2 Best Performing Arts in Krakow, Poland

Dedicated to early music (Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque), the festival is held each year from the last Monday of Lent to Easter Monday. The program is built around the Easter theme and attracts an impressive lineup of famous contributors: Jordi Savall and his Hespèrion XXI; Marc Minkowski with Musiciens de Louvre-Grenoble; Fabio Biondi and Europa Galante. Tickets, available online and from Cultural Information Point, should be booked well in advance.

Kraków's oldest and most renowned theater stages mostly Polish and international classical dramas—but it has found more recent fame for creative and contemporary takes on the classics, and for not avoiding "difficult" subjects. Although plays are in Polish language, English translations are often (but not always) provided in the form of supertitles screened above the stage. "Stary" enjoys the status of a national theater and is named after Helena Modrzejewska, a 19th-century Polish actress who performed on the American stage.