Salzburg Whitsun Festival

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Herbert von Karajan (1973–1989)
Riccardo Muti (2007-2011)
Cecilia Bartoli (since 2012)

The Salzburg Whitsun Concerts were first organized in 1973 by Herbert von Karajan . The idea of ​​organizing festivals in Salzburg not only in summer goes back to one of the founding fathers of the Salzburg Festival : Hugo von Hofmannsthal wrote as early as 1919 that the festival “annually in summer, but now and then at other times, for example around Christmas, or otherwise in winter, also at Easter and Pentecost ”.

Herbert von Karajan created the Whitsun Concerts primarily to fulfill ticket requests from potential Easter Festival subscribers. Until 1982, the Whitsun Concerts were held exclusively by the Berliner Philharmoniker under Karajan's baton, after which James Levine , Lorin Maazel , Seiji Ozawa , Georges Prêtre , André Previn and Sir George Solti also conducted . After Karajan's death, international orchestras such as the Vienna Philharmonic , the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the London Symphony Orchestra performed . The original idea of dedicating the Whitsun Concerts primarily to the care of Anton Bruckner's music found no successor after 1989.

In 1997, the title Whitsun Concerts in Baden-Baden was given to pave the way for a new concept in Salzburg: In 1998 the Salzburg Whitsun Festival was launched as an integral part of the Summer Festival and rededicated as a baroque festival: with a large city festival, the performance of Cavalli's opera La Calisto and seven concerts exclusively reserved for the pre-classical repertoire. Hans Landesmann is responsible for the artistic direction .

In 2007 Riccardo Muti took over the artistic direction and focused on Neapolitan composers of the 18th century. With the motto “Naples - Metropolis of Remembrance” the common past of Vienna and Naples should be highlighted as two of the most important musical centers in Europe. The Orchestra in Residence of the Festival was the young orchestra Giovanile Luigi Cherubini founded by Riccardo Muti , the operas were co-produced with the Ravenna Festival and occasionally with European opera houses. The project, originally planned to run for three years, was expanded to five years by 2011. Traditionally, the Whitsun Festival begins with an opera and ends with a piece of church music.

In 2012 the Italian singer Cecilia Bartoli took over the artistic direction of the Whitsun Festival and also sings the main role of the opera production. The Orchestra in Residence was Il Giardino Armonico in 2012 and the Orchestra La Scintilla in 2013 , both conducted by Giovanni Antonini . In 2014 the Ensemble Mateus performed under Jean-Christophe Spinosi . When he was appointed, the artistic director of the Salzburg Festival from 2012, Alexander Pereira , stated that in future the opera production of the Whitsun Festival will also be included in the program of the Summer Festival with the same cast. “Anything else would be 'waste of energy'”, says Pereira. In 2019, Cecilia Bartoli's contract as Artistic Director of the Whitsun Festival was extended until 2026. In 2020 the event was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic .

Opera productions

Landesmann Directorate :

Muti Directorate :

Bartoli Directorate :

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 2012 Cleopatra in Giulio Cesare in Egitto , 2013 Norma , 2014 the title role in La Cenerentola and Desdemona in Otello
  2. ↑ orf.at: Whitsun Festival: Bartoli extended until 2026 . Article dated June 10, 2019, accessed June 11, 2019.
  3. ↑ The Whitsun Festival also canceled. In: ORF.at . April 6, 2020, accessed April 6, 2020 .