Prague, 24 May 2026 | The third week at the Prague Spring International Music Festival will be marked by large-scale vocal-instrumental works featuring outstanding casts of soloists. On 25 May, Hector Berlioz’s “légende dramatique” La Damnation de Faust will be performed at the festival for only the second time in its history, with Paul Appleby (Faust), Alexander Vinogradov (Méphistophélès), Štěpánka Pučálková (Marguerite) and Pavel Švingr (Brander) as soloists. The Prague Symphony Orchestra, the Prague Philharmonic Choir, the Prague Philharmonic Children’s Choir and the quartet of soloists will be conducted by Tomáš Netopil. The concert will be broadcast live by Czech Radio Vltava.
French repertoire will also feature prominently on 26 May, when Prague Spring 2026 Artist-in-Residence Barbara Hannigan will appear in the dual role of singer and conductor in her debut with the Czech Philharmonic at the Rudolfinum, presenting her own interpretation of Francis Poulenc’s operatic monodrama The Human Voice. The project, enhanced by live video projections, will receive its Czech premiere. The “French triptych” will conclude on 27 May with a work on the border between oratorio and opera – Jules Massenet’s Marie-Magdeleine. Conducted by Robert Jindra, who will lead the Chorus and Orchestra of the National Theatre on the stage of the National Theatre, the title roles will be performed by soprano Aleksandra Kurzak (Mary Magdalene), tenor Kang Wang (Jesus), mezzo-soprano Arnheiður Eiríksdóttir (Martha) and bass František Zahradníček (Judas). The project has been created in cooperation with the National Theatre. This remarkable series of large-scale vocal-instrumental works will culminate on 28 May with a performance of Joseph Haydn’s oratorio The Creation. It was last heard at the festival in 1982 under Austrian conductor Leopold Hager. This time, the performance will be conducted by Václav Luks leading the Orchestra and Choir of the Age of Enlightenment.
Among the outstanding vocal-instrumental events of the coming week we may also include one of the breakthrough works of the late 20th century by Prague Offspring 2026 Composer-in-Residence Unsuk Chin, Akrostichon-Wortspiel. The composition, which opened the doors of the world’s leading concert halls to Unsuk Chin, will be performed on the opening evening of Prague Offspring on 29 May by the Ensemble Modern and soprano Sarah Aristidou. During her festival residency, audiences can also look forward to Unsuk Chin’s Double Concerto for piano, percussion and ensemble (29 May) and Gougalōn (30 May), inspired by Korean street theatre. Prague Offspring will also present five world premieres commissioned by the Prague Spring International Music Festival: Die Intercedences by Michal Nejtek (29 May), based on fragments of texts by Franz Kafka, COVID-19 (Fury and Silence) by Jiří Kadeřábek, Unravel by Michaela Antalová, 423 by Tobiáš Horváth and funktionslust : R by Patrik Kako (30 May). Alongside the concerts, audiences will also be able to draw inspiration over the two days, 29 and 30 May, at the DOX Centre for Contemporary Art through workshops, open discussions and a masterclass with members of the Ensemble Modern. A public masterclass will also be led by Barbara Hannigan on 31 May in the Suk Hall of the Rudolfinum.
On Saturday 30 May, from 14.00 to 20.00, the third edition of the popular SpringTEEN project for the youngest audiences will take place in the grounds of the Convent of St Agnes. Children and teenagers can once again look forward to concerts and workshops inspired this year by the worlds of visualisation, movement and musical theatre. This year’s stars of SpringTEEN will include actor and singer Jan Cina, the Floex Ensemble with the robot Josef, and the traditional SpringTEEN Band, now expanded by SpringTEEN Band Junior. The afternoon will culminate at 18.30 in the Grand Finale, featuring the world premiere of The Spring by composer and conductor Marko Ivanović, traditionally involving both children and the SpringTEEN audience. Thanks to the support of ABB Česká republika, SpringTEEN will once again connect the worlds of technology and art, while a new feature this year will be a workshop and Chill-Out Zone in cooperation with the AutTalk Foundation, which supports children with autism spectrum disorder. The SpringTEEN programme has once again been curated by Klára Boudalová.
The third festival week will culminate in a Sunday full of music. On 31 May at the Rudolfinum, a chamber concert of works by Antonín Dvořák performed by violinist Jiří Vodička and pianist David Mareček will begin at 17.00. In the evening, two extraordinary works of the 19th and 20th centuries will be performed at the Municipal House by the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin: Dmitri Shostakovich’s Concerto for Cello and Orchestra No. 1, written for the winner of the 1952 Prague Spring Competition, Mstislav Rostropovich, and Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 6. The solo part in the Shostakovich concerto will this time be performed by the winner of the 2025 Prague Spring Competition, Japanese cellist Yuya Mizuno. The Grammy Award-winning orchestra will be conducted by another outstanding Czech conductor, Tomáš Hanus. On Sunday 31 May, the traditional memorial tribute to Josef Suk will also take place with a concert in Křečovice.
The week full of music will open with the cinema premiere of the documentary Prague Spring – A Window onto the World by director and screenwriter Martin Suchánek, created to mark the 80th anniversary of the Prague Spring Festival. The premiere will take place in the presence of the filmmakers on Monday 25 May at Cinema 35 at the French Institute in Prague. The documentary, co-produced by the Prague Spring, Czech Television and innogy Česká republika, is already available on Czech Television’s iVysílání platform.
Tickets for individual festival events are available online at festival.cz and at the festival box offices in the Rudolfinum and the Municipal House
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