The festival will open with a performance by the Hungarian State Opera at the Baden State Theatre on April 17.
Head of the Karlsruhe cultural bureau Susanne Asche said that this year's festival will promote cultural diversity. Many Germans still see Hungary in the clichés of "paprika, Gypsy music and Piroska", and the festival organisers are determined to change this, she added.
The cover of the festival programme shows a barbed wire fence - with Hungarian peppers as posts - that has been cut, showing the country's important role in the fall of the Iron Curtain.
More than 50 Hungarian productions, featuring about 1,000 Hungarian and German performers, will participate at the festival with the support of the Hungarian Ministry of Education and Culture, the cities of Budapest and Pécs, the Pécs2010 European Capital of Culture Management Office, the Hungarian consulate in Munich and the Hungarian Institute in Stuttgart.
See the full festival programme at http://www.europaeische-kulturtage.de/
Source: Hungarian News Agency (MTI)
