Salzburger Festspiele 2010

July 25 - August 30, 2010

"Where God and man collide, tragedy ensues"
(Michael Köhlmayr)

2010 will mark the 90th anniversary of the Salzburg Festival. Mythology will be the theme of this year's opera, concert and theatre program.

Opera
This year the opera program will focus on mythology. The new opera by Wolfgang Rihm, seeing its premiere at the Salzburg Festival, deals with Dionysus with texts by Nietzsche. The highlights on this year's opera program include Hofmannsthal's version of the antique tragedy, Electra by Richard Strauss, Christoph Willibald Gluck's reformation opera, Orfeo ed Euridice, and Alban Berg's Lulu, featuring the unparalleled French soprano, Patricia Petibon, in the leading role.

Theater
The interdisciplinary mythology theme can also be found in three productions on the theater program: In Peter Stein's production of Oedipus at Colonos, starring Klaus Maria Brandauer as Oedipus; in the first German performance of Jon Fosse's adaptation of Sophocles' Oedipus trilogy entitled Death in Thebes as part of the Young Directors Project and in Matthias Hartmann's production of Jean Racine's Phaedra starring Sunnyi Melles at the Landestheater.
The Salzburg Festival will also deal with the theme of Austria during its 90th anniversary, reflected in three productions: Jossi Wieler's adaptation of Stefan Zweig's novel Angst at the Landestheater, a reading of Stefan Zweig's Widerstand der Wirklichkeit (Resistance of Reality) with Klaus Maria Brandauer and an open-air performance of Max Reinhardt's original film adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Concert
The Continents series will focus on Wolfgang Rihm (*1952) in 2010, one of today's most prolific German composers. In addition to the premiere of his opera Dionysus he will also be portrayed in ten concerts as part of the Continent Rihm program.
A series of seven concerts will focus on the composer Johannes Brahms. Other featured composers will include Robert Schumann and Frédéric Chopin. A concert by two international stars, Rolando Villazón and Hélène Grimaud, on August 15 at the Large Festival Hall promises to be a special listening experience.