What's on in 2019: Culture edition
Exhibitions, music festivals, film and literature awards, theater shows and anniversary events: Just some of the anticipated highlights in the packed 2019 culture calendar across Europe and abroad.
January
Celebrations in Europe's capitals of culture — Plovdiv in Bulgaria and the Italian town of Matera — kick off the new year. Matera's city center with its ancient limestone grottoes has long been a World Heritage site. With an eye as to how culture can lead Europe into a better future, the southern Italian city chose "Open Future" as its 2019 motto.
February
Theaters across Germany will commemorate the 150th birthday of poet/playwright and Berlin bohemian Else Lasker-Schüler on February 11. The Berlin International Film Festival also starts in February, the last Berlinale with Dieter Kosslick at the helm — Carlo Chatrian, the longtime artistic director of the Locarno Film Festival, will take over as the festival's new artistic director in 2020.
March
It's all about books in the eastern German city of Leipzig when its annual book fair opens on March 21 with the Czech Republic as guest of honor. In the western German city of Oberhausen, the Short Film Festival — said to be the world's oldest film festival — celebrates its 65th run. Back in 1962, young German directors at the festival such as Alexander Kluge stated that "Papa's cinema is dead."
April
On April 6, a new Bauhaus Museum opens in the German city of Weimar, where the world-famous school of design and architecture was founded one hundred years before. To coincide with centenary celebrations across Germany, the new museum presents early works from the Bauhaus workshop, and focuses on how Bauhaus artists and architects envisioned people living together.
May
Art lovers around the world admire the works of Leonardo Da Vinci even 500 years after his death on May 2, 1519. Exhibitions in France and Italy commemorate the genius Italian artist, and the Renaissance that followed. That same month, Israel is scheduled to host the Eurovision Song Contest — despite calls to boycott the event. "Dare to Dream" is the song competition's 2019 motto.
June
The music festival season really takes off in June. Music lovers will flock to Rock am Ring at the Nürburgring race track and "Rock im Park" in Nuremburg, both among Germany's largest music festivals. Other events in Germany include the Hurricane Festival and the Southside Festival, while the Roskilde Festival takes place in Denmark and the famed Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland.
July
Classical music lovers will have their fill of festivals if they travel to the Austrian town of Salzburg for the annual festival starting on July 20 with Mozart, Strauss, Handel on the bill; or to the annual Bayreuth Festival that kicks off July 25 — Richard Wagner's "Tannhäuser" features, while the composer's great-granddaughter Katharina Wagner is directing "Tristan and Isolde" one last time.
August
The legendary Woodstock Festival took place 50 years ago and rumor has it there just might be a reincarnation this year, with a festival focusing on sustainability, activism and social justice designed to "save the world." In Spain, numerous exhibitions celebrating the 500th anniversary of explorer Ferdinand Magellan's circumnavigation of the globe are in store.
September
With its 49,000 exhibits, the Bauhaus Collection has long been housed in the original 1920s Bauhaus building in Dessau. That collection is now set to move to a spacious new museum in the same city, with an opening on September 8. In Berlin, the Humboldt Forum is scheduled to open right in time for the 250th birthday of world-famous explorer Alexander von Humboldt on September 14.
October
The recipients of the Nobel prizes will be announced in the first half of October and perhaps in 2019, a literature prize will once again be included. That award was canceled in 2018 in the wake of a sexual assault scandal involving the husband of one of the academy members. Rest assured that in Germany, the German Book Prize and the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade will be awarded.
November
Throughout the year, numerous exhibitions are planned in the Spanish capital of Madrid to celebrate 200 years of its illustrious Prado museum, which first opened on November 19, 1819. Film lovers can look forward to the 25th James Bond movie, a sequel to Casino Royale due to be released that month. It may be Daniel Craig's last stint as agent 007.
December
Another event celebrated throughout the year is the 200th birthday of revered German novelist and poet Theodor Fontane, best known for "Effi Briest." The Fontane Festival honoring the German writer who was born on December 30, 1919 begins in May. The European Film Prize is awarded in December, the same month the Society for the German language will announce the Word of the Year.