To Timeline
Show all

26 July – 31 August

The new production of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte in the Felsenreitschule/Summer Riding School, headed by James Levine and Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, turned out to be a sensation.

Christian Boesch stood out from the acclaimed ensemble as nothing less than the ideal cast for Papageno. The production remained in the repertoire until 1986 and has gone down in history as the Festival’s most successful production ever. In 1982, it was joined by a Zauberflöte for Children.

In summer 1978, Strauss’s Rosenkavalier/The Knight of the Rose was also given a new production, conducted by Christoph von Dohnány. The director Günther Rennert died only a few days after the first night. Since the 1950s – together with Karl Böhm – he had set the benchmark for the Festival’s Mozart and Strauss repertoires.

The traditional-tending schedule of the Festival summer was rounded off with the revival of the Jedermann/Everyman production by Ernst Haeusserman: Maximilian Schell took over the title role from Curd Jürgens, and the cast surrounding Jedermann was also mainly new, but Senta Berger remained as Buhlschaft/Paramour.