The 2018 programme of the Salzburg Festival included 206 performances at 18 performance venues. “To me, happiness means seeing productions grow, instead of being merely manufactured. It is possible to enter into a pact with the audience: by meeting it with the respect it deserves, by honestly challenging it, intellectually and emotionally. I am particularly glad that the audience also greeted the works of the 20th century with great empathy,” says Artistic Director Markus Hinterhäuser.
Incoronazione di Poppea, photo SF/Maarten Vanden Abeele
“100 years after the constitutive meeting of the association to promote the building of a festival theatre on 15 August 1918, our programme has done justice to our political mission. Naturally, art cannot offer solutions for the problems of our time. Nor do we wish to issue cheap political statements along party lines. However, using our productions to inspire questions in these times of premature answers – that we have managed quite well. The fact that our audience received these questions with enormous interest only encourages us to continue our line of programming,” says Festival President Helga Rabl-Stadler.
Pique Dame 2018, photo SF/Ruth Walz
“We proudly look back on a season that was highly successful, both in artistic and economic terms. With a 97% ratio of occupied seats and 260,875 tickets issued, the festival was able to repeat the successful results of the previous year. The ticket revenues of 30.3 million Euros even exceeded last year’s. These positive results, however, should not distract from the major financial problems the festival is facing due to the overall renovation of the Großes Festspielhaus, which is an urgent necessity. This season’s events made this particularly obvious. We are currently preparing a master plan for the overall renovation. Thanks to its economic success, the Salzburg Festival Fund is able to shoulder part of the costs itself,” says Executive Director Lukas Crepaz.
Salome, photo SF/Ruth Walz
Nestlé and Salzburg Festival Young Conductors Award 2018
The Nestlé and Salzburg Festival Young Conductors Award was presented to the ninth time. The three young finalists Sergey Akimov, Gábor Káli and Erina Yashima conducted the Camerata Salzburg in the competition’s final concerts between 3 and 5 August. The winner of the 15.000-Euro award is Gábor Káli, who will conduct the Prize Winner’s Concert at the Felsenreitschule in August 2019.
L’Italiana in Algeri, photo SF/Ruth Walz
Young Singers Project
13 young vocalists took part in this year’s Young Singers Project. Its goal is to offer young talents not only musical lessons, repertoire expansion and lessons in stage comportment, but also the opportunity to attend rehearsals and work with Salzburg Festival artists.
Young Singers Project, photo SF/Marco Borrelli
The audience was able to witness their progress: for example in the public master classes with Kammersängerin Christa Ludwig, Bernarda Fink, Malcolm Martineau and Krassimira Stoyanova, but also in the production of the children’s opera Die Zauberflöte für Kinder. The highlight was the final concert of the Young Singers, which offered a varied programme focusing on the vocal qualities of each individual participant. Their future career path is wide open.
Bernarda Fink, photo SF/Marco Borrelli
The 2018 Salzburg Festival
206 Performances on 42 Days at 18 Performance Venues
Opera: 38 Performances
5 New Productions
2 Concert Performances
1 Revival of an Opera from the Salzburg Whitsun Festival
Die Zauberfloete, photo SF/Marco Borrelli
Drama: 58 Performances
4 New Productions
1 Revival of Jedermann
3 Drama Investigations
1 Marathon Film Day
3 Readings
1 Homage to Kappacher
Yuja Wang and Berliner Philharmoniker, photo SF/Marco Borrelli
89 Concerts
82 Concerts
4 Master Classes
3 Special Youth Concerts
1 Gala Soiree
Riccardo Muti and Wiener Philharmoniker, photo SF/Marco Borelli
20 Children’s Programme Performances
8 Performances of Children’s Operas
8 Introductory Workshops Fun and Games
4 Public Final Performances of the Opera Camps
The Bassarids, photo SF/Bernd Uhlig
International Recordings and Broadcasts of Festival Productions
Together with Unitel, the exclusive audiovisual media partner of the Salzburg Festival, 7 productions (5 operas and two concerts) were recorded in co-production with ORF, ZDF, 3sat, arte, Servus TV, BR and the Japanese television broadcaster NHK. In Austria, Germany and France alone, the productions from Salzburg were watched on television by more than 2.3 million viewers.
Mariss Jansons, photo SF/Anne Zeuner
The Salzburg Festival was also present on the internet: “MediciTV” and “myfidelio” offered live streams of three productions each. In addition, all the recorded Salzburg productions will be added to the “myfidelio” catalogue over the course of the coming weeks.
Placido Domingo, Javier Camarena and Riccardo Minasi, photo SF/Marco Borelli
ORF Radio broadcast 23 recordings, 4 of them opera productions. Thanks to the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) partner stations, these were transmitted to approximately 30 countries, where ca. 1.7 million music fans listened to them. All this makes the Salzburg Festival the most broadly disseminated classical music festival on television and radio airwaves.
Rolando Villazon, photo SF/Marco Borrelli
Honours and Awards
Mariss Jansons was honoured with the Festival Brooch with Rubies: Festival President Helga Rabl-Stadler presented this award to the conductor after the main orchestra rehearsal for Tchaikovsky’s Queen of Spades.
Cecilia Bartoli and Daniel Barenboim, photo SF/Marco Borrelli
Daniel Barenboim also receives the Festival Brooch with Rubies after chamber music concert. Daniel Barenboim has performed 79 times at the Salzburg Festival – conducting 24 operas, performing in 50 concerts and appearing 5 times in conversations or master classes.
Bettina Hering, Florian Wiegand, Lukas Crepaz, Helga Rabl-Stadler and Markus Hinterhäuser, photo SF/Anne Zeuner
Festival President Helga Rabl-Stadler was named an Honorary Citizen of the City of Salzburg on 30 July, in recognition of her accomplishments for the Salzburg Festival and the City of Salzburg. “No one embodies the world brand ‘Salzburg Festival’ as convincingly as Helga Rabl-Stadler. Thanks to her influence and her untiring work as the Festival’s President, she has contributed significantly to the unique identity of the Salzburg Festival and this city for many years,” said Landeshauptmann Wilfried Haslauer during the award ceremony at the Karl-Böhm-Saal.
Christa Ludwig, photo SF/Marco Borrelli
The Association of Friends of the Salzburg Festival presented a “Homage to Christa Ludwig” at the Haus für Mozart. The Kammersängerin, who celebrated her 90th birthday this year, spoke to Festival President Helga Rabl-Stadler on stage. Numerous artists made musical contributions to this afternoon. The Mayor of Salzburg, Harald Preuner, presented Christa Ludwig with the Golden Seal of the City of Salzburg.
Maurizio Pollini, photo SF/Marco Borrelli
Programming with Free Admission
The Siemens Festival Nights were founded in 2002 by Siemens Austria together with the Salzburg Festival and ORF Salzburg; this summer they took place for the 16th time. Approximately 1 million people have followed Festival performances on the daylightcompatible LED wall on Kapitelplatz so far – this year alone, there were approximately 65,000 viewers. Thus, the Salzburg Festival can claim without exaggeration that Salzburg offers the world’s largest “public screening”. This year, the 10-year anniversary of the Siemens Children’s Festival was celebrated on Kapitelplatz with a screening of the popular Magic Flute for Children of 1982.
Evgeny Kissin, photo SF/Marco Borrelli
Summer Revenue
ca. € 30.3 million overall
Visitors
~ 221,710 at regular events (current as of 27 Aug.)
5,880 at 3 sold-out dress rehearsals
18,342 at 49 special events
(master classes, Festival Opening Party etc.)
245,932
14,943 at 17 ticketed rehearsals and dress rehearsals
260,875
Andras Schiff, photo SF/Marco Borrelli
At 97%, the percentage of seats occupied will equal the previous year’s result.
Provenance of Visitors
85 Nations, of which
47 Non-European Nations
Khatia Buniatishvili, photo SF/Franz Neumayr
Thanks to its ticket revenues and the many supporters mentioned above, the Salzburg Festival has an extraordinarily high level of self-financing, reaching more than 75%. Thanks for financial support is also due to the public sector, which contributed a total of 13.4 million Euros to the Salzburg Festival’s overall 2018 budget of 60.81 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 3.36 million Euros annually. (After Press Release).
Arcadi Volodos, photo SF/Marco Borrelli
Marijan Zlobec