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Salzburg Festival
The Salzburg Festival (German: Salzburger
Salzburg Festival
Festspiele) is a prominent festival of music and drama
Salzburger Festspiele
established in 1920. It is held each summer (for five
weeks starting in late July) in the Austrian town of
Salzburg, the birthplace of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
One highlight is the annual performance of the play
Jedermann (Everyman) by Hugo von Hofmannsthal.

Since 1967, an annual Salzburg Easter Festival has also

been held, organized by a separate organization.

Contents
History
Post World War II Festivals
In the 21st century
Economy Genre music
Salzburg Whitsun Festival drama
See also
Begins late July
References
Ends end of August
External links
Frequency annual
Location(s) Salzburg, Austria
History Inaugurated 1920
People Hugo von Hofmannsthal
Richard Strauss
Alfred Roller
Franz Schalk
Max Reinhardt
Website www.salzburgerfestspiele.at
(https://www.salzburgerfestspiele.at/)

Music festivals had been held in Salzburg at irregular intervals since

1877 held by the International Mozarteum Foundation, but were
discontinued in 1910. Although a festival was planned for 1914, it was
cancelled at the outbreak of World War I. In 1917, Friedrich Gehmacher
and Heinrich Damisch formed an organization known as the

Jedermann, a play performed Salzburger Festspielhaus-Gemeinde to establish an annual festival of

annually, in 2014 drama and music, emphasizing especially the works of Mozart.[1] At the
close of the war in 1918, the festival's revival was championed by five
men now regarded as its founders: the poet and dramatist Hugo von

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Hofmannsthal, the composer Richard Strauss, the scenic designer Alfred Roller, the conductor Franz Schalk, and
the director Max Reinhardt, then intendant of the Deutsches Theater in Berlin, who had produced the first
performance of Hofmannsthal's play Jedermann at the Berlin Zirkus Schumann arena in 1911.

The Salzburg Festival was officially inaugurated on 22 August 1920 with Reinhardt's performance of
Hofmannsthal's Jedermann on the steps of Salzburg Cathedral, starring Alexander Moissi. The practice has
become a tradition, and the play is now always performed at Cathedral Square; since 1921 it has been accompanied
by several performances of chamber music and orchestral works. The first operatic production came in 1922, with
Mozart's Don Giovanni conducted by Richard Strauss. The singers were mainly drawn from the Wiener
Staatsoper, including Richard Tauber in the part of Don Ottavio.

Felsenreitschule theatre
The first festival hall was erected in 1925 at the former Archbishops'
horse stables on the northern foot of the Mönchsberg mountain, on the
basis of plans by Clemens Holzmeister; it opened with Gozzi's
Turandot dramatized by Karl Vollmöller. At that time the festival had
already developed a large-scale program including live broadcasts by
the Austrian RAVAG radio network. The following year the adjacent
former episcopal Felsenreitschule riding academy, carved into the
Mönchsberg rock face, was converted into a theater, inaugurated with a
performance of Servant of Two Masters by Carlo Goldoni. In the 21st
century, the original festival hall, suitable only for concerts, was
reconstructed as a third venue for fully staged opera and concert
performances and reopened in 2006 as the Haus für Mozart (House for
Mozart).

During the years from 1934 to 1937 famed conductors such as Arturo Toscanini and Bruno Walter conducted many
performances. In 1936, the festival featured a performance by the Trapp Family Singers, whose story was later
dramatized as the musical and film The Sound of Music (featuring a scene of the Trapp Family singing at the
Felsenreitschule, but inaccurately set in 1938). In 1937, Boyd Neel and his orchestra premiered Benjamin Britten’s
Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge at the Festival.[2]

The Festival's popularity suffered a major blow as a consequence of the Anschluss, the annexation of Austria by
Nazi Germany in 1938. Toscanini resigned in protest, artists of Jewish descent like Reinhardt and Georg Solti had
to emigrate, and Jedermann, last performed by Attila Hörbiger, had to be dropped. Nevertheless, the festival
remained in operation until in 1944 it was cancelled by the order of Reich Minister Joseph Goebbels in reaction to
the 20 July plot. At the end of World War II, the Salzburg Festival reopened in summer 1945 immediately after the
Allied victory in Europe.

Post World War II Festivals

The post-war festival slowly regained its prominence as a summer opera festival, especially for works by Mozart,
with conductor Herbert von Karajan becoming artistic director in 1956. In 1960 the Great Festival Hall (Großes
Festspielhaus) opera house opened its doors. As this summer festival gained fame and stature as a venue for opera,
drama, and classical concert presentation, its musical repertoire concentrated on Mozart and Strauss, but other
works, such as Verdi's Falstaff and Beethoven's Fidelio, were also performed.

Upon Karajan's death in 1989, the festival was drastically modernized and expanded by director Gerard Mortier,
who was succeeded by Peter Ruzicka in 2001.

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In the 21st century

In 2006, the festival was led by intendant Jürgen Flimm and concert
director Markus Hinterhäuser. That year, Salzburg celebrated the
250th anniversary of Mozart's birth by staging all 22 of his operatic
works, including two unfinished operas.[3] All 22 were filmed and
released on DVD in November 2006. The 2006 festival also saw the
opening of the Haus für Mozart.
Plácido Domingo, Francesco Meli,
In 2010, the opera Dionysos by Wolfgang Rihm who compiled for his
Anna Netrebko and Diana Haller in
own libretto texts from Nietzsche's Dionysian-Dithyrambs premiered. the new production of Il trovatore at
Alexander Pereira succeeded Flimm as intendant, who departed in 2011 the 2014 festival
to become director of the Berlin State Opera. Pereira's objective for the
festival was to present only new productions.[4] When he resigned at
the end of the 2014 festival season to take over as the General Director of La Scala, Sven-Eric Bechtolf, who had
served as Drama Director of the Salzburg Festival since 2012, took over as Interim General Manager. The 2015
festival marked the first one for which Bechtolf was responsible for the artistic programming. Budget cuts led to a
retreat from Pereira's "new productions only" objective.[5] The 2015 opera program presented only three new
productions—Le nozze di Figaro, directed by Bechtolf; Fidelio, directed by Claus Guth; and Wolfgang Rihm's
rarely performed Die Eroberung von Mexico (The Conquest of Mexico), directed by Peter Konwitschny.[6] The
remaining four opera productions—Norma, Il trovatore, Iphigénie en Tauride, and Der Rosenkavalier—were
revivals.

Economy
The Salzburg Festival reports in 2017 ticket sales revenue of about €27 million, and directly and indirectly creates
value to the sum of €183 million in Salzburg per year. The festival thereby secures employment in Salzburg
(including year-round employees and full-time equivalent adjusted seasonal workers of the festival) of 2800 full
time jobs (Austria 3400).Through their effect in other sectors, directly and indirectly they provide the public sector
with approx. €77 million of taxes and duties.[7]

Salzburg Whitsun Festival

The Salzburg Whitsun Festival (Salzburger Pfingstfestspiele) was established at
the behest of Herbert von Karajan in 1973 as a brief concert series with the
name Pfingstkonzerte. Today its schedule remains, at four days, brief, but is
characterized by multiple events each day; and it is managed under the
umbrella of the main (summer) Salzburg Festival. (Pfingst is Whitsun in the
U.K. and Pentecost in the U.S.; the British term is used by the festival's
management.)

The first Whitsun Concerts centered on three symphonies by Bruckner, all

conducted by Karajan and played at the Großes Festspielhaus over three days
by the Berlin Philharmonic. Years later, opera became part of the activities, and
"Concerts" became officially "Festival." In the 1990s there began an emphasis
Great Festival Hall entrance
on works from the Baroque repertoire. In 2005, for example, the Salzburg
at Herbert-von-Karajan-
Whitsun Festival presented Handel's Acis and Galatea and his oratorio
Platz in Salzburg, Austria
Solomon.

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In 2007, Riccardo Muti became the artistic director of the festival under a five-year contract during which he
presented fully staged performances of operatic rarities from the 18th and 19th century Neapolitan School of opera
in the Haus für Mozart. He has been succeeded by mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli, also for a period of five years.

Among a series of concerts and, for the first time in the history of the festival, dance performances (by the Kirov
Ballet), Bartoli is to star in a full-staged opera each year, which will then be repeated at the Summer Festival in
July and August. In 2012, she sang Cleopatra in Handel's Giulio Cesare, in 2013 the title role in Vincenzo Bellini's
Norma, and in 2014 Rossini's La Cenerentola. In 2015 she performed the title role in Iphigénie en Tauride by
Christoph Willibald Gluck, and in 2016 she sang Maria in Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story.[8]

See also
List of opera festivals

References
1. Eisen, Cliff; Keefe, Simon P., eds. (2006). The Cambridge Mozart Encyclopedia (https://books.google.com
/books?id=8o6mVjlSzM4C&dq). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 443. ISBN 978-0-52185-659-1.
2. The Gramophone, June 1972, p. 178
3. " 'Mozart 22' " (https://www.tagesspiegel.de/kultur/hintergrund-mozart-22/732206.html). Der Tagesspiegel
(Press release) (in German). Berlin. ddp. 18 July 2006. Retrieved 1 October 2018.
4. Gurewitsch, Matthew (May 2012). "New to Salzburg" (http://www.operanews.com/Opera_News_Magazine
/2012/5/Features/New_to_Salzburg.html). Opera News. New York City. Retrieved 1 October 2018.
5. "Nach Pereira: Salzburger Festspiele auf Konsolidierungskurs" (https://newsv2.orf.at/festspielhighlights15
/stories/2288141/) [After Pereira: Salzburger Festspiele on consolidation course]. orf.at (in German). ORF. 8
July 2015. Retrieved 1 October 2018.
6. "Opening of the Salzburg Festival" (http://www.dw.com/en/opening-of-the-salzburg-festival/a-18592341).
dw.com. Deutsche Welle. 17 July 2015. Retrieved 1 October 2018.
7. "Report Salzburg Festival: Economic engine, excellence infusion for the location"
(https://www.salzburgerfestspiele.at/Portals/0/web_media/datenfakten
/2017_WKS_Report_SalzburgFestival.pdf) (PDF). Wirtschaftskammer Salzburg. 28 June 2017. Retrieved
16 May 2018.
8. Salzburg Whitsun Festival. Program detail: West Side Story (http://www.salzburgerfestspiele.at/whitsun-opera-
detail/programid/5283/id/10036/sid/122). Retrieved 9 September 2015.

External links
Official website (http://www.salzburgerfestspiele.at)
Salzburg Festival 2010 (https://web.archive.org/web/20100729143338/http://www.twilightblue.eu/en/articles
/salzburg-festival.aspx)
aeiou encyclopaedia article (http://www.aeiou.at/aeiou.encyclop.s
/s037352.htm;internal&action=_setlanguage.action?LANGUAGE=en)

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