In his first season in Erl, Jonas Kaufmann only has the Festspielhaus available as a venue. The Passion Play House, otherwise the venue for the great Wagner performances, will be used by the Passion Plays themselves in 2025. Now the Festspielhaus, opened in 2012, will be used with the aim of securing the festival a fixed and visible place in the international festival scene.

Kaufmann and his team have focused on various aspects in designing the program:

So the care and promotion of the festival orchestra is a great concern to them. "With the commitment of Asher Fisch as the new chief conductor of the Tiroler Festspiele, we have succeeded in winning an internationally renowned conductor with decades of experience, high standards and expertise, who has the work and development of the festival orchestra at heart," says Jonas Kaufmann, "he will regularly spend much of the year here in Erl with the orchestra and combine this new task with his numerous international engagements."

Another priority is the promotion of young musical talent: The singers of the winter premiere of "La Bohème", for example, are all around 30 years old and on the verge of world careers. In the other castings, many young artists also get the opportunity to present themselves on the international stage. The extraordinary young pianists in the recital series, such as Alexandra Dovgan or Alexander Malofeev, are the best examples that the stage of the Festspielhaus also belongs to the "young".

Consistently, Jonas Kaufmann has made it his task to also give due space to the new generation of internationally successful directors. This finds its first expression in the commitment of the Spaniard Bárbara Lluch, who is responsible for the new production of "La Bohème" in winter.

There is also a focus on local artists who play or will play a role in international musical life. So in addition to numerous local singers, conductors such as Vinzenz Praxmarer (Christmas Oratorio on December 8, 2024) and Heinz Ferlesch from the Vienna Singakademie ("St. Matthew Passion" on Good Friday, April 18, 2025) are engaged this season. And with director Philipp Maria Krenn, an Austrian has been won who will be entrusted with the new production of "Parsifal" at Easter 2025.

At the same time, the festival audience will also be given the opportunity to meet the most renowned directors in the opera industry. The management team is particularly proud that Claus Guth – certainly one of the most important directors of the present – will direct the double evening "Duke Bluebeard's Castle / La voix humaine" in the coming season, co-produced with the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. In the following years, Claus Guth will be followed by directing greats such as Calixto Bieito and Damiano Michieletto.

Together with Artistic Advisor and Casting Director Ilias Tzempetonidis, Jonas Kaufmann is working to make the festival a place of the highest quality. The two have succeeded in inspiring many colleagues for the "Adventure Erl". So Pretty Yende will give her concert debut as Leonora in "Il Trovatore" in summer 2025 (July 26, 2025), the top baritones Ludovic Tézier (July 19, 2025) and Luca Salsi (July 25, 2025) will alternate in the title role of "Rigoletto", Rosa Feola will give the Violetta in "La Traviata" in the Festspielhaus (July 12 & 27, 2025), Florian Boesch and Vera-Lotte Boecker will also be in Erl ("Duke Bluebeard's Castle" / La voix humaine" on July 11, 13 & 18, 2025).

The world-famous soprano Camilla Nylund will come to Erl with a song recital on July 16, 2025. In further productions, many of the most exciting voices of the opera scene will be presented in Erl, including Irene Roberts as Kundry in the mentioned new production of "Parsifal" alongside Jonas Kaufmann in the Festspielhaus at Easter 2025 (dates: April 17 & 20, 2025), Lise Davidsen as Sieglinde in a concert performance of Act 1 of "Die Walküre" in July 2025 (together with René Pape as Hunding) or bel canto fixed stars like René Barbera and Marina Monzó in the concert performances of "I Puritani". This work is the greatest challenge for all bel canto singers, and therefore it stands as a calling card for engagement with Wagner's favorite musical style already in the first winter season on the program (December 27, 2024 and January 4, 2025).

Contemporary music has always had a prominent and fixed place in Erl, the Tiroler Festspiele Erl contribute essentially to the contemporary music scene. So the new team has succeeded in bringing the production of "Picture a Day like this" by George Benjamin in the celebrated production of the Aix-en-Provence Festival to Erl and thus securing the Austrian premiere for Tyrol.

The work of the "Young Festspielhaus" – the TFE music education project for children, young people and families – will have a special status in the future. In Erl, the work with the popular formats of intimate cushion concerts and family concerts accompanied by large orchestra will be continued. In winter, the family concert around the upcoming jubilarian Johann Strauss in the direction of Giulia Giammona is on the program ("Applause for the Strauss Brothers! - A staged family story with lots of music", on December 29, 2024. Around Easter follows a project on "Parsifal" and for summer 2025 the team of the Young Festspielhaus is already working on new formats.

From October 4-6, 2024, a three-day festival under the title "Ausklang" was organized together with Andreas Schett as curator. There Andreas Schett celebrates alongside his Musicbanda Franui with artists such as Tobias Moretti, die Strottern, the Simply Quartet, the Erlkings or Nikola Hillebrand and other resonant names the pleasurable diversity of high-quality music that moves between classical, folk music and popular music.