Concerts from a wide array of music genres are featured as well as artistic circus acts and modern dance presentations.

A festival in Spring was supposed to coincide with the emperor's regular stay at the spa to create a cultural event.

[3] Starting in 1962, director Claus Helmut Drese encouraged presentations from Eastern European companies under the Motto "Fenster nach Osten" (window to the East).

Guest productions of operas and ballets from Warsaw, Leningrad, Sofia, Bucharest, Moscow and the great theatres of former East Germany took place at the festival.

[3] In 1955. the stage version of Hans Vogt's so-called Oratorische Oper (oratorio opera) Die Stadt hinter dem Strom after the novel of Hermann Kasack was premiered.

Works of the 20th century have included Strawinsky's Le sacre du printemps and Oedipus rex and Arthur Honegger's Judith.

At the 1989 festival, the Deutsche Oper Berlin visited with three productions, the opening night was Verdi's Rigoletto, staged by Hans Neuenfels and conducted by Silvio Varviso, followed by Janáček's Katja Kabanowa and the ballet Der Blaue Engel.

Hartmut Haenchen conducted Handel's opera Giustino in a production of the Komische Oper Berlin staged by Harry Kupfer, with Jochen Kowalski in the title role.

[9] The opening performance in 2010 was Alban Berg's Lulu, on the program for the opening of the 2011 festival on 30 April 2011 was the premiere of Ernst August Klötzke's opera Beatrice and the first performance in German of Rodion Shchedrin's literary opera Lolita, based on Nabokov's novel, produced by the Theater Wiesbaden with Emma Pearson in the title role, in the presence of the composer.