Rundāle Palace is preparing for the 10th anniversary of the Garden Festival
On 2 July 2016, at the peak of the summer and rose season, Rundāle Palace will celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Garden Festival. Over the last 10 years, the festival has covered several themes. The first festival in 2007 was devoted to the people who had helped to clean up and shape the garden since the beginning of the reconstruction. The following Garden Festivals were dedicated to the unveiling of the fountain, tulips and other bulbous plants, roses, collections of woody plants and bushes, various flowers, the historical orangeries and parterres, as well as the tenth anniversary of the rose garden. This year the festival focuses on the opening of the Green Theatre after the reconstruction.
Programme of the Garden Festival:
12:30 – 13:30 – children’s programme together with the elves of Čučumuiža;
14:00 – 15:30 – 10 Moments of the Garden Festival performance;
16:00 – 17:00 – opening of the Green Theatre with an educational entertainment performance;
17:30 – 18:30 – concert by Autobuss debesīs band – the end of the festival.
All day long:
• creative workshops and a fair;
• opportunity to travel back in time to the age of Rococo by watching a historic reconstruction Elegant entertainment in the garden in an 18th century atmosphere;
• garden machinery demonstrations;
• horse riding and rides in a pony-drawn cart;
• activities together with the Street Warriors street gymnastics show team – various competitions, an opportunity to learn simple tricks and take photos with the team;
• Get to know the garden of Rundāle Palace – orienteering game for all festival visitors.
Entry into the garden on the festival day: EUR 4.00 for adults, students and pensioners; EUR 2.00 for children and pupils.
We would like to thank the Rundāle Palace Assistance Fund, SIA Skonto Būve, AS RERE Group, and Rožmalas leisure complex for their support.
MORE INFORMATION
About the Festival
The Rundāle Palace Museum has been organising the Garden Festival since 2007. It brings together gardening experts and enthusiasts, families with children, tourists from abroad, people who have helped to clean up the garden, museum supporters and regular visitors, as well as anyone else who is interested. The concept of the festival is to educate visitors through different seminars, lectures and exhibitions and entertain them with performances on stage.
About the Green Theatre
The renowned Italian architect Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli included the Green Theatre in the shape of an amphitheatre with hedges for stage wings in the 1735 plan of the Rundāle Palace Baroque style garden. The restoration project was developed by the architects of the institute Giproteatr. The project fully matches the layout in Rastrelli’s plan with the semicircular amphitheatre and wings, which are placed increasingly closer to one another towards the back of the stage. The back of the amphitheatre is enclosed with hornbeam hedges, while the oblique hornbeam wings on the sides of the stage help improve acoustics. The fir trees were planted in 1993, and the steps and benches were built in 2003. The Green Theatre was opened in 2004 with a performance of George Frideric Handel’s opera Rinaldo, which was financed by the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany. The performance was viewed by more than 700 people. The work on the theatre continued with the construction of pavilions, which were built after the example of the pavilions of Peterhof Gardens and designed for the storage of theatre light equipment. The supporting walls of the amphitheatre and the curved front slope of the stage were created anew.