Program and Philosophy

In a city that has preserved its baroque architecture in almost perfect condition and therefore is a breathtaking backdrop in itself, the Salzburg Festival presents performances of opera, plays and concerts of the highest artistic standards over a period of five to six weeks each summer. The Salzburg Festival is often described as the greatest and most important festival in the world, and this reputation is confirmed by countless superlatives: witness the number of performances and of annual visitors, or the wide-ranging programme.

Conductors, stage-directors, orchestras, singers, actors and virtuoso instrumentalists of world renown can be seen and heard in July and August in the town on the river Salzach. Even the most eminent opera stars come together here to rehearse productions intensively for several weeks, thereby fulfilling the creed of the Salzburg Festival as it was originally envisioned by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, one of the Festival’s founding fathers: “Dramatic play-acting in the strongest sense is our intention; routine, run-of-the-mill performances have no place here.”

Open up the ears, the eyes, human thinking

For the humanist Luigi Nono the actual task of art was to “open up the ears, the eyes, human thinking.” If we take a look back at the history of the Festival, we can see that indeed nowhere in the world has the œuvre of this philosophising composer or composing philosopher been performed so breathtakingly beautifully and so comprehensively as here in Salzburg. Since the days of its founding, this arousing of the senses, this touching of the soul have given the Festival its true strength.

Roland Schimmelpfennig, whose Die vier Himmelsrichtungen (The Four Points of the Compass) will be given its world premiere at the Salzburg Festival, says, “Successful plays captivate their audience. They make them curious, they upset habits, they test concordances in taste, aesthetic agreements. They open up perspectives, and new lines of vision are created. These plays develop an attraction, they are unpredictable and sometimes difficult to endure, and yet they are irresistible.”

We hope for you and for us that the Salzburg Festival 2011 will evolve such an irresistible attraction.

Helga Rabl-Stadler  
Markus Hinterhäuser 
Thomas Oberender

90 Years of the Salzburg Festival – what a roller-coaster of emotions.
Breathtaking performances but also scandals; enthralling plays but also conflicts;
wonderful concerts seemingly from another sphere, but all too human jealousies.
And again and again the marvellous acclaim of our audiences – thunderous applause in standing ovations.
Yet also one or two cold showers from the media, devastating criticism, outspoken derision.
Great theatre of the world, on stage, backstage and on the sidelines.
In 2010 we celebrated the 90th anniversary of the Salzburg Festival. Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Max Reinhardt, Richard Strauss, Alfred Roller and Franz Schalk founded the Salzburg Festival in 1920 as a project against the crisis after the First World War, the crisis of meaning, the loss of values, the crisis of individual identity but also of entire nations. Peace and the belief in Europe were the principles of the first appeal, dating from 1919 and incomparably formulated by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, for the plan to found the Salzburg Festival. A glorious, timelessly valid, topically relevant founding mission.
However, without the regional governor of that time, Franz Rehrl, the artists would never have been able to realise this bold project in the 1920s. After the First World War Salzburg was a completely impoverished city, and in the middle of the festival season on 17 August 1922, Rehrl sent a telegram to Federal Chancellor Rudolf Ramek in Vienna saying, “Send a few wagons of flour, otherwise impossible to maintain calm and order.” Rehrl was one of the few people to recognise the economic potential of a major cultural event. Of course Rehrl would never have dared to hope that from the late 1950s the Salzburg Festival would bring important artistic and economic momentum to an entire region.
Even after the Second World War the festival fulfilled an eminently political mission. On 4 May 1945 Salzburg surrendered without a fight, against orders, to the American troops. A festival took place again only a few weeks later. The American occupying forces gave the order to create a contrasting pole to cultural life in Soviet-occupied Vienna by organising a festival. It is evident from the records of that time that the revival of the festival was intended to prove that Austria was “able, willing and eager to work independently.”
The political message in the festival plan was stated very clearly but as regards the dramatic concept, it was comparatively terse: “opera and plays of the highest standard.” Nevertheless, this formulation proved to be a great stroke of luck – it gives those who are responsible for planning the programme the necessary freedom while striving to maintain supreme quality. However, that was not and is not always seen by everyone in this way. The reproach that the festival has no truly distinct character stems from a lack of understanding for the breadth of the idea of the festival, as conceived by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. On 12 July 1958 Hilde Spiel commented on the festival philosophy, “From the beginning Bayreuth was orderly, Salzburg a disorderly concept over there in Franconia the legacy of a sole master is incontestably and exclusively taken care of here in Salzburg on the other hand, there has never been such a single-track idea, or such straightforwardness.” It is precisely the variety, the mixture that makes Salzburg incomparable and thus so successful.
The Salzburg Festival – custodian of tradition or trendsetter? We have a clear answer for that: custodian of tradition and trendsetter.

Helga Rabl-Stadler

President