Lovers Tour 2026

No Borders Orchestra

Conducted by Premil Petrovic

Directed by Brett Bailey

In a world dominated by wars, the rise of right-wing populists, deepening social inequality, human rights violations and human-caused climate change, we see a profound absence of love at the very root of these crises. And even though it may sound naive at first glance, this is exactly what more and more artists and thinkers have rightly been thematizing lately.

Wienerfestochen, as one of the leading European festivals, gave itself the title this year “Republic of Love”, calling to oppose the destructive forces in the world and fight with love. Emphasizing the need to become loving, many feminist, queer and left-wing authors and thinkers have recently advocated terms such as radical tenderness, radical love or revolutionary love. Theater director Milo Rau says: “When the famous sentence “beauty will save the world” is spoken in Dostoevsky’s novel “The Idiot”, someone comments – you say that because you’re in love… It’s wonderful, because everything we do should be done out of love for another. The answer lies in creating art with other people, for other people.” In our project, we want to thematize both the freedom of the individual act of love and love as a political force in the world.

Program:

Gavin Bryars: Jesus’ blood never failed me yet 

Guillame Lekeu: Adagio 

Sara Glojnaric: #popfem

Gustav Mahler: Adagietto

Julius Eastman: Gay Guerilla