The Salzburg Festival 2019

The Salzburg Festival 2020

110 performances in 30 days at 8 venues

12 performances of opera
ELEKTRA
COSÌ FAN TUTTE
29 performances in the play
World premiere ZDENĚK ADAMEC
World premiere of EVERYWOMAN
EVERYBODY
READING

53 concerts
VIENNA PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA
ORCHESTRA AS GUEST
BEETHOVEN CYCLE
FRAGMENTS - SILENCE
CHAMBER CONCERTS
SOLOIST CONCERTS
CANTO LIRICO
SONG END
CAMERATA SALZBURG
MOZART-MATINEES

Speeches about the century
4 Events

Theater in the cinema
4 film screenings
THE PRINCIPLE
THE ISLAND OF THE BLESSED
VENETIAN NIGHT
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT`S DREAM

8 performances young & every*r
1000 CRANES
PUNCH!

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National Exhibition GROSSES WELTTHEATER
"THE DREAM OF A FAIRY TEMPLE"

Due to the current situation, there may be short-term changes to the programme and the staffing.

Due to the current situation, there may be short-term changes to the programme and the staffing.

OPER

Richard Strauss ELEKTRA
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart COSÌ FAN TUTTE

The Salzburg Festival will open the Festival Summer 2020 with a work that has played an important role in the work of all three founders of the Festival - Richard Strauss, Hugo von Hofmannsthal and Max Reinhardt - with the opera Elektra by Richard Strauss. Hugo von Hofmannsthal"s play of the same name after the tragedy of Sophocles was premiered in 1903 in Berlin under the direction of Max Reinhardt. In the audience sat Richard Strauss, who felt that the encounter with Hofmannsthal was fateful. In 1906 he asked Hofmannsthal in a letter to "give him the prerogative of your hand in everything composable. Your manner is so much like mine, we were born for each other and will certainly achieve beautiful things together if you remain faithful to me. In the same year Richard Strauss began composing his one-act opera. Three years later, on 25 January 1909, it was premiered in Dresden with great success.

It was directed by Krzysztof Warlikowski, who made his successful debut at the Salzburg Festival in 2018 with Hans Werner Henze"s The Bassarids at the Felsenreitschule. Franz Welser-Möst, to whom the Salzburg Festival owes many unforgettable performances of works by Richard Strauss, conducts the Vienna Philharmonic and the Vienna State Opera Chorus. The role of Elektra will be played by the Lithuanian rising star Aušrine Stundyte. Chrysothemis is sung by Asmik Grigorian, who was named Singer of the Year 2019 for her role as Salome in the Opernwelt"s critics" survey. At her side Tanja Ariane Baumgartner as Klytämnestra, Michael Laurenz as Aegisth and Derek Welton as Orest. Premiere is on August 1st in the Felsenreitschule.

The two Mozart operas Don Giovanni and Die Zauberflöte, originally planned for the anniversary, will be included in the 2021 programme. But of course, in such an important year one will not have to do without a Mozart opera: Intendant Markus Hinterhäuser and director Christof Loy have developed the spontaneous idea of making Così fan tutte an experience even in Corona times, i.e. without a large stage machinery and with a significantly reduced rehearsal time. Joana Mallwitz conducts the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and makes her festival debut in Così fan tutte, the first woman to conduct an opera at the Salzburg Festival. A young ensemble could be found: Elsa Dreisig takes on the role of Fiordiligi and Marianne Crebassa that of her sister Dorabella. Bogdan Volkov sings Ferrando and Andrè Schuen the role of Guglielmo. Lea Desandre and Johannes Martin Kränzle give Despina and Don Alfonso. Premiere is on August 2 in the Großes Festspielhaus.

EXAMPLE

Hugo von Hofmannsthal EVERYONE
Peter Handke ZDENĚK ADAMEC
Milo Rau EVERYWOMAN
READING
THEATRE AT THE CINEMA

"In times of pandemic, the existential question of the Everyman - What happens when death comes to life? - nolens volens an even greater explosiveness. Everywoman by Ursina Lardi and Milo Rau continues this question into the present: Can there still be salvation? The world premiere of Zdeněk Adamec by Peter Handke, in which a group of people create the fictional biography of the young man who set a signal with his self-immolation, connects these two poles and, moreover, questions the function of the collective. The 2020 Festival builds a historical bridge and artistically probes into our present," says Bettina Hering, director of the theatre.

The founding play of the 1920 Salzburg Festival is not only a central component of the DNA of the festival"s history, but also a unique phenomenon in the German-speaking theatre landscape. For decades on the programme, the more than 700 Everyman performances also encompass an incomparable cosmos of actors. The revival of Hugo von Hofmannsthal"s Jedermann is on the programme of the 2020 Salzburg Festival 14 times and will celebrate its premiere on 1 August. In the production by Michael Sturminger and his team, the multi-award-winning Caroline Peters, who has already been seen at the Salzburg Festival for the past two years, will take on the role of the "Buhlschaft" alongside Jedermann Tobias Moretti in the anniversary year. We welcome Pauline Knof (Schuldknecht"s wife) and Gustav Peter Wöhler (Dicker Vetter) to the ensemble.

The world premiere of Zdeněk Adamec: A Scene of the 2019 Nobel Laureate in Literature Peter Handke will take place on August 2 in the Salzburg Landestheater: Peter Handke places the historical case of the 18-year-old Zdeněk Adamec from 2003 at the centre of his work, who burned himself to death on Wenceslas Square in Prague in protest against what he perceived to be the unbearable state of the world. The piece brings together an undefined group of people, a conversation develops. The story of Zdeněk Adamec runs like a red thread through the otherwise unambiguously attributable spoken word of questions and answers, of suppositions, doubts and information. With its narrative means this temporary community calls the young person back to life. Most recently, Peter Handke gave the world premiere in 2011 at the Salzburg Festival Immer noch Sturm, directed by Dimiter Gotscheff. Friederike Heller stages the world premiere of Zdeněk Adamec. Among other things, she was named Young Director of the Year in 2005 for her production of Peter Handke"s Untertagblues at Vienna"s Burgtheater, and in 2006 she was represented at the Salzburg Festival as part of the Young Directors Project with Die Unvernünftigen sterben aus. Play it: Christian Friedel, Luisa-Céline Gaffron, André Kaczmarczyk, Eva Löbau, Nahuel Pérez Biscayart, Sophie Semin and Hanns Zischler.

With the world premiere Everywoman, the authors Milo Rau and Ursina Lardi take as their starting point a classic piece of world literature: the English Everyman, a medieval morality from the late 15th century, in which the protagonist has to undergo a general examination of his life in the face of death and which is considered the most important model for Hugo von Hofmannsthal"s Jedermann. - What remains, what counts at the end of life? Death has become alien to us, our society has repressed it, since we can neither give it a meaning nor overcome it. Death has become an artificial product that we encounter in film and theatre in various representations - a constant reproduction of its repression, while we are surrounded by it every second. We even provoke it by destroying the basis of all life with each passing day. Confronted with death, Everywoman takes stock. Is there right life in the wrong life? What can art do in a world without God and future? Can there still be salvation?

The Swiss director, author and essayist Milo Rau was the youngest recipient of the renowned European ITI Theatre Prize in 2016. His play Five Easy Pieces was the first non-domestic production to be awarded the Special Prize of the Belgian Theatre Critics" Jury and was invited to the Berlin Theatertreffen in 2017. He has published more than 50 plays, films and actions which have been shown on many international stages and festivals. He has had a long and intensive collaboration with the actress Ursina Lardi. The world premiere is a co-production with the Schaubühne Berlin. Premiere is on August 19 at the Szene Salzburg.

Senta Berger, Sunnyi Melles and Caroline Peters will read texts by the multi-faceted Austrian writer, director and theatre director Ernst Lothar, who was a member of the Salzburg Festival"s board of directors from 1952 to 1959 and, as a director during this period, was also responsible for the production of The Everyman.

The anniversary of the first performance of Everyman 100 years ago will be celebrated throughout the city on August 22 with a reading by Everyman actors Klaus Maria Brandauer, Peter Simonischek, Tobias Moretti, Cornelius Obonya, and Philipp Hochmair.

Festival founder Max Reinhardt made four film adaptations during his lifetime. The Salzburg Festival is showing all four films under the title Theater im Kino: The Miracle, The Island of the Blessed, Venetian Night in The Cinema and A Midsummer Night"s Dream in The Rock Riding School.

CONCERT

VIENNA PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA
ORCHESTRA AS GUEST
BEETHOVEN CYCLE
FRAGMENTS - SILENCE
CHAMBER CONCERTS
SOLOIST CONCERTS
CANTO LIRICO
SONG END
CAMERATA SALZBURG
MOZART-MATINEES

"In the last few weeks, we have been planning a programme with a total of 53 concerts in close cooperation with the artists and the orchestras and ensembles. We will postpone series that we cannot perform this year due to the specifications and scheduling restrictions until the 2021 festival summer, in particular the Ouverture spirituelle under the title "Pax". We have adapted some concert programmes so that they can be performed without a break this summer, like all concerts, and we have even redesigned others, such as the small series under the title "Fragments - Silence" in the Kollegienkirche", says Florian Wiegand, concert director.

The concert programme of the modified Festival 2020 is based on the basic framework of the festival planning: i.e. concerts with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra as well as guest orchestras, soloist concerts, song recitals, chamber concerts as well as concerts with New Music.

Unfortunately, the overture spiritual, which is particularly important this year, cannot take place - it should reflect the founding mission of the festival "as one of the first peace projects" under the title "Pax". However, the planned events will be made up for in July 2021. Even those concert series that were especially conceived for the anniversary year - such as "Time with Feldman" and "Moments musicaux" - will not be cancelled but postponed until next year. Modifications were also necessary at the venues. For example, the festival will not be able to use the hall in which most concerts usually take place - the Great Hall of the Mozarteum Foundation - this summer. Instead, the Mozart matinees, the concerts of the Camerata Salzburg, the song recitals and chamber concerts will take place in the Haus für Mozart. The Beethoven cycle with Igor Levit will also move to the Haus für Mozart and the Großes Festspielhaus.

In a modified festival programme, however, one very special concert venue must not be missing: the Collegiate Church. With reference to Luigi Nono, a small but fine series is being realized there under the title "Fragments - Silence", which the Salzburg Festival has planned with ensembles and artists whose original projects had to be modified or cancelled this summer due to the specifications and restrictions. Emilio Pomàrico and Klangforum Wien will start the series with in vain by Georg Friedrich Haas, followed by Cantando Admont under the direction of Cordula Bürgi. At the centre of the Minguet Quartet"s programme is the work that gives the series its title: Fragments - Silence, on Diotima for string quartet by Luigi Nono. It is based on poems by Friedrich Hölderlin, whose 250th birthday - like that of Beethoven - is being celebrated this year. They are "silent songs from other rooms, from other skies. The performers may "sing" them", the composer explained. The "fragments" that Nono uses in his work are taken from pieces by Johannes Ockeghem, Giuseppe Verdi and Ludwig van Beethoven, which are part of this concert program. Otto Katzameier and the Klangforum Wien under the direction of Sylvain Cambreling dedicate the last concert of the series to the work of Salvatore Sciarrino.

The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra has set the musical standard for which the Salzburg Festival is world-famous. In 1925 they performed for the first time under their famous name at the Salzburg Festival. Before that, from 1921 onwards, individual members of the Vienna State Opera Orchestra had already been involved. In 1922, opera was performed for the first time at the Salzburg Festival as a guest performance from the Vienna State Opera. This year, the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra will feature: Andris Nelsons, Riccardo Muti, Christian Thielemann - with Elīna Garanča as soloist - and Gustavo Dudamel - with Evgeny Kissin at the piano.

The Orchestra Guest series will feature the ORF Radio Symphony Orchestra under Kent Nagano, the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra with its founder Daniel Barenboim and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under chief conductor Kirill Petrenko.

The works of Ludwig van Beethoven, the annual regent, will be performed throughout all concert series, culminating in a Beethoven cycle with Igor Levit, the Beethoven pianist of the younger generation. Igor Levit traverses the cosmos of the 32 piano sonatas on eight evenings at the Haus für Mozart.

Daniel Barenboim interprets the monumental Diabelli Variations in the series of soloist concerts. With the piano recital on August 19, 2020 he will celebrate his 70th stage anniversary to the day. Further soloist concerts will include Martha Argerich, Renaud Capuçon, András Schiff, Grigory Sokolov, Daniil Trifonov and Arcadi Volodos.

Under the title "Canto lirico", the greatest singers of our time can be experienced: Sonya Yoncheva, together with the Cappella Mediterranea and under the musical direction of Leonardo García Alarcón, takes a journey into the early days of the genre. Cecilia Bartoli sings works by Handel and his contemporaries. Gianluca Capuano conducts Les Musiciens du Prince-Monaco. Anna Netrebko and Yusif Eyvazov devote themselves to the Russian repertoire and sing excerpts from Peter I. Tchaikovsky"s operas Queen of Spades, Eugene Onegin and Iolanta. Mikhail Tatarnikov conducts the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg in the Großes Festspielhaus. Juan Diego Flórez in turn takes on works by Bellini, Verdi, Massenet or Puccini. He is accompanied by Vincenzo Scalera at the piano.

The song recitals are performed by Matthias Goerne together with Jan Lisiecki and Benjamin Bernheim with Carrie-Ann Matheson at the piano.

Chamber concerts are given by the Belcea Quartet and the Hagen Quartet. Martin Grubinger & The Percussive Planet Ensemble will also perform three of the great percussion sextets by Wolfgang Rihm, Iannis Xenakis and Steve Reich under the title The Big Three.

The Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg has a long tradition at the festival: as early as 1921, members of the Mozarteum Orchestra gave their first orchestral concerts together with members of the Vienna State Opera Orchestra. Since 1949 the orchestra has been playing the Mozart Matinees, which were founded by Bernhard Paumgartner. In this special festival summer, the matinees will take place not in the Great Hall of the Mozarteum Foundation but in the Haus für Mozart and only once each time. They will be conducted by Ivor Bolton, Andrew Manze, Ádám Fischer and Gianluca Capuano, who will stand at the podium of the Mozarteum Orchestra for the first time during the Mozart Matinees.

Bernhard Paumgartner, President of the Salzburg Festival from 1960 to 1971, was not only the founder of the Mozart Matinees but also the founder of the Camerata Salzburg. The orchestra can be heard twice - under the baton of Ingo Metzmacher and with Patricia Kopatchinskaja as well as under Manfred Honeck and with Daniel Ottensamer - in the Haus für Mozart.

Quelle: SALZBURGER FESTSPIELE

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