Revolt is the order of the day at the Salzburg Festival in 2024

“I revolt, therefore we are”: This sentence from Albert Camus guided Salzburg artistic director Markus Hinterhäuser when programming the 2024 festival. Many works are about revolt or a metaphorical approach to it “about saying no to a world”which demands more from you than you want or can.

So have all opera protagonists, from Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” (New production) about Prokofiev “The player” to Weinbergs “The idiot” (both in Salzburg for the first time), this approach. At the “player” Hinterhäuser strains the bridge to Rene Benko, who not only played with his own existence, but carried many others along with him. Peter Sellars will direct, and there will be a rehearsal with the great Asmik Grigorian. Of the five concert operas, Richard Strauss’ “Capriccio” with Regula Mühlemann.

Theater with music and dance

The new acting director Marina Davydova provides the “Man’s relationship to transcendence, to history as well as to his body and mind” at the center of their exciting programming, which is often combined with music and/or dance. Swiss director Thom Luz can be seen for the first time in Salzburg, presenting a version of Zweigs that he created “Great moments of humanity” will show. An encounter between the dancers of the Sasha Waltz & Guests Company and Stefan Kaegi from Rimini Protocol at the piece will be exciting and interactive “Mirror neurons”Davydova announced.

Another dance piece is “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” by the Swede Alexander Ekman, who is also a guest at the festival for the first time.

The “Performative discussion with an AI named Morpheus” with Stefan Kaegi, Asmik Grigorian and “Morpheus” is created in collaboration with the Ars Electronica Center in Linz. There is a cooperation with the European Capital of Culture Bad Ischl Salzkammergut at Heiner Goebbels’ “Everything that happened and would happen”. Ex-Everyman Michael Maertens returns as a reader: He reads from letters from Alexei Navalny from prison.

A total of 219,849 cards will be issued, the budget is just under 70 million euros.

Premieres in Salzburg

Opera

• J. Offenbach: “Les Contes d’Hoffmann”
• Sergei Prokofiev: “The player”
• M. Weinberg: “The idiot”
• WA Mozart: “Don Giovanni” and “The Clemenza of Tito”
• A. Thomas: “Hamlet” (conc.)
• R. Strauss: “Capriccio” (conc.)
• L. Dallapiccola: “Il Prigioniero”/L. Nono: “Il canto sospeso” (conc.)
• CEO Haas: “coma” (concert) Beat Furrer: “Desire” (conc.)

play

• HvHofmannsthal: “Anyone”
• Thom Luz (after Stefan Zweig): “Great moments of humanity”;
• N. Stemann after Aeschylus/Sophocles/Euripides: “The Oresteia”;
• S. Waltz & Guests meets Rimini Protocol: “Mirror neurons”
• A performative discussion with an AI named Morpheus;
• Simon Strauss/Zino Wey: “Forgotten pieces”;
• Krystian Lupa according to Th. Mann: “The magic Mountain”;
• H. Goebbels: “Everything that happened and would happen”;
• Alexander Ekman: “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”

Concerts and tickets: salzburgerfestspiele.at