Salzburg Festival projects return to normal next summer

The Salzburg Festival is projecting for a return to normal next summer, announcing a schedule of 228 performances over 45 days that include a new production of Béla Bartók's 'œBluebeard's Castle'ť paired with Carl Orff's 'œA Play on the End of Time.'ť

Salzburg, Europe's premier festival, cut to 110 performances in 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic and was back up to 163 last summer. Revenue dropped from 31.2 million Euros ($34.9 million) in 2019 to 8.7 million Euros ($10.4 million) before rebounding to 27.7 million Euros ($31.5 million) in 2021, when 227,000 attended.

'œWe are doing a full program. We cannot predict how it will be in the summer,'ť festival artistic director Markus Hinterhäuser said during a telephone interview. 'œWe had two summers when we had the pandemic situation and we had to react.'ť

Hinterhäuser hopes the festival's regular audience, usually drawn to Austria from more than 80 nations, will return for the first time since 2019 after skipping last summer due to travel restrictions.

'œThere were many, many countries from which people didn't come.'ť he said. 'œThey didn't come from England. They didn't come from America - very few. The Asian countries were kind of excluded. Russia was very modest. So it was more an Austrian-German-Swiss-Central European audience, which was very interesting for us. We had a kind of new audience, which promising in a way.'ť

The Bartók/Orff will be conducted by Teodor Currentzis and directed by Romeo Castellucci. The schedule announced Friday, which runs from July 18 to Aug. 31, includes new stagings of Puccini's 'œIl Trittico'ť directed by Christof Loy and conducted by Franz Welser-Möst; and Janácek's 'œKát'a Kabanová'ť directed by Barrie Kosky.

'œThere is a very common relation between these three pieces, even though the musical drama is totally different,'ť Hinterhäuser said. 'œEverything can be seen in a kind of larger perspective, referring to '~The Divine Comedy' of Dante.'ť

Returning revised versions include Verdi's 'œAida'ť in a Shirin Neshat production from 2017 starring Anna Netrebko, and Mozart's 'œDie Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute)'ť in a Lydia Steier staging from 2018.

Rossini's 'œIl Barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville),'ť directed by Rolando Villazón and starring mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli, will be transferred from the Salzburg Whitsun Festival.