The opera line-ups for the Salzburg Festival from 1927 to 1930 include all opera performances at the Salzburg Festival in those years. These years were shaped in particular by the conductor Franz Schalk , director of the Vienna State Opera , who died in 1931. Opera conductors were also conducted by Robert Heger and Bruno Walter and, for the first time, in 1929 by Clemens Krauss , who succeeded Schalk as Vienna Opera Director.
Between 1927 and 1930 the fate of the festival was decided. These were turbulent times that put Max Reinhardt in the focus of intense controversy. It was Reinhardt, who in 1920 with the Everyman of Hugo von Hofmannsthal had founded the cathedral square the festival, in 1925 the construction of the Festspielhaus had demanded and achieved the 1926 Summer Riding School as a great venue for the Salzburg Festival had discovered. And it was Reinhardt, who - with anti-Semitic undertones - was heavily criticized by the press, but occasionally also courted and glorified.
In Reinhardt's shadow, Franz Schalk , director of the Vienna State Opera until 1929, calmly and reliably took care of setting up the opera and concert at the festival. Every year he conducted two operas, Beethoven's Fidelio , which he established as a festival opera, and a Mozart opera, Don Giovanni or Die Zauberflöte , as well as several orchestral concerts. In the concert hall, too, he was committed to the Viennese Classic and Romantic periods, Mozart, Beethoven, Haydn , Schubert and Bruckner . Schalk's performance for the festival is still not recognized accordingly, especially since year after year he succeeded in attracting top singing ensembles to the still young festival. In addition to Schalk, two younger conductors who could not be more different were able to establish themselves in Salzburg: On the one hand, the fine spirit Bruno Walter from Berlin, from a Jewish family, interested in Mozart and Mahler , Gluck and Wagner . On the other hand, there was the ambitious Clemens Krauss from Vienna, entirely German national, who advocated the works of the Strauss family and Richard Strauss . The two didn't like each other and yet Salzburg managed to bind both of them to the festival. Both were to shape the coming period from 1931 to 1934.
The years 1927 to 1930 also meant a significant expansion of the Salzburg repertoire. Three works that were important for the future were anchored in Salzburg during these years - Fidelio in 1927 , Die Zauberflöte in 1928 and finally Der Rosenkavalier in 1929 . At the same time, the opera gradually took ownership of the new festival hall and gradually supplanted drama. In 1927, the luxurious Fidelio was the first opera in the Festspielhaus, in 1929 all opera performances took place there and after that the intimate city theater was only used very rarely for opera performances. Franz Schalk openly and honestly announced at a press conference in 1930 that the Festival had now become an international event and that in the future music and not theater would set the tone.
Josef Kaut : The Salzburg Festival 1920-1981, With a list of the works listed and the artists of the theater and music by Hans Jaklitsch . Residenz Verlag, Salzburg 1982, ISBN 3-7017-0308-6 , pp. 244–249.
Individual evidence
↑ Stephen Gallup: The history of the Salzburg Festival. Orac, Vienna 1989, ISBN 978-3-7015-0164-9 , p. 84.
↑ Stephen Gallup: The history of the Salzburg Festival. Orac, Vienna 1989, ISBN 978-3-7015-0164-9 , p. 86.
