Festspielhaus Baden-Baden

Behind the sandstone façade of a railway station of 1904, closed to trains in 1977, the Viennese architect Wilhelm Holzbauer set an auditorium of some 2,500 seats — the largest opera and concert house in Germany. It opened in April 1998 and settled, after early difficulties, into a model unusual in Europe: a festival theatre financed privately, through sponsors and a large membership association rather than public subsidy. The old concourse serves as foyer and restaurant; a children's music centre, the Toccarion, occupies part of the station buildings. Programming comes in short, intensive festival blocks rather than a repertory season, and since 2013 the Berlin Philharmonic has brought its Easter Festival here.