»Grand Tour« 

13-29 June

»Grand Tour« traveling broadens and shifts the horizon. The English »Grand Tourists« of four hundred and more years ago were already aware that you can travel deliberately and consciously to bring about and reinforce this effect. The German noble cavaliers followed their example and among normal citizens, they aroused the ambition to satisfy their own thirst for education and adventure.

Whereas monuments, landscapes and celebrities had been at the center of attention, music gradually became the focus of interest. Probably the most important »grand tourist«, when it came to music, was the Englishman Charles Burney, who set off from London twice (in 1770 and 1772) to explore musical life on the continent - including that of Berlin and Potsdam, of course - and to inform us about all aspects of musical life at the time. Burney's journeys will be musically followed – in stages - at the opening concert with countertenor Max Emanuel Cencic and the {oh!} Orkiestra, by the Ensemble Diderot -, and on the closing weekend with Apollo's Cabinet. Musical metropolises such as London, Paris, Vienna and Venice will be portrayed by the Basel Chamber Orchestra and Sandrine Piau under Giovanni Antonini, the Ensemble a nocte temporis and Micrologus.

The cities and landscapes of Italy promised to satisfy all longings. For every grand tourist, Rome and Naples were the ultimate destinations«. On the opening weekend, stars such as Giulia Semenzato, Dorothee Oberlinger, Evgeni Sviridov and Avi Avital will lead us to the land where the lemons bloom, at the open-air concert at the »Alter Markt«, with Vivaldi's »Four Seasons« with Shunske Sato and the European Union Baroque Orchestra. Even further, to faraway dream landscapes full of exotic charms and foreign scents, we will be whisked away by the opera »Orlando generoso« by Agostino Steffani, under the musical direction of Dorothee Oberlinger, as well as by the open-air concert »Indian Swan Lake« in front of the Sanssouci Orangery Palace.

What world travellers from various centuries want to tell us, we learn from Per-Sonat, the vocal ensemble SLIXS and the B'Rock Orchestra & Vocal Consort. Travelling is often highly emotional, as the insurmountable pain of Dido's farewell will show in the concert performance of Baldassare Galuppi's opera »Didone abbandonata« at the Nikolaisaal Potsdam. And we will hear of departures, some voluntary, some involuntary, some with, some without return, as the stories of Alexander von Humboldt, the explorer, of Viennese Jewish composer Georg Kreisler or simply the legend of the pied piper show.

For the duration of two weeks, Potsdam will become the starting point for musical journeys that open up new horizons, with early music, with chansons, concerts and opera performances, targeted at connoisseurs, as well as children with their hands-on programs.

As we invite you, dear festival guests, to various Grand Tours through Potsdam's cultural landscape, the sustainability of travel naturally will also play an important role: at the traditional bicycle concert, at a walking concert or - for particularly sporty culture aficionados - on a true marathon tour through Sanssouci Park. In any case, a good start to a fulfilling summer!