SALZBURGER FESTSPIELE
- Juli – 31. August 2023
https://www.salzburgerfestspiele.at/karten/kalender?season=140
OPERA
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart LE NOZZE DI FIGARO
Giuseppe Verdi MACBETH
Giuseppe Verdi FALSTAFF
Bohuslav Martinů THE GREEK PASSION
Christoph Willibald Gluck ORFEO ED EURIDICE
Henry Purcell THE INDIAN QUEEN (in concert)
Vincenzo Bellini I CAPULETI E I MONTECCHI (in concert)
Hector Berlioz LES TROYENS (in concert)
“The time is out of joint” – the statement that spurred Shakespeare’s Hamlet to set things
right leads us to the great works, especially those from the operatic repertoire, on the Salzburg
Festival’s programme this coming season. Our time too seems entirely out of joint; questions
about universal connections and perspectives are more urgent than ever. Does art really have
the means to confront a world such as ours? – Great works of art open up profound insights
into the existential questions of humanity, for theatre can do anything: at all times, it has told
us about ourselves, and the conditionality of our lives.
In Verdi’s early work Macbeth – based on Shakespeare – we encounter dark shadows,
different stages of blackout; likewise, Orfeo descends to the darkness of the underworld in
Gluck’s opera. In the “commedia lirica” Falstaff, Verdi and Shakespeare unleash their
respective comedies onto a complacent and backward world. Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro –
the prime example of Enlightenment theatre – creates a totally new philosophy of the world in
the spirit of humanity. Henry Purcell’s The Indian Queen asks questions of trust, opening up
vistas of great feelings and thoughts. Bohuslav Martinů’s The Greek Passion explores all too
familiar themes such as refugees, exile, justice, questions of compassion, empathy and
charity. Through Vincenzo Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi, Shakespeare’s ingenious poetry
speaks to us once again through music and the most famous love story of all time; Hector
Berlioz’ “grand opéra” Les Troyens deals with human and political conflicts in times of war –
all of which are virulent today as well – on the backdrop of Greek mythology.
The unbroken vitality of opera is reflected in the continual re-examination of all these works. In
the miraculous way achieved only through the power of the arts, they enter into a dialogue with
one another, holding up a mirror to our times from very different perspectives, confronting the
many issues of our time – this very time which is out of joint.
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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart LE NOZZE DI FIGARO
Not for the first time, director Martin Kušej examines Mozart at the Salzburg Festival, having
previously delivered highly successful productions of Don Giovanni and La clemenza di Tito.
In Le nozze di Figaro, the first opera in the so-called “Da Ponte trilogy”, Mozart and his genius
librettist take up the criticism of aristocratic privilege which is inherent in Beaumarchais’
eponymous play. To Martin Kušej, social differences remain relevant today, but are manifested
on different levels. Accordingly, he aims to show the action in our present day, dismantling
locations and personal relations between the characters and assigning new meaning to
figures. His focus is on the female characters – they are the ones causing confusion in the
nocturnal garden, setting the traps the men willingly fall into. In order to outwit the Austrian
Empire’s censors, Mozart concealed this political dynamite in the music. Krzysztof Baczyk
sings the title role, Andrè Schuen takes on the role of Count Almaviva, after his brilliant success
as Guglielmo in Salzburg’s 2020 Così; Adriana González sings the role of the Countess, while
Sabine Devieilhe appears as Susanna. The French conductor and expert on historically
informed performance practice Raphaël Pichon at the helm of the Vienna Philharmonic leads
his first opera production in Salzburg after his 2018 Festival debut. The premiere of the new
production takes place at the Haus für Mozart on 27 July.
Giuseppe Verdi MACBETH
Macbeth tells the story of a man haunted by his doubts. Driven by inner torment, Macbeth
increasingly seeks salvation in the revelations of another world. Having given in to the
intervention of the supernatural in his life, he increasingly becomes a plaything of his own
madness. Macbeth is about our vulnerability and our need to believe in order to deal with the
unknown. After his successful staging of Hans Werner Henze’s The Bassarids (2018) and
Richard Strauss’ Elektra (2020), Krzysztof Warlikowski directs his third production at the
Salzburg Festival, exploring fateful questions: is there an unfathomable meaning behind the
supernatural phenomena? Is our life controlled by unknown forces toying with us? What about
our free will? Macbeth keeps sowing death through his actions and striving, while being barred
from giving the gift of life. This is also reflected in his relationship with his wife: Vladislav
Sulimsky and Asmik Grigorian embody a couple united in passion, madness and bloody deeds.
They are joined by Tareq Nazmi (Banco) and Jonathan Tetelman (Macduff). Franz Welser-
Möst conducts the Vienna Philharmonic. The new production premieres on 29 July at the
Großes Festspielhaus.
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Giuseppe Verdi FALSTAFF
In his last stage work, Giuseppe Verdi exposes a panopticon of human helplessness and
insufficiencies behind a façade of turbulent mistaken identities and confusion, revolving around
the question of the nature of life itself. Christoph Marthaler and Anna Viebrock present their
seventh joint production at the Salzburg Festival. Both of them have explored Verdi extensively
elsewhere. Their approach to the production emphasizes the ambivalence between superficial
comedy and serious background, mixing various layers of reality. In a complex game,
Marthaler and Viebrock stack up multiple dimensions, and in the finale and its great final fugue,
insight awaits: “We are all fools! Everyone mocks everyone else. But he laughs best who
laughs last.” Verdi’s multi-faceted music reflects the absurd twists and turns of the plot, sung
by Gerald Finley in the title role, with further roles taken on by Simon Keenlyside (Ford),
Bogdan Volkov (Fenton), Elena Stikhina (Mrs. Alice Ford), Ying Fang (Nannetta) and Tanja
Ariane Baumgartner (Mrs. Quickly). Ingo Metzmacher conducts the Vienna Philharmonic; the
new production premieres on 12 August at the Großes Festspielhaus.
Bohuslav Martinů THE GREEK PASSION
The tale of Bohuslav Martinů’s Greek Passion is timeless and evergreen, and its references to
current events are unmistakable: exhausted, needy refugees ask a wealthy village community
for asylum, causing bitter conflicts. Who will help those expelled from their homeland, who will
reject them? – A biographical fate shared by Martinů himself. The events come to such a head
that the passion story intended by the villagers as a play tragically begins to reflect reality.
Ecclesiastical and secular power structures unavoidably clash within a saturated society which
sees its status quo threatened. Simon Stone directs this haunting plea for humanity, returning
for a third turn at the Salzburg Festival after staging Aribert Reimann’s Lear and Luigi
Cherubini’s Médée. He demonstrates how humanity must struggle time and again against its
own egotism, asking whether violence can be legitimized as the last means to achieve a more
just world? Gábor Bretz sings the role of the Priest Grigoris and Sebastian Kohlhepp that of
Manolios. Maxime Pascale, the first-ever winner of the Herbert von Karajan Young Conductors
Award initiated by the Salzburg Festival, make his debut conducting the Vienna Philharmonic.
The premiere of this new production takes place on 13 August at the Felsenreitschule.
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Christoph Willibald Gluck ORFEO ED EURIDICE
From renaissance to modern times, composers have kept returning to the ancient myth of
Orpheus, his descent into the underworld and his unspeakable grief at having lost his beloved
Eurydice, whom he tries to return to life with his artful singing. In his treatment of the tale,
Christoph Willibald Gluck placed special emphasis on the figure of Orfeo. The audience takes
part in his suffering, in the tragedy of human loss. Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice is also a ground-
breaking work of opera history, completing a reform process that broke with the strict rules of
opera seria. Christof Loy, who looks back on a series of major works at the Salzburg Festival
since 2015, including the celebrated staging of Puccini’s Il trittico last summer, directs. Dance
also plays an important role in this production, as in Christof Loy’s view, the borders between
dance and text, music and movement should be fluid. The notion of boundlessness is also
emphasized by the stage in its evocation of a path that could begin all over again without end.
Cecilia Bartoli sings the role of Orfeo in the 1769 “Parma version”; Mélissa Petit is heard as
Euridice and Madison Nonoa as Amore. Gianluca Capuano conducts Les Musiciens du Prince
– Monaco and the ensemble Il canto di Orfeo. The premiere is scheduled for 4 August at the
Haus für Mozart.
Henry Purcell THE INDIAN QUEEN (in concert)
The action in Henry Purcell’s semi-opera The Indian Queen is set before the backdrop of
fictitious conflicts between the Aztec and the Inka people. Not only in the realm of text – by
interpolating passages from Rosario Aguilar’s novel La niña blanca y los pájaros sin pies (The
White Girl and the Birds without Feet) – but also in musical terms, Peter Sellars and Teodor
Currentzis expand the dimensions of the original score, adding a selection of solo songs, arias
and sacred choral works by Purcell, thereby lending it a new framework. The story of love and
dashed hopes is told from the perspective of three young women. Jeanine De Bique sings the
role of Teculihuatzin/Doña Luisa, Julian Prégardien that of Don Pedrarias Dávila, Rachel
Redmond takes on the role of Doña Isabel. For the first time in Salzburg, Teodor Currentzis
leads the chorus and orchestra of his newly-founded ensemble Utopia. The Indian Queen will
be performed on 31 July and 2 August at the Felsenreitschule.
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Vincenzo Bellini I CAPULETI E I MONTECCHI (in concert)
“These two voices, which sound together as one and symbolize a perfect union, give the
melody an extraordinary impetus. I confess that I was suddenly seized by emotion and
applauded enthusiastically,” none less than Hector Berlioz admitted about his personal
experience of the duet between Romeo and Giulietta in the finale of Act I. Elsa Dreisig and
Aigul Akhmetshina embody the world’s most famous pair of lovers. Marco Armiliato conducts
the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg and the Philharmonia Chorus from Vienna. The concert
performance of this opera takes place at the Felsenreitschule on 19 and 21 August.
Hector Berlioz LES TROYENS (in concert)
Hector Berlioz created a work of truly monumental dimensions in his “grand opéra” Les
Troyens. Two strong women form the centre of the action: the visionary Cassandre and Didon,
the queen of Carthage – sung by Alice Coote and Paula Murrihy. Énée, shipwrecked in
Carthage during his flight from Troy and led by prophetic ghostly visions, will be sung by
Michael Spyres. John Eliot Gardiner conducts the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique
and the Monteverdi Choir. The concert performance takes place on stage at the Großes
Festspielhaus on 26 August.
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DRAMA
Hugo von Hofmannsthal JEDERMANN
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing NATHAN DER WEISE
Based on the Script of Michael Haneke’s Film LIEBE (AMOUR)
Based on Bertolt Brecht’s DER KAUKASISCHE KREIDEKREIS
Mareike Fallwickl DIE WUT, DIE BLEIBT
Sharon Eyal & Gai Behar INTO THE HAIRY
READINGS
FILM SERIES
DRAMA INVESTIGATIONS
Hugo von Hofmannsthal JEDERMANN
For more than a century on Cathedral Square, Hugo von Hofmannsthal and Max Reinhardt
have been asking the question of the finite nature of human striving: what do we experience
when death enters our lives, and the only issues that matter are the last questions? When we
cannot pretend that everything will continue as it was? When perhaps the entire world cannot
keep acting as it did so far? For the third time, director Michael Sturminger reinvents
Jedermann with a new ensemble of wonderful actors: Michael Maertens has starred in
numerous Festival productions, including two different versions of Shakespeare’s A
Midsummer Night’s Dream, Franz Grillparzer’s König Ottokars Glück und Ende and Samuel
Beckett’s Endgame. Most recently, he played the “Fool” in Aribert Reimann’s Lear at the
Felsenreitschule in 2017. With the role of Jedermann, he adds a new, meaningful chapter to
his long years of Festival history since his 1993 debut. Valerie Pachner makes her stage debut
at the Salzburg Festival, appearing in the double role of Death / Paramour – a first in
Jedermann history. Further important cast changes are Cornelia Froboess as Jedermann’s
Mother, Sarah Viktoria Frick as Devil / God; Faith will be played by the charismatic Anja
Plaschg; Jedermann’s Good Companion is the popular actor Helmfried von Lüttichau; and
Bruno Cathomas appears as the Fat Cousin with Fridolin Sandmeyer as the Thin Cousin. Birte
Schnöink plays the Debtor’s Wife and the Works, while Mirco Kreibich is the Debtor and
Mammon. The new production premieres on 21 July.
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Gotthold Ephraim Lessing NATHAN DER WEISE
In a society marked by stratification and discrimination and in a general state of war, in
Jerusalem at the time of the Third Crusade, the war chests are empty. The Muslim warlord
asks the Jewish merchant Nathan the trick question which of the monotheist religions is the
right one – a wrong answer might lead to dispossession – and Nathan answers with the famous
parable of the ring. According to this, all three religions are indistinguishable in a certain point:
their distance from and their striving for truth. Any judgment is not a natural given, but depends
on political realities at the time. Nathan’s plea for humanity and tolerance clashes with a
complex family reunion which leads to fundamental insecurity regarding identity. Hardly any of
the main characters are still who they believed they were at the beginning of the piece. Ulrich
Rasche, who made his Salzburg Festival debut in 2018 directing Aeschylus’ tragedy The
Persians, for which he won the Nestroy Theatre Prize for best production, directs Lessing’s
last and most famous piece. The cast includes Judith Engel, Gina Haller, Nicola
Mastroberardino, Almut Zilcher, Mehmet Ateşçi and others. The new production premieres at
the Perner-Insel in Hallein on 28 July.
Based on Michael Haneke’s film LIEBE (AMOUR)
The film oeuvre of the Austrian director Michael Haneke features numerous world successes.
His 2012 film Liebe (Amour), nominated for five Oscars and winner of an Oscar for the best
foreign-language film, aims for the ethical core of the debate on how society deals with age,
vulnerability, dying and death, which has lost none of its urgency. Karin Henkel, who
successfully directed Rose Bernd by Gerhart Hauptmann and Shakespeare’s Richard the Kid
& the King, for which Lina Beckmann won not only the Gertrud Eysoldt Ring but also a FAUST
award as best performer, now stages Haneke’s film in an adaptation for the theatre. Unlike the
original, she has not chosen a chamber-play setting, but employs a large ensemble of actors
and amateur performers, creating choreographic and poetic images to ask questions related
to a self-determined approach to illness and death. The world premiere featuring André Jung
and many other performers is a co-production with the Münchner Kammerspiele and takes
place on 30 July at the Landestheater.
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Based on Bertolt Brecht’s DER KAUKASISCHE KREIDEKREIS
Which mother is the true one, Bertolt Brecht asks in his drama Der kaukasische Kreidekreis.
In Brecht’s original version, the judge Azdak has to make this decision, choosing between the
birth mother who left her child behind after a political revolt, and the maid Grusche who saved
it. The director Helgard Haug, a member of the collective Rimini Protokoll, asks what would
happen if the child itself had been left to decide? The production also asks a series of other
questions, offering alternative options, and the audience is involved in the search for solutions.
The theatre company HORA from Zurich has been offering people with cognitive handicaps
an artistic home for 30 years, working with many international artists and therefore enjoying an
international reputation. Its performers view the story of the Caucasian chalk circle from their
very own perspective, reflecting aspects of childbearing, child rearing and the loss of children.
They bring their very own rules to this endeavour, and new rules must be invented collectively.
The new production is a co-production with Rimini Protokoll, Theater HORA and HAU (Hebbel
am Ufer) and premieres at the Szene Salzburg on 12 August.
Mareike Fallwickl DIE WUT, DIE BLEIBT
It is not one large and earth-shattering event which drives Helene to suddenly commit suicide,
leaving not only her three children, but her entire surroundings in a state of shock. In her novel,
the author Mareike Fallwickl, who is from Hallein, offers a radical summary of overextension
and social demands which conspire with a continuous self-violation of a mother’s boundaries,
drawing a connection with the younger generation which is no longer willing to accept these
traditional role models. As in Brecht’s Kaukasischer Kreidekreis, the question of maternal love
is raised and the social circumstances surrounding it are examined: who is responsible in what
manner for the coming generation – yesterday, today and tomorrow? Jorine Dröse, who was
resident director at the Maxim Gorki Theater in Berlin, among other positions, directs. The cast
includes Johanna Bantzer, Max Landgrebe and others. The world premiere of this co-
production with the Schauspiel Hannover takes place at the Landestheater on 18 August.
Sharon Eyal & Gai Behar INTO THE HAIRY
Magic is what Sharon Eyal wants to see on stage, according to her own words. Together with
her long-standing partner Gai Behar, the Israeli choreographer celebrated around the world
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brings her dance performance Into the Hairy to Salzburg, a work created together with the
artist, producer and composer Koreless. Founded by Sharon Eyal and Gai Behar, the L-E-V
Dance Company stands for dance explorations which compel with their “incredible physical
and emotional violence” – as an enthusiastic reviewer put it. Together with lights and costumes,
the results are sumptuous “total works of art” – tableaux vivants underpinned by music mixed
without regard to styles. The signature idiom of classical dance and underground club culture
which has allowed Eyal/Behar to shift the limits of contemporary dance has long become their
very own artistic trademark. The co-production with LAS (Light Art Space), Christian Dior
Couture and Kraftwerk Berlin premieres at the Perner-Insel in Hallein on 17 August, followed
by two further performances.
READINGS
The programme includes three sets of correspondence that are as different as they are
impressive, read by three generations of actresses and actors, as well as a marathon reading.
At the Landestheater on 31 July, Edith Clever and Tobias Moretti, who portrayed an impressive
team of Mother and Jedermann for four years, will read Letters in Exile by Max Reinhardt and
his wife Helene Thimig. In their forced exile, Helene Thimig was trying to establish an acting
career in Hollywood while Max Reinhardt was urgently searching for new tasks. Difficult times,
during which they supported and needed one another, while their love lent them a certain
stability despite the circumstances.
Lina Beckmann, who has just won the FAUST Theatre Prize for the best performer in Richard
the Kid & the King at the 2020 Salzburg Festival, a co-production with the Schauspielhaus in
Hamburg, joins the wonderful Charly Hübner, most recently admired in the film Mittagsstunde,
in a reading of letters between Ingeborg Bachmann and Max Frisch. Bettina Hering has made
a selection from the recently published volume Wir haben es nicht gut gemacht. The letters
from years of explosive love and passion, rivalry and attempts to establish a shared life, are
as disturbing as they are touching. On 19 August at the Landestheater.
An exceptional couple, both philosophers, wrote each other letters through decades of
intellectual and private attachment. Having met in their twenties, Simone de Beauvoir and
Jean-Paul Sartre went through all stages of life together, united in their uncompromising
attitude and in search of new models of life and society. Sartre was a pioneer of existentialism,
which Beauvoir also represented alongside her feminist theories. Paula Beer and Albrecht
Schuch, both recipients of multiple awards for their fantastic television and cinema
performances, read from their correspondence at the Landestheater on 26 August.
Simone de Beauvoir’s fundamental work The Second Sex, published an astonishing 70 years
ago, offers another opportunity to explore the work of this author and pioneer of feminism, but
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also to examine whether this reference work of the second wave of feminism is still valid today.
Former and the current performer of the Jedermann Paramour and colleagues of all
generations who have performed over the past seven years at the Salzburg Festival join in this
reading: Verena Altenberger, Senta Berger, Eva Löbau, Dörte Lyssewski, Mavie Hörbiger,
Birgit Minichmayr, Kathleen Morgeneyer, Valerie Pachner, Caroline Peters, Maresi Riegner,
Kate Strong, Elisabeth Trissenaar, Valery Tscheplanowa and Christiane von Poelnitz.
The great Angela Winkler and the delian::quartet will offer a song recital on Sunday, 13 August,
at 8 pm at the Szene Salzburg. Entitled Vergnügungen, it features texts by Bertolt Brecht and
music by Kurt Weill, Hanns Eisler and others, while the delian::quartet counterbalance this with
Dmitri Shostakovich’s gripping and shocking String Quartet No. 4.
DRAMA INVESTIGATIONS
The first Drama Investigation takes place at the Stefan Zweig Zentrum on 6 August at 12 pm
and is dedicated to the political, social and religious context of Lessing’s Nathan der Weise.
The expert Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger speaks on the subject A Century of Tolerance?
Lessing’s Nathan, Enlightenment and Piety.
Nicole Seifert has written an outstanding and much-acclaimed book: Frauen Literatur –
Abgewertet, vergessen, wiederentdeckt (Women’s Literature – Dismissed, forgotten,
rediscovered). Helgard Haug, the director of Brecht’s Der kaukasische Kreidekreis and herself
a member of the director’s collective Rimini Protokoll, who creates many of her theatrical
evenings herself, joins her for a discussion on the apparently eternal prejudices against
literature by women on 13 August at 12 pm at the Stefan Zweig Zentrum.
At the University’s Main Auditorium on 20 August at 12 pm, we look forward to a cooperation
with the Sir Peter Ustinov Institute, in which Masha Gessen delivers a lecture entitled
Autokratie überwinden – Die Zukunft der Geschichte (Overcoming Autocracy – the Future of
History). Masha Gessen, born in Moscow before emigrating to the USA, writes regularly for
the magazine The New Yorker and other American and international publications, mainly about
the rise of authoritarianism and the autocratic Russian system under Vladimir Putin.
At the Landestheater on 27 August at 8 pm, Carolin Emcke curates an evening entitled
Abschied (Farewell), featuring the authors Ulrike Edschmid, Lena Gorelik, Durs Grünbein,
Frank Witzel, Sasha Marianna Salzmann and Senthuran Varatharajah. The wonderful actress
Senta Berger reads additional texts from the literary canon about farewells as a threshold, a
transition, and always a catharsis too: looking back, grieving and bitter – or with a view to the
not-yet, hopeful and glad.
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FILM SERIES
Curated by Olaf Möller, the film series presented in cooperation with DAS KINO revolves
around the production Nathan der Weise. From Saturday 29 July to Monday 31 July, Nathan
der Weise (1922; dir: Manfred Noa; 128’) with live music by Inou Ki Endo (Shilla Strelka), Al
Nasser Salah Ad-Din [Sultan Saladin] (1963; dir: Youssef Chahine; 186’) and the director ́s cut
of Kingdom of Heaven (2005; dir: Ridley Scott; 194’) will be screened.
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CONCERTS
OUVERTURE SPIRITUELLE Lux aeterna
VIENNA PHILHARMONIC
GUEST ORCHESTRAS
SACRED CONCERT
Time with LIGETI
CHAMBER CONCERTS
SONG RECITALS
LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC
SOLOIST RECITALS
MOZART MATINEES · MOZARTEUM ORCHESTRA SALZBURG
CAMERATA SALZBURG
HERBERT VON KARAJAN YOUNG CONDUCTORS AWARD
YOUNG SINGERS PROJECT
SPECIAL CONCERTS
“To send light into the depths of the human heart,” that is how Robert Schumann defined
the artist’s duty. Hand-in-glove with the opera programme, the Salzburg Festival concerts in
2023 also plumb the depths of polarity between light and dark, brightness and shadow, sorrow
and hope, especially in the Ouverture spirituelle. The sonic kaleidoscope of styles, repertoires
and genres oscillates between these mutually dependent poles.
Since the Salzburg Festival’s earliest days, more specifically since 1921, concerts have been
one of the three programmatic pillars of the Salzburg Festival. The concerts with the Vienna
Philharmonic and the world’s leading orchestras making guest appearances at the Salzburg
Festival, soloist and song recitals as well as chamber concerts, the Mozart Matinees with the
Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg and concerts with Camerata Salzburg have long joined the
New Music series in forming the basic structure of the concert programming, always with a
view to embedding the concerts’ themes within the overall dramaturgy of the Salzburg Festival
summer.
Ouverture spirituelle
The youngest concert series, the Ouverture spirituelle, continues the tradition of the church
concerts and has established itself during recent years as a much-acclaimed musical highlight
opening the Festival. Lux aeterna is the title of the 2023 Ouverture spirituelle – the symbolic
light offering consolation, the eternal presence of God as assumed by Christianity and
Judaism, evoking the end of suffering.
In a plethora of nuances between light and dark, in the most subtle intermediate shades and
glorious harmony, masterworks from all eras and epochs transport us from misery and
desperation to unearthly glory or praise the creation. It is about “the musical notion of ‘eternal
light’, a state which was always existed, which hardly changes and will always continue,” as
György Ligeti, to whom the series “Time with…” is dedicated, once described it.
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“Et lux perpetua luceat eis“ (and may the eternal light shine on them) stands at the beginning
and end of the Missa pro defunctis, the Mass for the Dead, the liturgical text presumably set
to music most frequently and most emotionally through the course of history. Thus, numerous
Requiem settings will be heard as part of the Ouverture spirituelle. It opens with Éclairs sur
l’Au-delà… (Lightning over the Beyond…), the last work completed by Olivier Messiaen, his
opus ultimum with its enormous cast of 141 instruments. Messiaen, however, was not out to
make a monumental impression, but seeking a transfigured transparency of colours, sounds
and forms. “I imagined myself in front of a curtain, in darkness, apprehensive about what lay
beyond: Resurrection, Eternity, and the other Life….I try simply to imagine what will come to
pass, which I can sometimes perceive in ‘éclairs’.” (Olivier Messiaen, 1992)
After the celebrated performances of Lagrime di San Pietro at the Kollegienkirche in 2019, the
Los Angeles Master Chorale returns to the Salzburg Festival, once again in a production
directed by Peter Sellars and conducted by Grand Gershon.
“Music to Accompany a Departure” is the title of the evening, which focuses on the
Musikalische Exequien by Heinrich Schütz. Peter Sellars considers Heinrich Schütz’ songs of
mourning “a silent and personal commemoration”, written during the Thirty Years’ War in the
face of a dear friend’s illness and death from the plague. Especially for Salzburg, he will
combine this “modest, honest and consoling music” with the large-scale Sonnengesang by the
Russian composer Sofia Gubaidulina, a work based on a text by St Francis of Assisi: “the
glorification of the Creator and his creation … of the four elements … of life and death”.
Gubaidulina set the moving creation hymn for chorus, cello and percussion in 1997, dedicating
the work to Mstislav Rostropovich. The demanding cello part will be played by Julia Hagen.
Joseph Haydn’s Die Schöpfung (The Creation) – his ground-breaking oratorio in the spirit of
Enlightenment – also traces the creation of the world (based on the Book of Genesis, the
Psalms and John Milton’s Paradise Lost) in music.
In Luciano Berio’s Third String Quartet, Notturno, a dark memory confronts us. “Ihr das
erschwiegene Wort” (“For it [night], the word wrought by silence”) is the inscription of the work,
taken from the poem Argumentum e silencio by Paul Celan, a homage to the night. “The night
also indicated in the title Notturno becomes the symbol of a dark memory, in which the flow of
language reaches its limits and must fall silent.” (Sabine Meine) “Notturno is a nocturnal piece
because it is quiet. It is quiet because it consists of unspoken words and incomplete
conversations. It is quiet even when it is loud, because the form is quiet and non-
argumentative. Every time it returns to itself, it brings these quiet words to the surface, every
time it stops, insists on an individual figure, stretching it obsessively.” (Luciano Berio)
Salvatore Sciarrino’s Infinito nero should also be taken literally – “infinite black” – as it points
to the state of the world before its creation. The minimalist staged chamber work for eight
instruments and a singer is based on visions of the mystic Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi.
Film screenings explore light as the original source of this artistic medium. In his last film, Blue,
Derek Jarman confronts viewers with monochrome projections of the colour blue – at the same
time documenting his suffering from AIDS and his imminent death at a time when he was
already partially blind and his vision irritated by blue light.
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In John Cage’s film One11, also made shortly before the artist’s death, light also plays the main
role. “One11 is a film without subject. There is light but no persons, no things, no ideas about
repetition and variation. It is meaningless activity which is nonetheless communicative, like
light itself,” (John Cage). The Klangforum Wien will play Number Pieces by Cage to accompany
the screening.
“What happens after death?” – This unanswerable question has been confronted since times
immemorial by the arts, prompting multiple visions of the hereafter. “In this transcendental no-
man’s-land between eternal condemnation and infinite comfort, the thought of the Requiem
grew.” The settings of text fragments of the Roman Requiem liturgy in Wolfgang Rihm’s ET
LUX can be heard as such “forays into the afterworld,” and the Huelgas Ensemble and the
Minguet Quartet will reinterpret them under the baton of Paul Van Nevel. “It is individual
combinations of words which emanate central importance, being repeated continuously. At the
very centre: ‘… et lux perpetua luceat…’. In circular reflection, both the consoling and the
deeply disconcerting layers of these words may become palpable” (Wolfgang Rihm).
In addition to Masses for the Dead by the Spanish renaissance composer Tomás Luis de
Victoria and Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber, a baroque composer who worked in Salzburg, the
Ouverture spirituelle also includes Brahms’ extraordinary contribution to the genre and
Mozart’s famous Requiem. In a special juxtaposition of works, Manfred Honeck combines the
unfinished Mozart Requiem with texts and other pieces of music. The series launches with
what is presumably György Ligeti’s most well-known composition – Lux aeterna – performed
by the Bavarian Radio Chorus. The suspended surfaces of sound created by this 16-voice
vocal composition keep spreading before dissolving in space and time.
“Time with LIGETI”
Taking this as its point of departure, this year’s concert series “Time with …” has been
dedicated to the oeuvre of György Ligeti, who had a decisive influence on 20th
-century music
and whose 100th birthday is celebrated in 2023. His music fascinates listeners with its breath-
taking, multi-faceted nature and the impossibility of defining his personal style. “Behind the
music is music and behind that is another music, an infinite perspective, as if one were
observing oneself in two mirrors and seeing an infinite reflection,” György Ligeti described the
spatial effect of his music.
The concert series opens with one of the most unusual works in musical literature, which on
the one hand can be read as a caustic comment on the expectations of the conventional music
business, but on the other offers a poetic exploration of the potential of coincidence for the
interpretation of music: the Poème Symphonique for 100 metronomes. Set to different tempi,
the ticking of the individual metronomes gradually manifests voices, rhythms and structures.
How they sound together, the figures that result, continuously changing and waning, all that is
impossible to predict, not to mention purposefully engineering it.
Earlier works by Ligeti stand witness to his study of folk music – still profoundly influenced by
Béla Bartók’s work, whose output the “Time with …” series was dedicated to during the past
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Festival season. One example is his virtuoso yet also ironic Concert românesc (performed by
Les Siècles under François-Xavier Roth).
Musica ricercata is another result of Ligeti’s early phases as a composer. “The piano work …
resulted from experiments with minimalist structures in rhythm and sound, ‘to build a New
Music from nothing, so to speak’,” as Ligeti himself put it. The condensed musical form is also
characteristic of Ludwig van Beethoven’s three cycles of Bagatelles, which will be played by
Pierre-Laurent Aimard alongside Ligeti’s Études pour piano, one of the most important piano
studies of the 20th century – both works are rarely performed in their entirety.
Ligeti’s exploration of Minimal Music is not only audible in his Études pour piano; his Three
Pieces for Two Pianos immortalized its major proponents, Steve Reich and Terry Riley. They
will be combined in concert with the first and last part of Steve Reich’s Drumming.
Other works also stand testament to Ligeti’s adoption of musical material of past epochs and
his composing predecessors, for example the Horn Trio performed by Isabelle Faust,
Johannes Hinterholzer and Alexander Melnikov. Further chamber concerts feature the two
String Quartets, the early Sonata for Solo Cello (performed by Jean-Guihen Queyras) and the
late Sonata for Solo Viola (Tabea Zimmermann).
When Ligeti’s Atmosphères received its world premiere in 1961 at the Donaueschingen Music
Days, the orchestral work exuded such a fascination that the listeners immediately demanded
its repetition. It marks the endpoint of Ligeti’s study of serial and electronic music; from this
vantage point, he reinvented his world as a composer, opening the gates wide to new musical
ideas of shape and sound. “The piece seems entirely inscrutable in its details. However,
listening to it produces another effect: it appears as a huge orchestral sculpture.” (Martin
Hufner)
Completed a few years later, Lontano resembles Atmosphères in its large compositional
format. This “sound colour composition” also oscillates from light to dark and is characterized
by complex structures: labyrinths, spirals, webbing all seem to grow “like harmonic shapes
morphing into others – as if one stepped from bright sunshine into a dark room, gradually
perceiving colours and contours,” Ligeti said about Lontano, one of his most famous
compositions.
An insight into Ligeti’s only opera – Le Grand Macabre, whose revised new version was given
its world premiere at the 1997 Salzburg Festival by Esa-Pekka Salonen and Peter Sellars –
will be offered by Patricia Kopatchinskaja and the Camerata Salzburg. Ligeti’s imagination of
the end of the world is full of ambivalence and ironic fragmentation, as evidenced not least by
the prelude and interludes for twelve car horns and six doorbells.
The Vienna Philharmonic
The concerts of the Vienna Philharmonic not only act as a joint between the Ouverture
spirituelle and the series “Time with Ligeti”, but form the heart of the concert programme.
The finale of the Ouverture spirituelle with Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem marks the
beginning of the Vienna Philharmonic series. Christian Thielemann leads the Salzburg
Festival’s resident orchestra, the Vienna Philharmonic; the Wiener Singverein, Elsa Dreisig
and Michael Volle are the vocalists. Andris Nelsons continues his Mahler cycle with the Vienna
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Philharmonic with his Fourth Symphony, Christiane Karg taking the vocal part. Augustin
Hadelich interprets Alban Berg’s Violin Concerto.
Riccardo Muti precedes the Seventh Symphony by Anton Bruckner with Verdi’s Stabat Mater
and Te Deum from the Quattro pezzi sacri. Under Franz Welser-Möst, the Vienna Philharmonic
builds another bridge to György Ligeti, performing his monumental orchestral works
Atmosphères and Lontano, which are juxtaposed with Richard Strauss’ Metamorphosen and
Also sprach Zarathustra. Following his successful Festival debut last year with Kát’a
Kabanová, Jakub Hrůša conducts two orchestral concerts at the Salzburg Festival, one of them
featuring the Second Piano Concerto by Johannes Brahms – with Igor Levit as the soloist –
and Dvořák’s Eighth Symphony, with which Hrůša completes the Vienna Philharmonic’s
concert series.
Guest Orchestras
Jakub Hrůša also leads the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester in Mahler’s Ninth Symphony.
The first of the Guest Orchestras is the SWR Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Ingo
Metzmacher, opening the Ouverture spirituelle with Messiaen’s Éclairs. Elim Chan makes her
Festival debut at the helm of the ORF Radio Symphony Orchestra Vienna, offering a
customized Suite from the ballet Romeo and Juliet by Sergey Prokofiev, among other works.
The West-Eastern Divan Orchestra appears with its founder Daniel Barenboim and Martha
Argerich as soloist; the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Andris Nelsons performs with
Anne-Sophie Mutter as soloist, and the Berlin Philharmonic appears with its chief conductor
Kirill Petrenko.
Two orchestras make their Salzburg Festival debuts: Les Siècles and Utopia. The symphony
orchestra Les Siècles was founded by François-Xavier Roth in 2003, pursuing the vision of
performing repertoire from different epochs of music history on the appropriate historical
instruments while also illuminating the works anew through contemporary interpretation. The
first concert is dedicated entirely to works by György Ligeti. The focus is on his Violin Concerto,
the solo part of which will be played by Isabelle Faust. The nocturnal concert immediately
afterwards will be dedicated to works by Salzburg’s resident genius Wolfgang Amadeus
Mozart, using a totally different set of instruments.
“Searching together for the perfect sound” is the goal of the musicians of the orchestra Utopia,
newly founded in 2022, and its artistic director Teodor Currentzis. In addition to concert
performances of the semi-opera The Indian Queen by Henry Purcell, Teodor Currentzis and
Utopia will also give two performances of the Mass in C-minor at St. Peter, together with the
chorus Utopia, founded at the same time.
Le Concert des Nations returns to the Festival. The eminent experts on historically informed
interpretation on original instruments perform Joseph Haydn’s Die Schöpfung under their
artistic director Jordi Savall and the chorus La Capella Nacional de Catalunya, also founded
by Savall. Two weeks later the orchestra returns to Salzburg under Savall’s baton, presenting
its interpretation of Beethoven’s Symphonies Nos. 3, 5, 6 and 7 in two concerts at the
Mozarteum.
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Chamber Concerts
Patricia Kopatchinskaja and Sol Gabetta offer an extraordinary programme linking Johann
Sebastian Bach with Jörg Widmann. Works by György Ligeti are the focus of programmes
featuring Isabelle Faust, Tabea Zimmermann, Jean-Guihen Queyras, Johannes Hinterholzer,
Alexander Melnikov and members of Les Siècles and the Quatuor Ébène. Furthermore, pieces
by Claude Debussy, Antonín Dvořák and Franz Schubert will be heard, interpreted by the
Belcea Quartet. Schubert is also at the centre of two further concerts: András Schiff dedicates
himself to the Piano Trios with Erich Höbarth and Christophe Coin, while David Fray joins
members of the Vienna Philharmonic in the Forellenquintett (Trout Quintet) and other works.
Song Recitals
Christian Gerhaher and Gerold Huber, Renée Fleming and Evgeny Kissin, Matthias Goerne
and Markus Hinterhäuser, Asmik Grigorian and Lukas Geniušas as well as Benjamin Bernheim
and Sarah Tysman give song recitals. Georg Nigl and the actor Ulrich Noethen team up with
Alexander Gergelyfi at the clavichord for a series of special sérénades. Under the title Kleine
Nachtmusiken (Little Night Music), they give six late-night concerts in an intimate setting,
including songs ranging from Bach to Mozart, complemented by texts by their contemporaries.
The songs are performed to the delicate and unique sound of the clavichord, one of the oldest
known keyboard instruments.
Soloist Recitals
Daniil Trifonov, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Evgeny Kissin, Igor Levit, András Schiff, Grigory
Sokolov and Arcady Volodos give piano recitals at the 2023 Festival. Renaud Capuçon and
Alexandre Kantorow perform the three Sonatas for Violin and Piano by Johannes Brahms. The
celebrated young pianist Alexandre Kantorow makes his Festival debut with this concert.
Mitsuko Uchida joins Jonathan Biss in offering an evening of Franz Schubert’s works for four-
hand piano. A special soloist recital will be played by Isabelle Faust, Tabea Zimmermann and
Jean-Guihen Queyras: they dedicate themselves to impressive solo sonatas by Zoltán Kodály,
Béla Bartók and György Ligeti.
Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg & Camerata Salzburg
As early as 1921, members of the Mozarteum Orchestra joined members of the Vienna State
Opera Orchestra to give the first orchestral concerts at the Salzburg Festival. Since 1949 the
orchestra has performed the Mozart Matinees initiated by Bernhard Paumgartner. In 2023 Ivor
Bolton, Jörg Widmann, Adam Fischer, Antonello Manacorda and, in his series debut, the
Spanish conductor and violinist Roberto González-Monjas lead the Mozarteum Orchestra in
these Mozart Matinees. Further series debuts include the South Korean pianist Seong-Jin Cho
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in Mozart’s Jeunehomme Concerto as well as Daniel Behle as Alessandro in the concert
performances of the serenata Il re pastore.
Bernhard Paumgartner was not only the Festival’s President and founder of the Mozart
Matinees, he also founded the Camerata Salzburg, which recently celebrated its 70-year
anniversary. Manfred Honeck will conduct a programme centring on the Mozart Requiem as
part of the Ouverture spirituelle. In another Camerata concert, Patricia Kopatchinskaja is not
only the featured soloist, but also leads the orchestra through an unusual programme of works
by John Cage, Alfred Schnittke, Felix Mendelssohn, Wolfgang A. Mozart and compositions of
her own, ending the evening with three arias from the opera Le Grand Macabre by György
Ligeti in a very special arrangement.
Herbert von Karajan Young Conductors Award
Manfred Honeck, the Camerata Salzburg and the Salzburg Festival have another project in
common: the Herbert von Karajan Young Conductors Award, a major initiative for young
artists. On the Award Concert Weekend from 4 – 6 August 2023, the competition’s three
finalists can be observed in a concert of their own with the Camerata Salzburg, demonstrating
that they are among the most exciting talents of the coming generation. Past experience has
shown that the Young Conductors Award is often a first opportunity to encounter conductors
likely to wield decisive influence in the future: thus, Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla and Lorenzo Viotti
are among past winners. As is Maxime Pascal, the first YCA winner to conduct a staged opera
production at the Salzburg Festival, Martinů’s The Greek Passion in 2023.
Manfred Honeck chairs the high-carat YCA jury, which will announce the winner of the
prestigious award after its deliberations following the third concert. The winner conducts the
Award Winner’s Concert in the following summer. The Herbert von Karajan Young Conductors
Award is an initiative of the Salzburg Festival in cooperation with the Eliette and Herbert von
Karajan Institute.
Young Singers Project
With the Young Singers Project, the Salzburg Festival created a high-carat platform to
support young vocalists in 2008. In 2023 it looks back on fifteen successful years. From more
than 600 applications, young vocalists are chosen via numerous auditions for this fellowship
programme offering comprehensive further education as part of the Salzburg Festival.
Participants of the Young Singers Project appear in the children’s opera Das Kind und die
Zauberdinge and also in other productions of the season. Furthermore, they publicly present
their abilities in a final concert. Public master classes in 2023 will be given by Christiane Karg,
Malcolm Martineau and Michele Pertusi.
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jung & jede*r
The Salzburg Festival’s Youth Programme
MUSICAL THEATRE
Das Kind und die Zauberdinge
Ping Pong
DRAMA
Fiesta
INTERACTIONS
School Programme
From Abtenau to Zell am See
Festival Mentorships
Youth Tickets & Education Offerings
Young Friends
YOUNG ART & ARTISTS
Opera Camps
Salzburger Festspiele und Theater Kinderchor
Young Singers Project · Kühne Foundation
Herbert von Karajan Young Conductors Award · Rolex
With 34 performances and numerous school programmes, the Salzburg Festival offers a broad
palette of children’s and youth programming throughout the State of Salzburg between March
and the end of August. The Schauspielhaus with its three performance venues – Saal, Studio
and Säulenfoyer – became the new regular venue for jung & jede*r last year. On 28 July the
Saal will see the premiere of a very special new production: none less than Maurice Ravel
wrote the children’s opera Das Kind und die Zauberdinge. Giulia Giammona directs the piece,
originally entitled L’enfant et les sortilèges and translated into German by Egon Bloch. The
young German conductor Anna Handler will conduct the opera, sung as always by the
participants of the Young Singers Project.
The performances will be preceded by introductory workshops entitled Let’s play opera.
Courageous action is the subject of the two productions Ping Pong and Fiesta. In order to be
accepted as part of her group, Esra has to prove herself against the girls from the parallel
class. How she manages is the subject of Mischa Tangian’s musical-theatre work Ping Pong,
setting a libretto by Stephanie Schiller. Annika Haller directs. This world premiere
commissioned by the Salzburg Festival has its first performance on 20 July. – There’s a lot
of blowback – literally – experienced by the children in Fiesta. Their ideas to save Nono’s
birthday party, with lemon meringue smarties pie and golden paper garlands, can be seen in
Gwendoline Soublin’s play. Joachim Gottfried Goller directs the German premiere, translated
from French by Corinna Popp; the premiere is scheduled for 23 July.
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Ping Pong and Fiesta will be shown in March, April and May as mobile productions for school
classes in schools and cultural centres throughout the State of Salzburg, as part of From
Abtenau to Zell am See. Thanks to the school programme, students experience music and
theatre directly – whether at their own school or at a cultural centre in the State of Salzburg.
Furthermore, school classes can also work creatively and in-depth on a Salzburg Festival
production as part of project weeks. They are supported by artists as well as pedagogues in
workshops and conversations.
The Festival Mentorships were first tested last year and proved a success: experienced
Festival visitors share their passion and enthusiasm for the Salzburg Festival and their own
Festival stories with young audience members from the region. They take on a mentorship for
young adults aged 16 to 26 who have never attended a Salzburg Festival performance. A
reception and introduction to the work before the performance offers a space to get to know
one another and for conversation. Attending the performance together gives both parties a
very special inroad to the Festival’s world.
Youth Tickets: 6,000 tickets for young people to opera, drama and concert performances! –
Anyone wanting to be there when the curtain rises and the first note is played has their
reservation made! A discount of up to 90 percent is available for teenagers and young adults
born after 30 June 1996, i.e. those under 27.
Selected performances are flanked by education offers: youth introductory talks convey
insights into the work and production before the performance. Young viewers meet artists and
can exchange ideas about the production in an informal setting.
“Young Friends” of the Salzburg Festival have access to the comprehensive summer
programme of the Friends of the Salzburg Festival and receive preferential treatment when
ordering youth tickets. Register at www.festspielfreunde.at.
In the opera camps, music-loving children and teenagers aged 9 to 17 become immersed in
the world of opera and spend a week at Arenberg Castle with artists and experienced teaching
professionals. Here they engage with material from great operas and conclude the week by
performing their own interpretations of the works, assisted by members of the Vienna
Philharmonic, in front of an audience. In 2023 there will be one Jedermann Camp, a
Figaro Camp, an Orfeo Camp and a Falstaff Camp. Hanne Muthspiel-Payer and
passwort:klassik, the music education programme of the Vienna Philharmonic, are responsible
for the concept and leadership of the camps. The opera camps are presented in cooperation
with the Vienna Philharmonic and with the support of the Salzburg Foundation of the American
Austrian Foundation (AAF).
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The Salzburger Festspiele und Theater Kinderchor is involved in productions of the
Salzburg Festival and the Salzburg Landestheater. The children’s chorus will be heard in
several productions at the 2023 Festival, including Bohuslav Martinů’s The Greek Passion.
Friday mornings belong to children on Kapitelplatz during the Festival. The
Siemens>Children’s>Festival offers the youngest audience members film screenings of
opera, ballet and drama performances, presented as a colourful mix of fantastical stories.
Screenings start on 22 July 2022 and take place every Friday at 10 am on Kapitelplatz.
Admission is free.