Program 8.8.-14.8.2026
Mass in C minor, Les Musiciens du Prince – Monaco/Gianluca Capuano (Salzburg Festival 2025, St. Peter’s Abbey). A SWR/ARTE, ORF and UNITEL production.
SIEMENS BREAKFAST CONCERT
Program
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART Litaniae Lauretanae B.M.V. for soloists, mixed choir, orchestra, and organ, K. 109 Mass in C minor, K. 427 (fragment)
Conductor: Gianluca Capuano
Orchestra: Les Musiciens du Prince – Monaco
Duration: 76 minutes
With: Mélissa Petit (soprano I), Patricia Nolz (soprano II), Anthony León (tenor), José Coca Loza (bass), and Il Canto di Orfeo
Opéra-comique in four acts by Georges Bizet (Salzburg Festival 2026, Großes Festspielhaus – in French). An ORF, BR/ARTE and UNITEL production
LIVE
In Carmen, we encounter an outsider who uncompromisingly seeks freedom in life and love – until her violent death at the hands of her spurned former lover, Don José. José immediately senses the power that Carmen has over him. He will fall for her, with every fibre of his being, deserting and becoming a criminal just to be near her. And when she turns away from him, he will kill her…
In her production, director and choreographer Gabriela Carrizo sets out to explore the identity and motives of this quasi-mythical woman, focusing on the perspectives of both Carmen and José. As in her creations for her Peeping Tom dance theatre company, she zooms in on the psyche and unconscious of the characters. Beyond depicting a fatal relationship, Carrizo is intent on making palpable the part played by the protagonists’ context in the story’s dynamics and tragic outcome.
Cast
Conductor: Teodor Currentzis | Director: Gabriela Carrizo (Peeping Tom) | Orchestra: Utopia | Duration: 165 minutes | With: Asmik Grigorian (Carmen), Jonathan Tetelman (Don José), Kristina Mkhitaryan (Micaëla), Davide Luciano (Escamillo), Iveta Simonyan (Frasquita), Anita Monserrat (Mercédès), Matthias Winckhler (Zuniga), Liviu Holender (Moralès), Michael Arivony (Le Dancaïre), Mingjie Lei (Le Remendado)
Asmik Grigorian as Carmen.
German opera in two acts by W. A. Mozart (Salzburg Festival 1997, Felsenreitschule – in German). An ORF production.
The noble prince Tamino falls unconscious in a desolate, rocky land when he encounters a monstrous snake seeking to end his life. Upon awakening he is confronted by a wondrous chap in a dress of feathers called Papageno, three ladies who are just as strange, and a gloriously singing Queen of the Night, who charges him with a “Mission Impossible”: To free her daughter from the clutches of a baddie called Sarastro, the boss of the sun temple. This is the beginning of a magical adventure, at the end of which the supposed bad guy Sarastro turns out to be the protector of reason and humanity. Achim Freyer’s visually overwhelming production, in comparison to numerous other versions, actually does transport the audience to a phantastic, magical land, where a furious war between good and evil is being waged.
Cast
Conductor: Christoph von Dohnányi | Director: Achim Freyer | Orchestra: Vienna Philharmonic | Duration: 168 minutes | With: René Pape (Sarastro), Michael Schade (Tamino), Natalie Dessay (Queen of the Night), Sylvia McNair (Pamina), Matthias Goerne (Papageno), Olga Schalaewa (Papagena)
Sylvia McNair as Pamina and Michael Schade as Tamino.
The play about the death of the rich man by Hugo von Hofmannsthal (Salzburg Festival 2010, Domplatz – in German). An ORF production.
The spectacular re-shuffle in Christian Stückl’s successful new interpretation of the Jedermann from the year 2002 was an absolute success: The Burgtheater stars Nicholas Ofczarek as the rich spendthrift Jedermann and Birgit Minichmayr as the electrifying paramour formed a glamorous dream couple that was lauded by the press at the Salzburg Festival. The media circus concerning the two top actors knew no bounds. Which does not change the fact that Stückl's production did away with a few customs of Salzburg’s production tradition and took a very distinct closer look at the Christian fundamentals of the mystery play: What is man when faced with death? God himself appears – as a poor neighbor, as a bum with plastic bags.
Cast
Director: Christian Stückl | Duration: 120 minutes | With: Nicholas Ofczarek (Jedermann), Birgit Minichmayr (Paramour), Martin Reinke (God), Ben Becker (Death), Peter Jordan (Good companion/Devil), Angelika Richter (Good deeds)
Birgit Minichmayr & Nicholas Ofczarek.
Opéra-bouffon in two acts and four scenes by Jacques Offenbach (Salzburg Festival 2019, Haus für Mozart – in French and German). An ORF, ZDF/ARTE and UNITEL production.
Barrie Kosky, former director of the Komische Oper Berlin and one of the most successful opera producers of the age, furiously introduced himself at the 2019 Salzburg Festival with Orphée aux enfers, the prototype of the “Offenbachiade”, i.e. operetta in its most original form. The “over the top parody on myths”, once described by Émile Zola as a “fire of irreverence”, promises entertainment from start to finish. Because Eurydike, the central figure, hates the music personified by her husband. And Orpheus himself is nothing more than a tiny, boring music teacher from Thebes; Aristaeus, the godly seducer, is a play-acting honey merchant, and Jupiter, “Father of Gods”, is a horny stud permanently looking to get laid. Offenbach’s biting mockery wonderfully puts the spotlight on bourgeois ideals and the institution of marriage.
Cast
Conductor: Enrique Mazzola | Director: Barrie Kosky | Orchestra: Vienna Philharmonic | Duration: 140 minutes | With: Marcel Beekman (Aristée/Pluton), Martin Winkler (Jupiter), Joel Prieto (Orphée), Kathryn Lewek (Eurydice), Max Hopp (John Styx), Anne Sofie von Otter (L’Opinion publique)
Kathryn Lewek as Eurydice and Max Hopp as John Styx in action.
The event is cancelled due to the UEFA Super Cup.
Dramma giocoso in two acts by W. A. Mozart (Salzburg Festival 2021, Großes Festspielhaus – in Italian). An ORF, ZDF/ARTE, NHK and UNITEL production.
Don Giovanni – just like the other pieces of Mozart’s Da Ponte cycle and the Jedermann – is a central part of the DNA of the Salzburg Festival. In 1922 Don Juan (then in German) was the first-ever opera on the program: A performance by the Vienna State Opera under the conductorship of Richard Strauss. 2021 saw a new reading of the masterpiece, which has continuously provoked new interpretations: Director Romeo Castellucci and conductor Teodor Currentzis challenge the audience to a new viewing of and listening to of the “opera of all operas”. In their opinion, approaching Don Giovanni means confronting the ambiguity and complexity as well as the inner disequilibrium that Mozart bestows upon the protagonists of his opera. Vitality and destruction: They see the fascination of this figure in this ambivalence. Furthermore, they try to capture the protagonists around Don Giovanni as sharply contrasted characters, with their own musical physiognomies, as well as with regard to their relationship to the titular hero, without simultaneously negating the comedic element of the “dramma giocoso”.
Cast
Conductor: Teodor Currentzis | Director: Romeo Castellucci | Orchestra: MusicAeterna | Duration: 211 minutes | With: Davide Luciano (Don Giovanni), Mika Kares (Il Commendatore), Nadezhda Pavlova (Donna Anna), Michael Spyres (Don Ottavio), Federica Lombardi (Donna Elvira), Vito Priante (Leporello), David Steffens (Masetto), Anna Lucia Richter (Zerlina)
Director: Romeo Castellucci.
Opera for children by Carl Orff with text edited by Armela Madreiter, and in a reduced version by Wilfried Hiller and Paul Leonhard Schäffer (Festival 2024, Schauspielhaus Salzburg – in German). A Salzburg Festival production.
SIEMENS CHILDRENS PROGRAM
“Oh, if I had only believed my daughter,” wails the father. She warned him about the king’s trust issues. … After the father had made a valuable find, the king accused him of keeping a share for himself. Now he is locked up in the dungeon. The king hears the man’s laments and summons his daughter. He asks her three riddles, which she all answers without effort. Impressed by her intelligence, he takes her as his wife. Upon disclosing another false judgement, she is banished. She is only allowed to take along “whatever her heart deems most important”. … Nine actors and a 15-person orchestra follow up on important questions for a young audience concerning justice and injustice, power and helplessness. And the question of all questions: What will the clever woman take along?
Cast
Conductor: Anna Handler
Director: Giulia Giammona
Duration: 90 minutes
Giulia Giammona directs.
A Pasticcio in two acts with music by Antonio Vivaldi (Salzburg Festival 2025, Haus für Mozart – in Italian with German Subtitles). A BR/ARTE and UNITEL production.
For over 2000 years, Ovid’s Metamorphoses have shaped our culture and served as an inexhaustible source of inspiration for countless artistic adaptations. Just as the characters within each story transform, so do the stories themselves, whose imagination and outrageousness continue to fascinate to this day. The boundaries between human and nature, gods and animals, become blurred.
From the unique diversity of Vivaldi’s arias, ensembles and choruses, a pasticcio for our time was created for Hotel Metamorphosis, one that combines individual episodes from Ovid’s Metamorphoses with Antonio Vivaldi’s virtuosic and varied music. In Ovid’s complex emotional worlds, people of today become recognisable, and Vivaldi’s music allows them to wander between melancholy and joy, between light and darkness. Cecilia Bartoli and her artist friends embody various characters on stage, each experiencing their own metamorphoses and those of others. Angela Winkler takes on the role of an Orpheus figure, roaming between realities.
Cast
Conductor: Gianluca Capuano | Director: Barrie Kosky | Orchestra: Les Musiciens du Prince – Monaco | Chor: Il Canto di Orfeo | Duration: 206 minutes | With: Cecilia Bartoli (Eurydice/Arachne), Lea Desandre (Statua/Myrrha/Echo), Nadezhda Karyazina (Minerva/Nutrice /Juno), Philippe Jaroussky (Pygmalion/Narcissus), Angela Winkler (Orpheus)
Philippe Jaroussky as Pygmalion / Narcissus.