Festival Dialogues 2012
Enchantment and Risk
Every year, the Salzburg Festival is a fascinating
meeting-point for lovers of art. Debate, discussion and discourse take place on
a large scale. As Daniel Barenboim said, the discussion focuses on content and
not on packaging, and that is remarkable in times like ours.
The audience expects enlightenment, enchantment,
friction and interpretation, and the dense programme for 2012 fulfils all these
expectations. Thus, the Dialogues will concentrate on various facets, offering,
for example, a public discussion with Jan Assmann on the two Magic Flutes, as well as one with Ingrid Hentschel on
Sven-Eric Bechtolf’s multi-genre original version of Richard Strauss’ Ariadne
auf Naxos, in which the one-act opera
follows Molière’s Le Bourgeois gentilhomme.
As always, the Dialogues follow an interdisciplinary
layout: apart from musicologists and theatre scholars, the disciplines of
sociology, philosophy and the natural sciences will be represented by
outstanding personalities. Yet, Oscar Wilde’s warning stands that all
exploration of art is a dangerous thing, undertaken “at one’s own risk”. After
all, he continued, “art reflects the viewer, not life”.
Concept and organisation: Michael Fischer
A brochure with an overview of all speakers and dates
will be published in the spring of 2012 and at www.festspielfreunde.at