［CITY］Salzburg … Austria
［SCHEDULE］2021：4.2 … 4.5
To the festival site ▷
Apart from the famous summer music festival, a music festival is held in Salzburg during Easter. The festival lasts about 10 days. The basic program is a combination of one opera, one orchestra concert with chorus, and two orchestra concerts. The combination will run twice with a two-day holiday in between.
The music festival was founded in 1967. The founder was Herbert von Karajan, the greatest star conductor of the 20th century, who was called the “Emperor of the Music”. He was the general director of the summer festival in his hometown of Salzburg, making it one of the most gorgeous music festivals in the world. But he wasn’t satisfied with it and launched a more personalized music festival.
At that time, Karajan had no place to conduct an opera. Therefore, it is said that he wanted a place to play and record an opera using the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, who was the artistic director for the rest of his life. As expected, the music festival became a place for Karajan to play and record famous opera works (especially Wagner’s), and also a valuable place to listen to the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra’s opera performances.
After the death of Karajan in 1989, the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra continued to perform with music directors such as Claudio Abbado and Simon Rattle. But they decided will perform at the Baden-Baden Festival in Germany during the Easter season from 2013. But the pinch was saved by Staatskapelle Dresden, led by Christian Thielemann. They has been performing since 2013 and is now the face of the music festival.
But that’s until 2022. This is because Nikolaus Bachler, who became the general director of the music festival in 2020, has decided not to have a residence orchestra from 2023. Bachler was the general director of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, and he is trying to drive Thielemann out and establish a new style of festival.
