We look back on the Season 2024:
In the season 2024, the Ludwigsburg Festival was hosted at 19 venues in Ludwigsburg and the region. Including the upcoming »Nacht im Salonwald« and the tickets already sold for the September concerts in Wolfegg, we have already been able to record around 25.700 visits to our events, which is an increase of 14 percent compared to 2023. The overall occupancy rate was 81% and 12 events were completely sold out.
The attractiveness of the Schlossfestspiele for a younger audience has also increased further: The offer for festival guests in education with tickets at 15 euros, sponsored by the Ruprecht Foundation, has become even more popular in 2024.
In beautiful summer weather and on a balmy festival night, the grand »Monrepos Open Air« crowned the festival season with its live musical fireworks, the Goethe-Gymnasium orchestra and a brilliant Latin American-influenced music program: Around 7000 guests listened to the Festspielorchester and the charismatic Alondra de la Parra, who conducted works by Astor Piazzolla, Nino Rota, Arturo Márquez and – to accompany the fireworks – dances by José Pablo Moncayo and Oscar Lorenzo Férnandez.
But first, let’s take a look at the start of the season 2024:
This year, the free »Frei Luft Musik« open-air concerts on the market square got us in the mood for the festival season from the beginning of May – a whole four weeks before the festive opening concert of the Schlossfestspiele. Despite the rainy summer, they developed into one of the most popular formats with around 4.200 visitors and have been an integral part of the festival program since 2022!
At the »Fest Spiel Ouvertüre« on June 1, the Festspielorchester under the musical direction of Ryan McAdams got the season off to a brilliant start with a German premiere of Cassandra Miller’ s »I cannot love without trembling« and Hector Berlioz’s »Symphonie fantastique«.
From then on, event after event followed: on June 2, we opened our doors for a »Tag im Palais«, where we engaged in conversation with numerous guests and interested parties with live music, program presentations, historical house tours, competitions and much more.
Acclaimed
Sasha Waltz’s choreography »Beethoven 7«, whose concentrated energy was brought to life with the help of the company’s outstanding dancers and Diego Noguera’s electronic work
»Freiheit/Extasis« onto the stage. Akram Khan’ s immersive retelling of »Junglebook reimagined« also met with huge enthusiasm.
In the popular workshops on Sasha Waltz’s work »In C«, dance enthusiasts were able to try out their own choreography to Terry Riley’s music.
At the first artist residency of the season, pianist Fazıl Say delighted a young, diverse audience in three concerts over two evenings at the Kunstzentrum Karlskaserne and the Forum am Schlosspark.
He was followed
his residency with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, which performed a
brilliant evening with conductor Anja Bihlmaier and violin virtuoso Renaud
Capuçon and performed a touching concert with school classes and deaf people
concert on the theme of »Home«.
Finally, the singers from VOCES8 were second to none, combining their voices with those of their colleagues from Chanticleer
into a truly impressive singing experience that filled the entire Friedenskirche. At the Sing Along, they impressed with a hundred-strong project choir and celebrated the 200th anniversary of the Grabkapelle Stuttgart with sacred music and a joyful open-air performance in a beautiful setting.
The Ordenssaal was also acoustically honored with fantastic string quartets: The Quatuor Ébène combined wonderfully with the electronic sounds of musician Xavier Tribolet, together with actress Amelie Schmidt, the Rothko String Quartet dedicated themselves musically and literarily to the correspondence between Ingeborg Bachmann and Max Frisch, and the Minguet
Quartet played a moving Schubert homage with star cellist Jens Peter Maintz.
New life was breathed into the Schlosstheater with a production by painter Norbert Bisky. Backdrops in the baroque theater were repainted especially for Schubert's song cycle »Die schöne Müllerin«. Musically, too, the co-production with the
Stuttgart State Opera with tenor Mingjie Lei
and pianist Alan Hamilton was a real gem.
The first »away game« with the »Wild Strings Duo« in Bad Imnau was followed by an absolute highlight: the Oslo Philharmonic played under chief conductor Klaus Mäkelä, who shone in the first half of the concert together with the young violinist Daniel Lozakovich in Brahms’ double concerto on the cello.
However, numerous other soloists also played their way into the hearts of the audience: while Alexandre Kantorow enchanted us with his romantic style on the piano, we were captivated by rousing jazz sounds in »Michael Wollny Piano«. The expressive soprano Asmik
Grigorian, together with Lukas Geniušas at the piano, musically conquered the historic Ordenssaal with Tchaikowski and Rachmaninoff, and
actress Martina Gedeck and harpist Xavier de Maistre dressed texts by Rilke, Camus, Wilde and others into delicate string sounds. The enthusiasm and joy of playing of the highly energetic cellist Anastasia Kobekina, which was not only transmitted to the Kammerorchester Basel, but also to the entire audience, was also unforgettable!
We retain this enthusiasm for music and dance – even after a night walk through the Salonwald on July 25 and 26, we will be taking a summer break for the time being.
To make sure it doesn’t get too long, we will of course be in Wolfegg again this year for the concert weekend.
We look forward to seeing you on September 14 and 15 for works by Mozart, Piazzolla, Bach and Purcell in the beautiful Allgäu region or here in Ludwigsburg next season at the latest!
Your Ludwigsburger Schlossfestspiele