The new artistic director of the Bregenzer Festspiele, Lilli Paasikivi, would like to send out a warm welcome to you. 

“I cannot wait to finally be in Bregenz and work together on site with the committed and highly professional team at the Bregenzer Festspiele to prepare not only the upcoming festival season but also the one that follows.” says Lilli Paasikivi. The first new production on the Seebühne under her artistic direction will be Giuseppe Verdi’s La traviata, which in the summers of 2026 and 2027 is shown as Opera on the Lake for the first time.

“We are delighted to welcome Lilli Paasikivi here in Bregenz following an intensive preparation period and look forward to an exhilarating first summer with her.” says Hans Peter Metzler, the president of the Bregenzer Festspiele. Lilli Paasikivi’s fist festival season starts on 16 July 2025 with the Opera at the Festspielhaus: Œdipe by composer George Enescu, who was born in 1881 in today’s Romania. From 17 July 2025 on, Carl Maria von Weber’s Der Freischütz returns to the Seebühne as Opera on the Lake. The full program of the 2025 festival season will be presented on 21 November 2024.

Lilli Paasikivi, born in 1965 in Finland, brings a profound and comprehensive understanding of the world of classical music based on experience. Besides being an internationally known singer at prominent opera and concert houses, she was also involved in the organization and founding of multiple summer festivals in Finland. From 2013 to 2023 she was the artistic director of the Finish National Opera in Helsinki where she put a strong focus on combining different art forms and creating an innovative program that experiments with new technologies.

New Look for the Bregenzer Festspiele 
With the preview flyer, the Bregenzer Festspiele not only gave a glimpse of the new program but also presented its new look to the public. studio collect, a design agency based in Stuttgart (Germany), created the bold and original design. Each year, the Bregenzer Festspiele will collaborate with a visual artist. For 2025, the choice fell on Vivian Greven. In her pastels, the painter from Düsseldorf (Germany), mixes elegance and sensuality. Combined with strong matching colors, they represent the productions of the upcoming festival season.