It is time to summarize the Festival summer, the first under the current Directorate, which once again includes three members: Festival President Helga Rabl-Stadler, Artistic Director Markus Hinterhäuser, and Lukas Crepaz as Executive Director are joined on the podium by Bettina Hering, Director of Drama, and Florian Wiegand, Director of Concerts. The 2017 programme featured 195 performances at 15 performance venues.
Lukas Crepaz, Helga Rabl-Stadler, Markus Hinterhäuser, Florian Wiegand and Bettina Hering. photo: SF/Anne Zeuner
The 2017 Salzburg Festival programme reflected upon aspects of power: Wolfgang A. Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito ponders the power of forgiveness and the helplessness of pardoning.
Evgenia Muraeva (Katerina Lwowna Ismailowa), photo SF/ Thomas Aurin
Political power and the powerlessness of the vanquished are the subject of Verdi’s Aida. The blood-stained revolt of a strong woman against the system of oppression is told in Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District by Dmitri Shostakovich. Alban Berg’s Wozzeck describes the outcry of a suppressed creature against the abuse of power by the authorities.
Markus Hinterhäuser, Helga Rabl-Stadler and Lukas Crepaz
And the summary of power and its blinding effect is the focus of Aribert Reimann’s Lear.
Vienna Philharmonic, Yefim Bronfman and Riccardo Muti, photo SF/Marco Borrelli
In addition to artists who already have a long history at the Salzburg Festival, such as Riccardo Muti, Anna Netrebko and Daniel Barenboim, this summer saw several highly successful debuts. Teodor Currentzis and his orchestra musicAeterna and the musicAeterna Choir of Perm Opera earned rapturous applause for their opera and concert performances.
La clemenza di Tito
La clemenza di Tito made Marianne Crebassa an instant audience favourite. Asmik Grigorian as Marie in Wozzeck and Evgenia Muraveva in Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District were among the sensations of this summer, as were the Festival debuts of pianists Daniil Trifonov and Igor Levit, both of whom delivered notable performances. Among the directors, there were also several Salzburg debuts: William Kentridge, Simon Stone, Shirin Neshat, Karin Henkel, 600 HIGHWAYMEN and Athina Rachel Tsangari all directed for the first time at the Salzburg Festival. Mariss Jansons and Andreas Kriegenburg both celebrated their opera debuts; Michael Sturminger made his drama debut at the Salzburg Festival, while Andrea
Breth, Peter Sellars and Christof Loy are familiar Salzburg Festival directors.
Peter Sellars, photo SF/ Anne Zeuner
Altogether, there were 40 opera performances: five new productions, three semi-staged performances, two concert performances and the revival of the opera production of the Salzburg Whitsun Festival, Ariodante, graced the programme.
“I feel that it is extremely fortunate when productions are developed, not simply manufactured. Entering into a pact with the audience by treating it with the respect it deserves, by challenging its intellect and heart in an honest manner. I am particularly gratified to see that the 20th-century works met with such empathy from the audience,” says Artistic Director Markus Hinterhäuser.
Anna Netrebko and Ekaterina Semenchuk, photo SF/Monika Rittershaus
“’Risk is the bow wave of success’ – this, one of my favourite quotes by Carl Améry, has proven true once again this summer. The artistic risk which Markus Hinterhäuser took with his programming has brought the festival a rich harvest, both artistically and economically. I am also delighted to witness the success of our youth programmes. The Young Singers Project and the Nestlé and Salzburg Festival Young Conductors Award have proven themselves launch-pads for international careers of our young talents. And the fact that we have been able to double the number of youth subscriptions was met with great enthusiasm by the younger audience members,” says Festival President Helga Rabl-Stadler.
Vienna Philharmonic and Riccardo Muti, photo SF/Marco Borrelli
“We are pleased by the great resonance of our 2017 Festival season, which exceeded our expectations by far, with 97% occupied seats and 261,500 tickets issued. This success enables us to continue tackling the most pressing investments – especially the renovation of the Großes Festspielhaus, now in its 57th year,” says Lukas Crepaz, Executive Director of the Salzburg Festival.
Asmik Grigorian and Matthias Goerne in Wozzeck, photo Franz Neumayr
The drama programme, for which Bettina Hering was responsible for the first time, found a broad resonance: five new productions, four drama investigations, three readings and a concert performance brought new impulses to the programme. 14 performances of Jedermann were part of the offerings: it was performed ten times on Cathedral Square, while four performances had to be moved to the Großes Festspielhaus due to inclement weather.
Tobias Moretti (Everyman) and Mavie Hörbiger (Deeds), photo SF/ Matthias Horn
Harold Pinter’s The Birthday Party offered a parable for a society no longer able to decode the strategies of power. The wonderful Lina Beckmann as Rose Bernd forged a connection to the opera programme’s Wozzeck; Lulu by Frank Wedekind featured parallels with Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District. Ödön von Horváth’s Kasimir und Karoline illustrated the younger generation’s struggle with social rise and downfall.
Steven Scharf (Dr. Franz Schöning) and Anna Drexler (Lulu), photo SF /Monika Rittershaus
Many extraordinary actresses and actors were featured in the Salzburg Festival’s drama productions this year, spanning all the generations, with several notable debuts, such as those by Stefanie Reinsperger, Anna Drexler, Christian Friedel, Hanno Koffler and many others.
Bettina Hering, photo SF/Wildbild
“The different characters of our artists inspired a fascinating discourse, which both audience and reviewers continued with great interest. This made for a very lively summer in the drama department. The new production and repositioning of Jedermann, with the fabulous Tobias Moretti in the title role and Stefanie Reinsperger as the Paramour, found a very positive echo. To me, it combines tradition and modernism,” says Bettina Hering.
Cecilia Bartoli as Ariodante, photo SF/Monika Rittershaus
Lux aeterna by Györgi Ligeti and La Transfiguration de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ by Olivier Messiaen opened the Ouverture spirituelle and thus the Festival’s concert programme on 22 July; three works by Witold Lutosławski and Tchaikovsky’s Pathétique complete it on 29 August. Both concerts stand symbolically for the concert dramaturgy of this Festival summer: “We tried to integrate music of the 20th and 21st centuries into our concert programmes as a matter of course, instead of programming it only within specifically dedicated series. Thus, more than 90 works from both centuries, 46 of them written after 1950, were performed. Our idea of combining works from the renaissance and baroque eras with modernism also met with gratifying reactions from the audience,” says Florian Wiegand, Director of Concerts.
Florian Wiegand, photo SF/ Marco Borrelli
Once again, the Kollegienkirche stood out as a venue for New Music: 82% of the works performed this summer at the church were composed after 1950. Many of these were written by the French Spectralist Gérard Grisey. The Festival dedicated one concert series to him and one to Dmitri Shostakovich, both entitled Time with… . Florian Wiegand: “I am very pleased that so many Festival visitors followed our ‘invitation’ to explore two major composers of the 20th century and their very different sound worlds. This encourages us to continue the series Time with… during the coming years.”
Riccardo Muti and Anna Netrebko in Aida, photo SF/Franz Neumayr
In addition to the great maestros of our times – Daniel Barenboim, Herbert Blomstedt, Bernard Haitink, Riccardo Muti, Kent Nagano and Simon Rattle – the younger and young generation of conductors stood out this summer. Andris Nelsons conducted the Vienna Philharmonic at the Festival for the first time, leading a work the Philharmonic had not played since 1945: Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 7. The two Greek conductors Teodor Currentzis and Constantinos Carydis demonstrated how much excitement and novelty Mozart continues to hold.
Teodor Currentzis, photo Olya Runyova
A special focus was on the ‘Nestlé and Salzburg Festival Young Conductors Award’ this summer: with Mirga Gražinyte-Tyla (2012), Maxime Pascal (2014) and Lorenzo Viotti (2015), no less than three former winners returned to the Festival. The 2016 winner, the young Uzbek Aziz Shokhakimov, convinced the Festival audience with a rendition of Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 5.
Kerem Hasan, photo SF/Andreas Kolarik
Among the finalists for 2017, the jury chose the young British conductor Kerem Hasan as the winner. He will return next year for the Prize Winner’s Concert.
Martha Argerich and Daniel Barenboim, photo SF/Marco Borrelli
The 2017 season was also a summit meeting of the greatest pianists of our times: PierreLaurent Aimard, Martha Argerich, Daniel Barenboim, Yefim Bronfman, Evgeny Kissin, Maurizio Pollini, András Schiff, Grigory Sokolov and Mitsuko Uchida. They were joined by two highly acclaimed Salzburg debutantes: Igor Levit won the audience over in three concerts with highly unusual programmes, among which his performance of the 24 Preludes and Fugues Op. 87 by Dmitri Shostakovich will certainly remain in many listeners’ memory – also as a major contribution to the series Time with Shostakovich.
Igor Levit, photo SF/Marco Borrelli
Daniil Trifonov demonstrated two very different facets of his incredible artistry in Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Vienna Philharmonic as well as in a song recital with Matthias Goerne.
Anne-Sophie Mutter and Lambert Orkis, photo SF/Marco Borrelli
There were also two song recital debuts: on the one hand, Marianne Crebassa took time off from her portrayal of Sesto in La clemenza di Tito to give an acclaimed recital (with Fazil Say at the piano); on the other, Sonya Yoncheva gave a celebrated Festival debut recital.
Anne-Sophie Mutter, who celebrated her 40-year stage anniversary in Salzburg at Whitsun 2017, performed Witold Lutosławski’s Partita for Violin and Orchestra and Chain 2 (which the composer dedicated to her) with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra under Manfred Honeck.
Sonya Yoncheva, photo Marco Borrelli
The 2017 Salzburg Festival programme included 19 performances for children and teenagers. These included eight performances of the children’s opera Der Schauspieldirektor and eight introductory workshops Fun and Games with Mozart. Furthermore, four Opera Camps were offered: one Jedermann Camp (with two final performances), two Aida Camps and one Wozzeck Camp.
Daniil Trifonov and Matthias Goerne, photo SF/Marco Borelli
Summer Revenue
ca. € 29.9 million overall (gross)
Visitors
~ 221,485 at regular events
5,770 at 3 sold-out dress rehearsals
20,580 at 54 special events
(master classes, Festival Opening Party etc.)
247,835
13,665 at 17 ticketed rehearsals and dress rehearsals
261,500
Maurizio Pollini, photo SF/Marco Borrelli
The percentage of seats sold will exceed that of the previous season (96%) by 1%, reaching a total of 97%.
Mitsuko Uchida, photo SF/Marco Borrelli
Provenance of Visitors: 79 Nations, of which 40 Non-European Nations.
Jendrik Springer and Krassimira Stoyanova, photo SF/Marco Borrelli
Thanks for financial support is also due to the public sector, which contributed a total of 12.8 million Euros to the Salzburg Festival’s overall budget of 61.69 million Euros. In particular, government funders include: The Republic of Austria, The State of Salzburg, The City of Salzburg, and the Salzburg Tourism Board, which supports the Salzburg Festival with 3.2 million Euros annually. At this point, it should be pointed out that the Salzburg Festival is a cultural institution with an exceptionally high level of self-financing.
(After Press materials)
Marianne Crebassa and Fazil Say, photo SF/Marco Borrelli
Marijan Zlobec