After many years of being the resident orchestra of the Salzburg Easter Festival, the Berliner Philharmoniker have started a new residency at the Baden-Baden Festival (the Staatskapelle Dresden take over in Salzburg for this year’s Easter Festival). 

For their Baden-Baden debut they will be performing Mozart’s The Magic Flute in a new production by Robert Carsen (the cast is led by Pavol Breslik as Tamino, Kate Royal as Pamina, Michael Nagy as Papageno, Ana Durlovski as Queen of Night and Dimitry Ivaschenko as Sarastro). Leading up to the Festival's first night on March 23, the Berliner Philharmoniker are releasing a daily blog which charts the final rehearsal in Berlin, the journey to Baden-Baden and their arrival at the Festival to start work there. Click here to watch the first instalments and follow the Berliner Philharmoniker video blog each day.

Also on the programme at the Baden-Baden Easter Festival are two performances of Mahler’s Second Symphony (Kate Royal; Magdalena Kozená; Simon Rattle), a concert which finds Andris Nelsons on the podium and Maxim Vengerov in the Brahms Violin Concerto and one which sees Krystian Zimerman joining Rattle in the Brahms First Piano Concerto (alongside Brucker’s Ninth Symphony).

Visit the Baden-Baden Festival website for full listings.