Prague has stood at the musical crossroads of Europe for centuries. With the ever-expanding scope of the city's major music festivals, it now stands at a global crossroads as well, a gathering point for a rich variety of performers, musical genres and international tastes.

This year's Prague Autumn program proudly carries that banner and pushes the borders a little further with visiting orchestras like the Mexico City Philharmonic, making its first-ever appearance here. Mix in ensembles from the UK, Switzerland, Germany, Luxembourg, Hungary and Russia, plus a first-rate selection of local talent, and you've got a great three weeks of music ahead.

Prague Autumn Director Pavel Špiroch and his staff deliberately keep their options wide open when assembling the festival program. "We've never allowed ourselves to be limited by a theme," he says. "This dramaturgy leads you to a life tragedy, with themes like 'physically handicapped in music.' Our festival is based on the high quality of orchestras, conductors and soloists, as well as an inventive program that goes from Mozart to contemporary music."

Which is not to say that Prague Autumn is bereft of tradition. Opening night always features a visiting orchestra offering its interpretation of Czech music — this year, the Luxembourg Philharmonic playing Dvořák, Smetana and Janáček (Sept. 12). Closing night is always a showcase for Dvořák's Cello Concerto in B Minor, with the esteemed Heinrich Schiff as this year's star soloist.

In between, there's an all-Mozart night (Sept. 24) featuring the Prague Chamber Orchestra and some excellent local voices in opera house regulars Tomáš Černý, Pavla Vykopalová and Jiří Sulženko. An all-opera night (Sept. 26) offers a tasty selection of Italian arias performed by the Symphony Orchestra of Russia and world-class soprano Galina Gorchakova. And though it's not billed as such, the Luxembourg Philharmonic performance Sept. 13 is essentially an American night, featuring the work of Bernstein and Gershwin, including the latter's Rhapsody in Blue.

There are a number of excellent pairings of orchestras with their homeland music. The Radio Symphony Orchestra of Berlin rolls out consecutive nights of Beethoven (Sept. 17) and Wagner and Strauss (Sept. 18). The Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra under the baton of the amazing Adám Fischer is in town for a night of Liszt and Bartók (Sept. 22), including a concert version of the latter's one-act opera, Duke Bluebeard's Castle.

But the progam can just as easily go the other way — for example, the Czech Philarmonic doing a night of Wagner, Weber and Strauss (Sept. 15) with cover subject Sharon Kam, a world-class clarinet soloist. And the Mexico City Philharmonic has a very ambitious program scheduled over two nights (Sept. 28 and 29) that ranges from Czech to French (Ravel) to Russian (Rimsky-Korsakov) to a bracing dose of Latin composers such as Villa-Lobos and Piazolla.

With all that to choose from, what has been the festival's hottest seller prior to opening? A night of gypsy music and dance performances at Lucerna (Sept. 16) with the colorful Rajkó Ensemble from Hungary, a large, versatile group equally at home with a traditional čardáš or a Hungarian dance by Brahms or Liszt. That concert has sold so quickly that a second program of gypsy music (though by another group) has been added earlier in the day.