‘Who holds the strings?’ – the Innsbruck Early Music Festival 2025 will be asking questions about fate and self-determination. 
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From 25 July to 31 August, the programme will focus on two rediscovered operas that are both prequels and sequels to each other: ‘Ifigenia in Aulide’ by Antonio Caldara and ‘Ifigenia in Tauride’ by Tommaso Traetta. Antonio Vivaldi’s ‘Il Giustino’, a baroque opera by Jung, features a cast of participants from last year’s Cesti competition.
In addition to the operas, the programme includes further concerts that reflect the diversity of early music in their programmatic range. Stars of the scene such as Andreas Scholl, Giovanni Antonini and Christina Pluhar are represented in the programme, as are Le Concert de la Loge and other celebrated artists.
Advance ticket sales start on 13 December 2024.
The two opera productions tell the story of the mythological figure Iphigenia, daughter of Agamemnon and Clitennestra. Both works are part of Austrian music history, which Ottavio Dantone has been focusing on since he took up the position of musical director: Antonio Caldara’s ‘Ifigenia in Aulide’ premiered in Vienna in 1718, where Tommaso Traetta also staged his ‘Ifigenia in Tauride’ a few decades later. ln the first staged production of Caldara’s ‘Ifigenia’ in over 300 years, the Spanish company PerPoc, under the direction of Anna Fernandez, will delight audiences with puppetry in a baroque stage aesthetic. Ottavio Dantone will conduct the Accademia Bizantina Carlo Vistoli (Achille) makes his festival debut, Marie Lys embodies the title role. In other roles, former Cesti participants Laurence Kilsby (Ulisse), Filippo Mineccia (Teucro), Neima Fischer (Elisena) and Giacomo Nanni (Arcade) alongside Shakéd Bar (Clitennestra) and Martin Vanberg (Agamemnon). The premiere will take place at the Tiroler Landestheater on 8 August at 7pm.
Tommaso Traetta’s ‘Ifigenia in Tauride’ continues the story on 27 August. Since its premiere in Vienna in 1768, the work enjoyed great popularity in the late 18th century. The second part of the opera series will be musically designed by Christophe Rousset and his ensemble Les Talens Lyriques. Rodo Pérez will take on the role of Ifigenia, Owen Willetts will be Oreste and Alasdair Kent will be Toante. Karolina Bengtsson (Dori) and Suzanne Jerosme (Pilade) complete the cast. The production is in the hands of the renowned German director Nicola Raab.
From 17 August 2025, participants from the previous year’s Cesti competition will be bringing Antonio Vivaldi’s opera ‘Il Giustino’ to the stage. The singers will be performing the dramma per musica in a production by Claudia Isabel Martin under the musical direction of Stefano Demicheli. Among those making their debut in the baroque opera are Cesti winner Maximiliano Danta and runner-up Jiayu Jin.
The finale of the 16th Cesti competition on 31 August traditionally marks the glamorous conclusion of the Innsbruck Festival Weeks and this shared vision.
Since its inception in 1976, the Innsbruck Festival has launched the careers of numerous artists and become one of the world’s most important events in the field of early music. In 2026, the Innsbruck Festival will celebrate its 50th anniversary, an event that underscores its pioneering role in the field of historically informed performance practice.
The complete programme of the 2025 festival weeks HERE
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