The Bregenz Festival was established in 1946 with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra as the focus for opera and concerts. The huge floating stage on the waters of Lake Constance supports a stunning large-scale set for productions that run for two summer seasons. Particularly challenging for the opera designer, Bregenz is accepted as the pinnacle of opera for a large audience. It has been home to some of the most exciting and adventurous outdoor opera staging - unforgettable past productions include the 1999-2000 Un ballo in maschera, and Aida in 2009-10.

This summer there is the reprise of the acclaimed production of Giordarno’s masterpiece Andrea Chénier, directed by Keith Warner and with a set designed by David Fielding. have chosen The Death of Marat, an iconic painting by the revolutionary artist Jacques-Louis David, as the symbol and inspiration for their staggering set which rises 24 meters from the lake which itself becomes the bathwater from the painting.

Umberto Giordarno’s 1896 verismo opera has always been a favourite with tenors (Domingo sang it at Covent Garden in 1985) and the soprano who bribes her way into joining Chénier shares a famous and rousing duet as they face the guillotine.

As Rupert Christianson wrote “the lakeside show is a melodrama set during the French Revolution. Fielding’s designs duly deliver the wow factor, based on a 70ft realisation of the figure of Marat murdered in his bath, as painted by David. From Marat’s eye down through his neck and shoulder runs a huge staircase. To his left, like something out of Alice in Wonderland, is an outsize open book of Chénier’s poems; to his right, is a vast gilded mirror on to which images are projected. The forestage represents an elegant ancien regime salon, hydraulically moved to one side by Marat’s arm as the revolution intensifies. That’s not all: the costumes run to a Ziegfeld Follies level of extravagance that would have made even Marie Antoinette blush, and the opening scene provides pretext for some thrilling acrobats who dance on Marat’s head and then dive into the lake.”

We stay at a famous and splendid 5* lakeside hotel at Lindau, the Bavarian island across the lake, formerly an Imperial Free City. Lindau is largely traffic‐free and has a well‐preserved and flourishing historic centre. A boat crosses the lake to bring us to our seats and back after the opera. We also have two boat trips on Lake Constance visiting the garden island of Mainau, and Friedrichshafen with its Zeppelin museum or the historic cathedral city of Constance.