango at the lakeside revealed a surprising and unpretentious Nordic perspective on a genre that is usually associated with Argentina.

Word and sound, light and motion: three multidimensional works at the Werkstattbühne
In July 2025, the Werkstattbühne theatre space was the venue for the productions Borrowed Light and Study for Life by the highly regarded Finnish choreographer Tero Saarinen and his company, making their first guest appearance in Bregenz. In August there follows the world premiere of a piece commissioned by the Bregenz Festival, Emily – No Prisoner Be, a collaboration between the American composer Kevin Puts, the celebrated mezzosoprano Joyce DiDonato and the string trio Time for Three. The Werkstattbühne’s total audience will have reached 2,260 people, with 93 percent of available tickets sold.

Clever, strong and determined: Opera Studio presents Rossini’s La Cenerentola
A Bregenz Opera Studio production of Gioachino Rossini’s La Cenerentola opened at the Kornmarkt Theater on 12 August. Director Amy Lane staged the piece as a portrait of a clever, strong and determined young woman. The set and costumes were designed by Anna Reid. The opera’s music director was the Finnish conductor Kaapo Ijas. The title role was sung by the Chinese mezzosoprano Jingjing Xu. All performances were completely sold out in advance; the capacity audience numbered 1,984 people.

Impressive Burgtheater world premiere at the Kornmarkt
For the first time in the recent history of the festival, the Vienna Burgtheater brought a guest production to Bregenz during the festival season. The play, bumm tschak oder der letzte henker, was given its world premiere at the Kornmarkt Theater on 18 July. The latest work by the multiple-award-winning Austrian playwright Ferdinand Schmalz, the play was impressive as a linguistic tour de force, for its black humour and genre-transcending musicality. It attracted a total audience of 1,451, corresponding to 75 percent capacity.

Orchestral concerts: Nordic sounds and late Romantic opulence
The Vienna Symphony Orchestra and the Vorarlberg Symphony Orchestra are to give a total of four concerts at the Festspielhaus. Featuring high-profile artists, the concerts offer a multifaceted musical spectrum embracing Nordic soundscapes, French Impressionism and late Romantic opulence. Ticket sales have reached 94 percent of capacity (incl. the choral concert Waldeinsamkeit) with 5,785 visitors. Elim Chan, Jukka-Pekka Saraste and Petr Popelka stood at the conductor’s rostrum of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra. The concert series concludes on Sunday 17 August with the matinee of the Vorarlberg Symphony Orchestras conducted by Leo McFall.

Both intimate and popular, the chamber music concerts in the Seestudio of the Festspielhaus and at Kunsthaus Bregenz were also in high demand. In all, 1,519 people attended the events, corresponding to 96 percent of capacity.

Varied and popular Young People’s Festival
The programme of the Young People’s Festival in 2025 comprised Young People’s Night, the Children’s Festival, opera workshops, a theatre technology project for secondary schools, and the 7th International Wind Band Camp. Freischütz for Kids – a co-production with the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin – took place back in March. The Young People’s Festival events attracted a total of 5,121 children and young people.

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