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 Founded
by composer Richard Strauss, poet and dramatist Hugo von
Hofmannsthal, and director Max Reinhardt, the Salzburg
Festival was born on August 22, 1920. Nestled in the princely
baroque town of Salzburg, far from the everyday bustle
of the big cities, the Salzburg Festival was immediately
recognized as a major destination by the world’s foremost directors
and artists. Visitors from 63 countries gather every summer
to enjoy the nearly 180 performances—operatic, symphonic,
solo, chamber, and dramatic—spanning six weeks in
the numerous concert halls and theaters, including the
legendary Felsenreitschule (summer riding school) and the
Grosses Festspielhaus.
Having
now entered the 21st century, maintaining the excellence
established from its infancy, the Salzburg Festival remains
the cutting-edge laboratory of artistic development that
it was on its founding day. As of 2006, the “Haus
fuer Mozart” will open its doors as the world’s
most acoustically pleasing environment to experience Mozart’s
music, a fitting tribute to the town’s most famous
son.
 The
Games of the Mighty
The
Rebel or
The Tyrant dies on the Day of Art
“The essay L’Homme révolté (The
Rebel) was published in 1951, when people were afraid of
the atomic bomb and the Cold War. Albert Camus regarded
the essay as his most important work. His Défense
de l’homme révolté (Defence of the
Rebel), written later, is not so much a response to the
critics of the book but rather the author holding a blunt
conversation with himself. The origin of every work, according
to Camus, lies in a simple and deep emotion. This does
not justify the work but is indispensable in order to understand
it. ” -Wolf Lepenies Read
whole article here.
"The
Only Air Worth Breathing is the Love of Mankind by
Jürgen
Flimm, SFS Artistic Director"
The
Kiss of Love and Death
Un
bacio... ancora un bacio
Giuseppe
Verdi, Otello
Der Liebeskuß ist
die erste Empfindung des Todes …
Richard Wagner to Cosima, 15. August 1869
“For love is as strong as death,
jealousy is as severe as Sheol”, the Bible’s
Song of Solomon says (8:6). Death and love, Eros and Hades
(in the bible: Sheol) are equally powerful adversaries.
They fight each other – just as Don Giovanni resists
the Commendatore returning from the other world and the
hell that threatens to devour him: a tremendous agon between
Eros and Thanatos in the last moments of the “dissoluto
punito”…Read
whole article here.
Nocturnal
Side of Reason (July
27–August 31)
This is a strange title
for the Salzburg Festival in 2007. At the end of Così fan
tutte, after the terrible experiment on the open heart,
the two couples allow themselves to be guided by reason, "da
ragione guidar si fa", as that is the solution. No
more emotional confusion, no dramas of jealousy, no aggrieved
souls. Many operas, not only those by Mozart, end with
this kind of appeal to reason; lovers, those who stammer
about longing, as well as kings and rulers are overwhelmed
by this clear moment of insight into reasonable, indeed
moral action. "Che al primo impero la ragione in me
ritorni"... is a verse from Mitridate. That's how
Amadé approached us last year. Is reason therefore
the panacea that now guides us forwards, accompanying us
across the black, nocturnal, immense depths of our soul? "The
human being is an abyss, when one looks inside", stammered
the hunted Woyzeck about 45 years after Mozart's death.
-Jürgen Flimm, SFS Artistic
Director
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