The Handel Festival

An international music festival in Central Germany, at authentic venues in the city of George Frideric Handel’s birth  

The Handel Festival has been held in Halle since 1922. It all began with new productions of Handel’s operas and these still form the backbone of the festival programme of today. Every year, the Handel Festival and the Halle Opera House produce one of the numerous Handel operas.  Of the 42 operas by Handel which have come down to us, 40 of them have been performend at the Handel Festival to date. This is a unique record, inrivalled anywhere in the world. The Handel Festival Orchestra Halle first distinguished itself as a Braoque ensemble performing on period instruments for the very special task of  accompanying Handel operas in Halle in 1993.

The Handel Festival stands for tradition both in the performance an dreception  of Handel’s works, as well as for innovation and crossover. It consistently offers its international audience new pieces, rediscoveries and a variety of interpretation styles, most of them in historical Handel venues, such as the cathedral, the Marktkirche, Handel House, or the historical Goethe-Theater in nearby Bad Lauchstädt.