The Bregenz Festival Lake Stage

The festival has run at Bregenz since 1946, and its best-known part is the Seebuehne, a stage built out into Lake Constance with the audience banked up behind it on the shore. One opera is chosen and kept for two consecutive summers, which justifies sets on a scale no indoor house could carry: a giant hand, an open book, a skull, a diving board. Performances begin after dark, and the lake and the far shore stay visible behind the singers all evening. Sound is amplified and mixed, unusually for opera. The programme also includes indoor opera, orchestral concerts and theatre in the halls alongside, running from July into August.

What you actually see

• The Seebuehne - the stage standing in the water, with the lake and the far shore behind it.
• The two-year run - the same production repeated the following summer, so a missed year is recoverable.
• The set - built at a size that only works outdoors, and visible from the promenade by day.
• The indoor programme - opera, orchestral concerts and theatre in the halls beside the lake.

When to go

Performances run from the middle of July to late August, most evenings, starting once it is properly dark. Tickets go on sale months ahead and the lake stage sells out heavily for weekends. Bring layers: the temperature over the water drops sharply once the sun is gone, even at the end of a hot day.

Honest expectations

Rain is the problem. Heavy weather moves the performance into the festival hall, which seats far fewer people, and refunds depend on how far the show had already got. The cheaper seats are hard benches without backs. Amplified opera divides people, and from the back rows the mix can feel detached from the stage.

Nearby

The Pfaender ridge above the town and the Bregenzerwald valleys lie behind Bregenz.