“A stroke of genius” (FAZ): The Salzburg Festival has pulled off a sensational coup with The Soldier’s Tale at the Salzburg Marionette Theatre, founded in 1913 and a World Heritage Site. World-renowned painter and sculptor Georg Baselitz designed the puppets for Stravinsky’s fairy tale about a poor soldier who makes a pact with the devil. Dominique Horwitz as narrator, the magnificent chamber ensemble led by violin luminary Isabelle Faust, and the expressiveness of the marionettes make this a “musical and theatrical masterpiece” (Süddeutsche Zeitung).
Bach, Four Orchestral Suites
Four delightful performance programmes feature the leading international chamber orchestra which specialises in authentic renditions on fine reproduction period instruments.
Bach’s orchestral suites (BWV 1066-9), No. 1 in C, No. 2 in B minor, and Nos 3 and 4 in D major, were recorded in the magnificent baroque surroundings of the Palace Het Loo, built by William of Orange. A different part of the palace forms an elegant and fitting backdrop to each performance. Baroque specialist Ton Koopman conducts his orchestra from the harpsichord.
Salzburg Festival 2025: The Raft of the Medusa
Henze’s Das Floß der Medusa is one of the most significant political works of 20th-century music. Inspired by Géricault’s painting, it recounts the true story of the 1816 shipwreck of the French frigate Méduse, in which 154 people were abandoned on a raft while those in power saved themselves. Since its premiere, it has stood as a powerful symbol of artistic resistance and remains strikingly relevant today. Henze’s haunting music, which gives voice to the victims of the shipwreck, is performed in Salzburg to perfection: “The ORF RSO Vienna and the choirs perform the piece brilliantly, as does the solo trio, through all the extremes of expression, which, after a sombre woodwind elegy, reach their climax in the finale. Pure horror takes orchestral form” (Der Standard). “Outstanding choirs” (Salzburger Nachrichten)
Pathétique – A ballet by Martin Schläpfer
Set to Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony, Martin Schläpfer’s highly expressive choreography offers glimpses into the composer’s biography, echoes of his great ballets, Russian motives and reflections on our time. “A precisely danced, emotionally charged creation from a single mould, which he concludes touchingly with a Handel aria” (Kronenzeitung). “This is Martin Schläpfer at his best (…) classical ballet that is nevertheless entirely contemporary” (NZZ)
Salzburg Festival 2024: Nelsons conducts Mahler 9
Andris Nelsons returns to the Salzburg Festival with the Vienna Philharmonic, conducting Mahler’s epic Symphony No. 9. This giant on the podium animates the Vienna Philharmonic to the highest level of sound culture. His interpretation of Mahler is of passionate intensity, without ever falling into hollow pathos or sentimental attitude. The Vienna Philharmonic playes to all its strengths, and they are audibly at home in Mahler’s world.
Anton Bruckner – The Enigmatic Genius
The cliché of Bruckner as a “musician of God”, writing symphonies “for the higher honour of the Lord”, doesn’t match his complex and troubled personality, which is as intricate as his music. The film explores Bruckner’s enigmatic relationship with his craft: was he truly a “weirdo” (as Brahms called him), detached from symphonic norms, or a bold musical innovator? Actor Michael Dangl and music journalist Marie König lead this exploration to try to uncover the essence of Bruckner’s character on a journey to the ‘Bruckner sites’ in Upper Austria and Vienna. The film also gathers insights from authentic eyewitness accounts and contemporary reports, as well as interviews with renowned figures like Franz Welser-Möst, Markus Poschner, organist Hansjörg Albrecht, and former Wiener Philharmoniker chairman Clemens Hellsberg.
Muti conducts Beethoven 9th Symphony – 200th anniversary
On 7 May 1824, Ludwig van Beethoven’s 9th Symphony was premiered at the Kärntnertortheater in Vienna. The audience of this epochal event greeted Beethoven with frenetic applause and the “Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung” wrote “the impression (was) indescribably great and glorious, the jubilation enthusiastic, which was paid to the exalted master at the top of his lungs, whose inexhaustible genius opened up a new world to us”. Beethoven had truly created music for eternity, which was to conquer the world from then on. To celebrate the 200th anniversary of this great moment in music history, the Ninth will be performed on the day of the premiere with Riccardo Muti conducting the Vienna Philharmonic in the Musikverein. The concerto is also a tribute to the memorable premiere 200 years ago in terms of the instrumentation, as it was played by the orchestra of the Kärntnertortheater, the former court opera – the predecessors of today’s Vienna Philharmonic.
Salzburg Festival 2023: Thielemann conducts Ein Deutsches Requiem
When Brahms composed his “German Requiem”, he thought little of the salvation of the deceased. With his music, Brahms wanted to give comfort to the bereaved, so he decided against the usual Latin text of the Roman Catholic Church and chose German texts from Luther’s Bible instead. Nevertheless, or precisely because of this, the work thrilled the audience and made it a triumphant success for Brahms. In this performance Christian Thielemann, doubtless one of the leading conductors for the romantic symphonic music, at the podium of the Wiener Philharmoniker, together with the Wiener Singverein, the choir that first performed the first three movements of the Requiem in December 1867, and a duo of outstanding singers, “conjures unforgettable moments” (BR Klassik). Soloists of the evening were French-Danish soprano Elsa Dreisig (“delicate”, Der Standard) and German baritone Michael Volle. Thielemann’s “differentiated conception finds a harmonious balance between intimacy and archaic moments and transports Brahms’s core message of consolation to the audience’s delight in an immediate way.” (Salzburger Nachrichten)
Salzburg Festival 2022: Suor Angelica
In Suor Angelica the perspective has narrowed to the tragic fate of a single figure, the young nun Angelica. Banished to the convent for an indiscretion, she leads a joyless existence and waits for news of her son, whom she has been forbidden to see since his birth. When she learns that he has died, she resolves to put an end to her life. The climax of the opera is an extended monologue lasting 20 minutes in which Angelica works through her doubts as a devout Catholic and frees herself from her feelings of guilt and remorse. In a redemptive ending she finally transcends all her pain and escapes her agony. With a radiant finale Puccini opens up a path for her into the spheres of celestial paradise. “Overwhelming” Opernwelt
Salzburg Festival 2022: Bluebeard’s Castle
A pinnacle of early 20th-century musical theatre, Bluebeard’s Castle was composed to a text by Béla Balázs in 1911. The story of Bluebeard has its literary archetype in Charles Perrault’s fairy tales and tells of a wife-murderer who forbids his latest wife, who is driven by curiosity, to open a door behind which he has hidden his previous victims. Bartók’s opera develops entirely out of the dialogue between the two protagonists, Bluebeard and Judith, revealing an approach to the drama as a kind of spiritual and emotional force field. ‘Where is the stage: outside or within?’, as the prologue puts it, an invitation to the audience to ask themselves questions about the enigmatic nature of theatre as an allusive reverberation of the real. “Truly fascinating […] Outstanding: Mika Kares and Ausrine Stundyte.” (La Stampa)