The Salzburg Festival 2017

The Show has begun!

On July 21st 2017 one of the world most famous Festivals, The Salzburg Festival (Salzburger Festspiel) opens its Sommer edition with the Theater play Everyman, (Jedermann – German) on the Cathedral Square (Domplatz) in the Beautiful Baroque City of Salzburg, Austria.

In a city that has preserved its baroque architecture in almost perfect condition and therefore is a breathtaking backdrop in itself, the Salzburg Festival presents performances of opera, plays and concerts of the highest artistic standards over a period of five to six weeks each summer.

“Everyman awaits a feast,”

as Goethe wrote. A feast in this city of which the great Austrian poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal said, “Salzburg is the heart of the heart of Europe. It lies halfway between South and North, between Switzerland and the Slavic countries.”

Jedermann 2017. Peter Lohmeyer – Tobias Moretti ©Matthias Horn

The Salzburg Festival was founded more than 90 years ago by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Max Reinhardt and Richard Strauss, and is a magnet today more than ever. We are often asked what the secret of this Festival is and what makes it so special and magical. There are three main factors that make the Festival such a success:

First of all, the Salzburg Festival offers a broader artistic program than any other festival: Salzburg features opera, drama and concerts. And in the selection of works and interpretations, it also offers the broadest spectrum from Mozart, the genius loci, to modern works, from classical interpretations to avant-garde experimentation, from Hofmannsthal’s Jedermann to Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin. And only the best and most famous artists from all over the world are invited to Salzburg.

Furthermore, visitors to the Salzburg Festival can combine the enjoyment of art with vacationing. During the daytime, the unique surroundings and the lakes of the Salzkammergut make for wonderful excursions and golfing – in the evening, the Festival beckons with incomparable performances.
And finally, the Salzburg Festival has a very special flair. Salzburg’s Hofstallgasse and the entire Baroque old city center form the Festival’s backdrop.

The Salzburg Festival is often described as the greatest and most important festival in the world, and this reputation is confirmed by countless superlatives: witness the number of performances and of annual visitors, or the wide-ranging programme.

Conductors, stage-directors, orchestras, singers, actors and virtuoso instrumentalists of world renown can be seen and heard in July and August in the town on the river Salzach. Even the most eminent opera stars come together here to rehearse productions intensively for several weeks, thereby fulfilling the creed of the Salzburg Festival as it was originally envisioned by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, one of the Festival’s founding fathers: “Dramatic play-acting in the strongest sense is our intention; routine, run-of-the-mill performances have no place here.”