History of the Salzburg Festival
The history of the Salzburg Festival officially begins on August 22, 1920 with the Max Reinhardt production of Jedermann by Hugo von Hofmannsthal on Domplatz. In fact, however, the festival has a long history that goes back to the baroque era .
history
1920 to 1937
In addition to Max Reinhardt and Hugo von Hofmannsthal, the establishment of the festival is mainly thanks to the work of the composer Richard Strauss , the conductor and Viennese court opera director Franz Schalk and the set designer Alfred Roller . On the initiative of Bernhard Paumgartner , concerts (mainly chamber and orchestral concerts ) were held for the first time next to Jedermann in 1921 . In 1922, in addition to plays and concerts, four operas by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart were performed, essentially defining the concept that was successfully implemented from 1925 onwards. The innovations of this year (the Hofstallkaserne was used as a provisional festival hall, the program was bundled in a festival almanac and the radio was integrated) gave the festival a boost, after only the performance of Molière's The Conceited Sick had previously been financed in 1923 and the festival in 1924 had to be canceled for financial reasons. In 1926 the Felsenreitschule was added as a second venue.
1938 to 1944
The time of National Socialism after the "Anschluss" of Austria to the German Reich in 1938 also had serious consequences for the Salzburg Festival. Hofmannsthal's Jedermann had to be removed from the program, and artists were banned from performing or went into exile. Arturo Toscanini , who was still the most influential conductor in 1937, declined further participation. The small festival hall of Clemens Holzmeister , who has meanwhile emigrated , was structurally changed to correspond to National Socialist aesthetics. From 1938, the Salzburg Festival Hall community, the supporting organization, was under the Gauleiter. With the beginning of the Second World War , the range of programs was significantly reduced. In 1940 the festival was called the “Salzburg Cultural Summer” and lasted only fourteen days. Two years later the Salzburg Festival Hall was liquidated. Instead, a general manager was set up, which Clemens Krauss took over with a ten-year contract. Finally, in 1944, the festival could not take place due to an order issued by Propaganda Minister Goebbels following the Hitler assassination attempt on July 20, 1944 , to cancel all festivals in the German Reich. Only on August 14th did Furtwängler conduct a concert and on August 16th the “public rehearsal” of the Strauss opera Die Liebe der Danae took place.
1945 to 2001
In 1945, after the end of the Second World War, the Salzburg Festival could be held again, albeit with an extremely tight program. Hofmannsthal's Jedermann could also be performed again and has been shown every year since then. Important artists who were not wanted during the Nazi era returned to Salzburg, for example Georg Solti or Rolf Liebermann . Subsequently, the small festival hall was rebuilt again and freed from the National Socialist elements. Temporary consideration was given to including Bertolt Brecht in the management of the festival, which was operated by Gottfried von Eine . For political reasons - Brecht began working in the GDR at the same time - this was prevented by the then Salzburg Governor Josef Klaus .
The Salzburg Festival of the second half of the last century was mainly shaped by three personalities: the conductors Karl Böhm (1938 to 1980) and Herbert von Karajan (1960 to 1989), as well as the Belgian artistic director Gerard Mortier (1990 to 2001). Karl Böhm shaped the Salzburg style of musical humanism in 338 performances , primarily through exemplary Mozart and Strauss performances. Karajan's time was determined by his autocratic leadership style, the highest musical quality and the commitment of international stars, which led to a certain artistic stagnation towards the end of his era. Both Böhm and Karajan died during rehearsals for an opera production - Ariadne auf Naxos (Böhm) and Masked Ball (Karajan) - in Salzburg. It was left to Mortier to open the festival to new artistic trends and to give the spoken theater - with the acting directors Peter Stein and Ivan Nagel - more weight again.
In the 21st century
Mortier's successor was Peter Ruzicka in 2002 , and Martin Kušej was his acting director from 2005 to 2006 . In 2006, Ruzicka put all 22 Mozart operas on the program on the occasion of the 250th birthday of the Genius loci, which was a record summer in both artistic and economic terms.
From 2007 to 2010, the former acting director and director Jürgen Flimm was artistic director and Thomas Oberender acting director. In his directorship, Flimm turned back to the original festival character and put the festival under an annual "metaphysical" motto. His last season in 2010 was marked by the anniversaries “90 Years of the Salzburg Festival” and “50 Years of the Großes Festspielhaus”. Markus Hinterhäuser was able to set contemporary accents in the new position of concert director and successfully held the position of artistic director in the 2011 season.
Alexander Pereira has been the artistic director of the Salzburg Festival since 2012 . The new acting boss was the castle actor and director Sven-Eric Bechtolf , Pereira's preferred candidate after several collaborations in the Zurich Opera House . Pereira has already extended the duration of the festival in its first season, as well as causing a boom in demand with a repertoire of popular operas - Carmen , La Bohème , Magic Flute - and the announcement that all new productions will not resume. Even before the start of his first season, Pereira caused a scandal by threatening to resign after he had only been granted 60 million euros instead of the required 64 million euros in 2013: "I will show alternatives to fearfulness." The audience - and largely also the criticism - Pereira was right, he already achieved an audience record in his first summer festival with 281,340 visitors.
The artistic direction was originally appointed for five years. After Salzburg's Mayor Heinz Schaden had decidedly ruled out an extension of the contract with Alexander Pereira in February 2013 due to the controversy between the Board of Trustees of the Festival and the artistic director about the budget, the artistic director applied for the vacant management position at La Scala in Milan . After he was appointed as their artistic director from the 2015/16 season, the Board of Trustees and Pereira agreed on June 11, 2013 to terminate the contract prematurely after the end of the festival summer 2014. Drama director Sven-Eric Bechtolf was appointed as transitional director for the 2015 and 2016 seasons . In October 2016, Markus Hinterhäuser took over the management of the Salzburg Festival as artistic director. When Markus Hinterhäuser took over as artistic director, Bettina Hering also took over the management of the theater. Florian Wiegand remains head of the concert department.
In 2020 the festival is to take place in a reduced form due to the COVID-19 pandemic .
Overture spiritual
With Joseph Haydn's The Creation with choir, orchestra and text by Gottfried van Swieten , the new director Alexander Pereira opened a new festival within the festival on July 20, 2012 in Salzburg: the Ouverture spirituelle , a series of concerts of sacred music in the baroque churches in the Mozarteum and in the festival halls of the Salzach city, which should represent a contemplative start to the festival - even before its official opening. On the one hand, Pereira continued the long tradition of sacred music in the context of the festival: Mozart's Great Mass in C minor KV 417a - played for the first time in 1927 as part of the festival - has been an annual fixture of the Salzburg Festival since 1950 and is traditionally held in the collegiate church of St. Peter listed. In addition, all the great works of sacred music are regularly performed at the Salzburg Festival and rarities are repeatedly presented. On the other hand, Pereira gave the Ouverture spirituelle a clear, contemporary concept - the dialogue of religions , 2012 with the Jewish faith , 2013 with Buddhism , 2014 with Islam .
Opening up to new things
Working for and with the young generation has been one of the main focuses of the Salzburg Festival program since the 2008 season. The next generation should be consciously encouraged and new audiences should be drawn in (youth subscriptions, “Young Friends” association). In addition, various focuses and new concepts have been established over the course of history, such as public screenings, accompanying programs to productions and the involvement of the entire city of Salzburg.
Under the directorate of Mortier / Landesmann / Stein, many initiatives were taken to open up the festival: The avant-garde Zeitfluss Festival was launched under the direction of Markus Hinterhäuser and Tomas Zierhofer-Kin, the Perner island of Hallein was opened up for theater productions and subscriptions for Young people introduced.
The Salzburg Festival Dialogues were founded by Michael Fischer in 1994 and have been a constant companion ever since. The new opera productions in particular during each summer form the center of the talks organized by the “Friends of the Salzburg Festival”.
In 1998 the series “Poets Visited” was launched. Elfriede Jelinek introduced herself as the first “artist in residence” at the beginning of the series. She was followed by Hans Magnus Enzensberger (1999), Christoph Ransmayr (2000), Imre Kertész , Péter Nádas and Péter Esterházy (2001), Robert Gernhardt (2002), Christa Wolf (2003), Tankred Dorst (2004), António Lobo Antunes , John M. Coetzee and Elfriede Jelinek (2005), Jeffrey Eugenides and Richard Ford (2007), Dimitré Dinev and Orhan Pamuk (2008), Daniel Kehlmann (2009), Claudio Magris (2010). In 2006, eleven guests were invited to this series under the title “Magazin des Glücks”.
Jürgen Flimm introduced the Young Directors Project in 2002. Young, international artists should be given the opportunity to show their directorial work at the Salzburg Festival. The Young Directors Project celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2011. Many participants have been able to use it as a springboard and have since made international careers. Every year the best ensemble receives the Montblanc Young Directors Award - a prize of € 10,000.
In 2007 Youth! Arts! Science! for 100 students of science, music and art between 20 and 29 years of age. The participants accompany the annual “Continent” series for a week and find common ground in creativity and innovation in music, art and science. Workshops, lectures and performances are intended to encourage young people to deal with contemporary music and to embrace new things.
With the Young Singers Project , the Salzburg Festival 2008 created a platform to promote young singers . At international auditions, young singers are selected to work with festival artists as part of the scholarship in Salzburg. Classes also include scenic rehearsals, exercise classes, language coaching and expanding the repertoire. Four master classes, led by important festival artists, are open to the public. The young singers introduce themselves to the audience in a final concert in the Mozarteum.
In 2008 the Salzburg Festival Children's Choir was also founded. The musical work with well-known conductors and orchestras is accompanied by visits to rehearsals, artist encounters and insights into festival life. In 2010 the festival choir and the children's choir of the Salzburg State Theater merged. The members are between eight and 16 years old and also come from Austria and Germany with a total of 90 members.
After the YDP and YSP, the conductor's competition is the latest invention: “Nestlé and Salzburg Festival Young Conductors Award”. The winner of the competition will receive the € 15,000 prize. The award winner conducts the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra as part of the concert program of the Salzburg Festival.
institution
In 1950, the Salzburg Festival Fund was founded as a legal entity - the Republic of Austria , the State of Salzburg and the City of Salzburg , as well as the Salzburg Tourism Promotion Fund have since shared financial responsibility and closed the funding gap in the budget.
The organs of the Festival Fund are the Assembly of Delegates, the Board of Trustees and the Board of Directors, which is currently formed by the President of the Festival, Helga Rabl-Stadler and the artistic director Markus Hinterhäuser .
The main donors of the Salzburg Festival are the state and city of Salzburg and the Republic of Austria. Since the change in tax laws (cultural sponsoring has been tax deductible in Austria since the 1990s), well-known companies and private sponsors have been won, making a significant contribution to the overall budget. There is also an association of the Friends of the Salzburg Festival, whose members, as sponsors of the festival, pay at least 1,000 euros a year. Sponsors and supporters do not receive a discount on the admission tickets, but are given priority when the tickets are allocated. The higher the grant, the higher the preference. This card allocation system was adopted by the Bayreuth Festival .
The direct effects emanating from the Salzburg Festival totaling 112 million euros, which are made up of the demand-driven expenditure of the festival itself and the expenditure of the festival visitors, lead in terms of indirect profitability to further, indirect effects of around 113 million euros, which in numerous upstream Branches of the service and production sector of the regional or Austrian economy are triggered.
From the direct effects of the sales volume generated by foreign festival visitors alone, an employment effect of around 1,300 jobs can be calculated for Salzburg, most of which can be assigned to the tourism and trade sectors. Taking the indirect effects into account, the Salzburg Festival has an overall employment effect of around 2,800 to 3,000 year-round jobs across Austria.
The tax effects (reflux effects) resulting from the festival-induced added value can be estimated at around 28 to 30 million euros, which the local authorities receive as additional income, mainly in the form of sales tax and wage or income tax. This does not yet include the contribution made by the Salzburg Festival itself, which in 2006 amounted to around 7.6 million euros (excluding social security contributions of 5.3 million euros). In contrast, the public subsidies amounted to only 13 million euros.
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Artists, symbols and celebrations
Artist
- Max Reinhardt stated in his manifesto "The Salzburg Festival" that both, namely opera and drama, are the main pillars of the festival "and the highest of both". The invited artists are also world class.
- Vienna Philharmonic , these have been the most important orchestra of the Salzburg Festival from the very beginning. They played Mozart's Don Juan on the first radio broadcast in 1925 under conductor Karl Muck WA . In addition to their own “Vienna Philharmonic” cycle (since 1946), they traditionally play the opening concert on the first evening of the Salzburg Festival. The orchestra takes part in four to five opera productions a year.
In cooperation with the summer festival, the Vienna Philharmonic promotes young talent: the music camps for children and young people, the brass music concert with young talents from Salzburg and a different regional brass music association every year, as well as the Angelika Prokopp Summer Academy of the Vienna Philharmonic, enrich the festival activities as part of youth work.
Festival symbols
- Signet: The motif of the festival's signet, which is still used today, appeared for the first time on the festival poster from 1928 . The graphic designer Poldi Woytek won the competition for this.
- Fanfare: Since 1936 the festival has also had a festival fanfare (composed by Joseph Messner ), which is also used as a signature melody for radio broadcasts from the Salzburg Festival.
Festival opening and closing
The Salzburg Festival is traditionally opened by the Federal President , and prominent intellectuals have been invited as key speakers since 1964. This tradition was interrupted in 2005 and 2006, when the new Salzburg 's Governor Gabi Burgstaller spoke out against an opening speaker. In 1980 the festival to mark the opening of the festival took place across the city for the first time. This was first organized by the Salzburg state government , and the Salzburg Festival has been the direct organizer of the festival for more than 10 years .
The first festival balls were celebrated by Max Reinhardt in Schloss Leopoldskron. The last in the Kavalierhaus Kleßheim. This tradition was revived in 2012 by artistic director Alexander Pereira , with a ball at the end of the festival, which includes a gala dinner in the Neue Residenz followed by a concert and dance in the Felsenreitschule . Differences to the Vienna Opera Ball are intentional, so the opening ceremony of the ball is danced by couples in traditional costumes. The festival ball also differs in the number of guests (approx. 1000, in Vienna up to 12,000) and in the pricing.
Festival documents
Since 1952 CDs and DVDs have been published under the name "Festspielddokumente".
Individual evidence
- ↑ Festival debate: Pereira threatens to resign , accessed on June 16, 2012
- ↑ Salzburg Festival this year in a slimmed-down form. In: ORF.at . May 15, 2020, accessed May 15, 2020 .
- ↑ The Ouverture spirituelle ( memento of October 11, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) will take place for the first time as the introduction to the Salzburg Summer Festival 2012.
- ↑ Woytek married the then advertising director of the Salzburg Festival, Kajetan Mühlmann . Hildegard Fraueneder, Salzburg city walks: In the footsteps of women 2005 . City of Salzburg ( Memento of the original from November 22, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Salzburger Nachrichten: Ball of the Salzburg Festival , March 10, 2012
