A grand festival in the little Grand Duchy

Luxembourg Festival makes October and November too interesting

And then, just as you thought that the cultural extravaganza in Luxembourg is gone together with the Summer, you realize you’re wrong. The party continues into the Fall with a particularly attractive October and November, thanks to two of the Grand Duchy’s most distinguished cultural institutions, the Philharmonie and the Grand Théâtre de la Ville de Luxembourg, who jointly present the Luxembourg Festival with an artistic programme of the highest calibre.

With over 30 high-quality productions in the fields of opera, dance, orchestral, chamber and world music, jazz and plenty more, the Philharmonie and the Grand Théâtre together invite us to the third edition of the Luxembourg Festival.

Alongside opera (Offenbach’s Les Brigands in an edition directed by the duo Deschamps/Makeïff, Lohengrin with the great Wagner tenor Peter Seiffert, New London Consort/Philip Pickett with Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas), it is to feature a particularly interesting orchestral programme (including the Cleveland Orchestra/Yuri Temirkanov/Julia Fischer, OPL/Emmanuel Krivine/Nicholas Angelich, Arsys Bourgogne/Concerto Köln/Pierre Cao, Monteverdi Choir/Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique/Sir John Eliot Gardiner).

Just as select are the recitals and chamber music evenings like Grigory Sokolov, Edita Gruberova or the Quatuor Ébène). And there is no shortage of world music and jazz either (Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club, Gilberto Gil, Cecil Taylor, Diana Krall).

Dance productions include a Gershwin tribute by the Montalvo-Hervieu company, Jiří Kylián/Michael Schumacher with Last Touch First, the Göteborg Ballet with 3xBoléro and the world première of Egon Madsen/Eric Gauthier.

The offer is plenty considering that Luxembourg is such a small country. However, the city of Luxembourg is one of the European Union’s three official capitals (along with Brussels and Strasbourg), situated at the crossroads of France, Germany and Belgium. Therefore, it is understandable that Luxembourg is an unparalleled cultural metropolis, characterized by the encounter of numerous cultures and languages –over 60% of its residents come from other countries, with around 120.000 commuters daily.

Visit that cosmopolitan centre of the region between Trier, Saarbrucken, Metz and Liège, for the culture and its thousand-year-long history, its impressive location atop the cliffs of the old fortress and its international cuisine. See the Luxembourg Festival as an excuse and get to know that impressive little metropolis in the heart of Europe.