A final goodbye to this year's Salzburg Festival

Theatre-goers leaving the Haus für Mozart with Festung Hohensalzburg in the background.

 A final goodbye to this year's Salzburg Festival, I had an amazing five days, taking in three operas and two concerts, including hearing both Riccardo Muti and Daniel Barenboim in action, as well as Dmitri Tcherniakov's first Baroque opera production, an abstract kinetic staging of a bel canto masterpiece and a reworking of an unfinished Mozart opera.

• The performers invested so much in the music that we were carried away: Raphaël Pichon & Pygmalion rethink Mozart's Zaide - opera review
• Astonishing kinetic musical theatre: Donizetti's Maria Stuarda from Ulrich Rasche with Lisette Oropesa & Kate Lindsey - opera review  
• Travelling hopefully: defying age & ill health, Daniel Barenboim conducts his West-Eastern Divan Orchestra - concert review
• Youthful tragedy & transcendental mystery: Riccardo Muti & Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in Schubert & Bruckner - concert review 
• Strange & intriguing: Dmitri Tcherniakov directs his first Baroque opera with Handel's Giulio Cesare - opera review 

You can also catch my photographs from my sightseeing ventures on Instagram:

• Churches
• Dom Quartier (including the Residenz)
• Festung Hohensalzburg

My thanks again to the festival team for their help and support in organising the trip. More next year!

The performers invested so much in the music that we were carried away: Raphaël Pichon & Pygmalion rethink Mozart's Zaide at the Salzburg Festival

Mozart: Zaide - Lea Desandre, Johannes Martin Kränzle, Pygmalion - Salzburg Festival (Photo: SF/Marco Borrelli)

Mozart: Zaide oder der Weg des Lichts, Sabine Devieilhe, Lea Desandre, Julian Prégardien, Daniel Behle, Johannes Martin Kränzle, Pygmalion, conductor: Raphaël Pichon; Salzburg Festival at the Felsenreitschule, Salzburg
Reviewed 17 August 2025

A new version of Mozart's Zaide with extra music from other sources including Davide Penitente to create a modern version of the story in a performance notable for its musical riches

For Raphaël Pichon's latest project at the Salzburg Festival with his ensemble Pygmalion, he turned to Mozart's unfinished opera Zaide. Written as a speculative venture in 1779, Mozart put the work to one side in favour of Idomeneo and never returned to it. When he did return to writing a singspiel, the result was Die Entführung aus dem Serail which premiered in Vienna in 1782. The surviving material from Acts 1 and 2 of Zaide was discovered amongst his papers after his death. The spoken dialogue has been lost but Mozart's music is of sufficient quality to make people attempt a completion.

On 17 August 2025, Raphaël Pichon and Pygmalion presented Zaide oder der Weg des Lichts at the Felsenreitschule at the Salzburg Festival. The work was a pasticcio combining music from Zaide, the incidental music from Thamos, König in Ägypten and Davide Penitente, with new spoken dialogue by Lebanese-Canadian writer Wajdi Mouawad, director of the Theatre national de la Colline in Paris. The event was directed, designed and lit by Bertrand Couderc with choreography by Evelin Facchini. Sabine Devieilhe was Zaide, Lea Desandre was Persada, Julian Prégardien was Gomatz, Daniel Behle was Soliman and Johannes Martin Kränzle was Allazim, plus dancers Tommy Cattin and Sabrina Rocha.

It was billed as a semi-staging but there was nothing half-hearted about the production. Raphaël Pichon and his large instrumental ensemble were one side of the Felsenreitschule's large stage whilst the other was an acting area. The production was modern dress and very definitely off the book.

Mozart: Zaide - Sabine Devieilhe, Julien Prégardien, Pygmalion - Salzburg Festival (Photo: SF/Marco Borrelli)

An astonishing piece of kinetic musical theatre: Donizetti's Maria Stuarda at Salzburg Festival, directed by Ulrich Rasche with Lisette Oropesa & Kate Lindsey

Donizetti: Maria Stuarda - Bekhzod Davronov, Thomas Lehmann, Kate Lindsey - Salzburg Festival (Photo: SF/Monika Rittershaus)

Donizetti: Maria Stuarda; Lisette Oropesa, Kate Lindsey, Bekhzod Davronov, director: Ulrich Rasche, Vienna Philharmonic, conductor: Antonello Manacorda; Salzburg Festival at the Grosses Festspielhaus, Salzburg
Reviewed 16 August 2025

Donizetti's bel canto opera as an abstract combination of music and movement, with intensely committed and commanding performances from the two protagonists

Donizetti's Maria Stuarda without any monarchical iconography or 17th century political background? Why not? After all, when Joan Sutherland sang the role at Covent Garden with Huguette Tourangeau as Elisabetta (in 1977, using English National Opera's classic John Copley production) reviewers commented that it was less about Mary, Queen of Scots and more about two operatic divas facing off.

For theatre director Ulrich Rasche, his production of Donizetti's Maria Stuarda at the Salzburg Festival was only his third music theatre staging and his first bel canto opera. The result was an astonishing piece of kinetic musical theatre

I caught the performance of Donizetti's Maria Stuarda on 16 August 2025 at the Grosses Festspielhaus as part of the Salzburg Festival. Ulrich Rasche directed and designed the sets with costumes by Sara Schwartz, video by Florian Hetz, lighting by Marco Giusti and choreography by Paul Blackman. Kate Lindsey was Elisabetta and Lisette Oropesa was Maria, with Bekhzod Davronov as Leicester, Aleksei Kulagin as Talbot, Thomas Lehman as Cecil and Nino Gotoshia as Anna. Antonella Manacorda conducted the Vienna Philharmonic and Angelika Prokopp Summer Academy of the Vienna Philharmonic, with the Concert Association of the Vienna State Opera Chorus and dancers from SEAD — Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance.

Donizetti: Maria Stuarda final scene - Salzburg Festival (Photo: SF/Monika Rittershaus)

Travelling hopefully: defying age & ill health, Daniel Barenboim conducts his West-Eastern Divan Orchestra in Wagner, Mendelssohn & Beethoven at the Salzburg Festival

Wagner: Siegfried Idyll - Daniel Barenboim, West-Eastern Divan Orchestra - Grosses Festspielhaus, Salzburg Festival (Photo: SF/Marco Borelli)

Wagner: Siegfried Idyll, Mendelssohn: Piano Concerto No. 1 in G minor, Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 'Eroica'; Lang Lang, West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, Daniel Barenboim; Salzburg Festival at Grosses Festspielhaus, Salzburg
Reviewed 15 August 2025

Daniel Barenboim defies age and illness to conduct his orchestra in a programme full of prescient hints of today and in performance that reflected a lifetime of experience.

In February of this year, Daniel Barenboim announced that he was suffering from Parkinson's Disease and as such his appearance with the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra at the Salzburg Festival on 15 August must seem something of a miracle. His progress across the platform of the Grosses Festspielhaus towards the podium was slow yet steady and inexorable, his eyes bright at the warm audience response. His West-Eastern Divan Orchestra has never felt so important and so pertinent. 

There were few concessions to age or ill health in the evening. Barenboim conducted a substantial programme, Wagner's Siegfried Idyll, Mendelssohn's Piano Concerto No. 1, with soloist Lang Lang, and Beethoven's Symphony No. 3 'Eroica'. It was an intriguing and surprisingly current programme that encapsulated the 19th century struggles with antisemitism and with overweening authority figures. It did not preach but it made you think.

Mendelssohn: Piano Concerto No. 1 - Lang Lang, Daniel Barenboim, West-Eastern Divan Orchestra - Grosses Festspielhaus, Salzburg Festival (Photo: SF/Marco Borelli)

Youthful tragedy and transcendental mystery: Riccardo Muti & Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in Schubert & Bruckner at Salzburg Festival

Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Riccardo Muti - Grosses Festspielhaus, Salzburg Festival (Photo: SF/Marco Borelli)

Schubert: Symphony No. 4 'Tragic', Bruckner: Mass in F minor; Ying Fang, Wiebke Lehmkuhl, Pavol Breslik, William Thomas, Konzertvereinignung Wiener Staatopenchor, Wiener Philharmoniker, Riccardo Muti; Salzburg Festival at Grosses Festspielhaus, Salzburg
Reviewed 15 August 2025

Under veteran conductor Riccardo Muti's deft direction the Vienna Philharmonic were on form in large scale symphonic accounts of a youthful Schubert symphony and one of Bruckner's great masses

For the Vienna Philharmonic's concert at the Salzburg Festival on the morning of 15 August (the Feast of the Assumption) they were conducted by the apparently ageless (he is 84) Riccardo Muti in Schubert's Symphony No. 4 in C minor 'Tragic' and Bruckner's Mass in F minor with soloists Ying Fang, Wiebke Lehmkuhl, Pavol Breslik, William Thomas, and the Concert Association of the Vienna State Opera Chorus.

There is some 50 years between the two works. Schubert's symphony was written in 1816 (the composer was a mere 19) for a good amateur orchestra yet not highly regarded by the composer and apparently unperformed until ten years after his death. Bruckner's mass was written in 1867/68 for Linz but the conductor found the mass too long and unsingable and it had to wait until 1872 for its premiere. Both are works probably written for relatively compact forces yet both have what we might term symphonic aspirations and Riccardo Muti's large-scale approach in both reaped dividends.

Bruckner: Mass in F minor - Ying Fang, Wiebke Lehmkuhl, Pavol Breslik, William Thomas, Concert association of the Vienna State Opera Chorus, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Riccardo Muti - Grosses Festspielhaus, Salzburg Festival (Photo: SF/Marco Borelli)

Strange & intriguing: Dmitri Tcherniakov directs his first Baroque opera with Handel's Giulio Cesare in Salzburg

Handel: Giulio Cesare in Egitto - Robert Raso (Curio), Lucile Richardot (Cornelia), Yuriy Mynenko (Tolomeo), Andrey Zhilikhovsky (Achilla) - Salzburg Festival (Photo: SF/Monika Rittershaus)

Handel: Giulio Cesare in Egitto: Christophe Dumaux, Olga Kulchynska, Lucile Richardot, Federico Fiorio, Yuriy Mynenko, Andrey Zhilikhovsky, director: Dmitri Tcherniakov, Le Concert d'Astrée, Emmanuelle Haïm; Salzburg Festival at Haus für Mozart
Reviewed 14 August 2025

Despite Dmitri Tcherniakov's updating of the drama, there was something weirdly compelling about the performance. The cast really convinced you that these people mattered, that we needed to watch their drama.

Asking Dmitri Tcherniakov to direct Handel's Giulio Cesare in Egitto, the director's first Baroque opera, was never going to produce a straightforward piece of music theatre. But that is what festivals are for, to push boundaries and to create events not possible in the regular theatrical mill. Salzburg Festival did just that, and Tcherniakov's take on Handelian Opera Seria is a big feature of this year's festival.

I caught the penultimate performance of Handel's Giulio Cesare in Egitto on 14 August 2025 at the Haus für Mozart as part of the Salzburg Festival. Dmitri Tcherniakov directed and designed the sets, with costumes by Elena Zaytseva, and Emmanuelle Haïm conducted Le Concert d'Astrée. Christophe Dumaux was Cesare with Olga Kulchynska as Cleopatra, Lucile Richardot as Cornelia, Federico Fiorio as Sesti, Yuriy Mynenko as Tolomeo, and Andrey Zhilikhovsky as Achilla.

In an interview in the programme book Tcherniakov commented that 'At first, it [Baroque Opera] left me baffled', going on to add, 'how to make the characters feel alive when all I have were about forty exquisite arias - and little else'.

His solution was to place the action in the present, after an apocalyptic event. The evening began with warning sirens and the events unfolded in a nuclear bunker. The chorus (sung by Bachchor Salzburg) was an invisible presence, singing from the balcony and playing no part in the stage action, leading you to wonder, did they even exist in Tcherniakov's revised scenario.

His fixed set presented three areas, one colonised by Cesare and Curio, another by Cornelia and Sesto and a third by the Egyptians. For much of Act One, the entire cast was present all the time, gone was the concept of the Exit Aria. At times it felt like Tcherniakov had been watching too many Katie Mitchell productions; he gave us two other visual contexts to compete with the main aria. For instance, towards the end of Act One, this meant Lucile Richardot's Cornelia and Federico Fiorio's Sesto having to compete with Christophe Dumaux (Cesare) stripping down to his underpants before retiring to bed!

Handel: Giulio Cesare in Egitto - Christophe Dumaux (Giulio Cesare), Federico Fiorio (Sesto), Lucile Richardot (Cornelia), Andrey Zhilikhovsky (Achilla), Olga Kulchynska (Cleopatra), plus Rene Keller as Pompeo - Salzburg Festival (Photo: SF/Monika Rittershaus)

What this did was enable Tcherniakov to recontextualise arias by having different characters present and reacting to the singer, thus creating a more complex web of inference and influence. When Olga Kulchynska's Cleopatra told Yuriy Mynenko's Tolomeo about the Roman's reception of Pompeo's head (here his full body), Tolomeo already knew this but Tcherniakov made it clear this was all part of the siblings' games with each other. Two lesser-known arias for Cesare and Cleopatra in Act One acted as an extension of their wooing. This recontextualisation got more problematic in Act Two when Yuriy Mynenko's Tolomeo ordered the arrest of Cornelia and Sesto, with Cornelia to be put into the harem, though by this point in the opera we had come to suspect that Yuriy Mynenko's Tolomeo may have been somewhat delusional.

The perspicacious amongst you will have realised that with this scenario Dmitri Tcherniakov rather dug himself into a hold when it came to Act Three.

In my end is my beginning: Dmitri Tcherniakov directs Handel's Giulio Cesare in Egitto & Ulrich Rasch directs Donizetti's Maria Stuarda at the 2025 Salzburg Festival

Salzburg - Hofstallgasse at Night (Photo: TSG Breitegger)

For Markus Hinterhäuser, artistic director of the Salzburg Festival, the main theme of the 2025 Festival (18 July to 31 August 2025) can be summed up in Mary, Queen of Scot's motto 'in my end is my beginning'. But for all Hinterhäuser's admirably coherent programming, 2025 is likely to be the year that Dmitri Tcherniakov directed Handel's Giulio Cesare in Egitto and Ulrich Rasch directed Donizetti's Maria Stuarda. The opera selection is admirably catholic, there are also a new productions of Péter Eötvös' Three Sisters and Schoenberg's Erwartung along with a revival of Verdi's Macbeth in Krzysztof Warlikowski's production.

This will be Dmitri Tcherniakov's debut at the Salzburg Festival but he will be teaming up again with conductor Emmanuelle Haim (conducting her own period-instrument ensemble), the two of them having worked on Tcherniakov's Gluck Iphigenia project at Aix-en-Provence this Summer. In Giulio Cesare, the title role will be sung by Christophe Dumaux with Olga Kulchynska as Cleopatra, Lucile Richardot as Cornelia, countertenor Federico Fiori as Sesto and countertenor Yuriy Mynenko as Tolomeo. It will be interesting to see what version of the opera Tcherniakov and Haim come up with (ie what cuts they implement) as well as finding out how Tcherniakov deals with the dramaturgy of opera seria. One thing, however, is certain, it won't be boring and Dumaux has long experience in the role of Cesare, we saw him way back in 2011 at Royal Theatre at Versailles [see my review].

The Hills Are Alive with the Sound of Muzak - New Year in Salzburg

Großes Festspielhaus, Salzburg

New Year’s Eve concert (Silvesterkonzert); Eva Hinterreithner (mezzo-soprano), Markus Obereder (tenor/baritone saxophone), Daniel Strasser (tenor), Helmut Zeilner (tenor), Das Ballaststofforchester Salzburg conducted by Egon Achatz; SZENE, Salzburg
New Year’s Day concert (Neujahrskonzert); Rossini The Thieving Magpie, Paganini: Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, No.2, in B minor; Mendelssohn: Symphony No.4 in A major (The Italian), Benjamin Schmid (violin), Symphonieorchester Vorarlberg conducted by Leo McFall; Großes Festspielhaus, Salzburg
Reviewed by Tony Cooper: 31 December 2022 / 1 January 2023 Star rating: 5.0 (★★★★★)

Our correspondent Tony, sees the Old Year out in Salzburg with an evening of songs from the Golden Age of operetta, and rings in the New with some dazzling Paganini.

Two contrasting concerts from Salzburg, the Ballastofforchester Salzburg under Egon Achatz in a New Year's Eve concert of jazz-age songs and operetta at SZENE (31 December 2022), and then violinist Benjamin Schmid, Symphonieorchester Vorarlberg conducted by Leo McFall in Rossini, Paganini and Mendelssohn at the Großes Festspielhaus (1 January 2023).

The Ballaststofforchester Salzburg, under the direction of Egon Achatz, delighted a packed and excited house seemingly on fire in the SZENE concert hall (originally built to house Salzburg’s first Cinemascope theatre in 1950 but converted into a concert hall in 2002) for their New Year’s Eve jazz-orientated party (Silvesterkonzert). 

They performed a host of Big Band numbers to some unforgettable songs from the Golden Age of Austrian/German operetta to the rousing, roaring and freewheeling decades of the 1920s to the 1940s, a repertoire that they have revelled in successfully for the past quarter century.

Medea, Alcina, Oedipus, Idomeneo and Orpheus: Salzburg Festival 2019

Achim Freyer, who directs Enescu's Oedipe at Salzburg in 2019
(photo Monika Rittershaus)

The Salzburg Festival breezed into town on Wednesday to launch the 2019 festival in the elegant surroundings of Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac in Dover Street. The festival is gradually moving towards its major milestone, as 2020 will be the festival's centenary. Whilst attention often focuses on the festival's opera productions (this year there are five new productions, two revivals and two operas presented in concert), the majority of the music at the festival is given at the concerts (over 80 concerts as opposed to around 40 opera performances), and as an English-speaking journalist I find it fatally easy to overlook the festival's spoken word programme. In 2019 there are five plays being presented including Ferenc Molnár's Liliom (perhaps best known in the English-speaking world as the source for Rodgers and Hamerstein's Carousel) and Odon von Horvath's Jugend Ohne Gott, but the centrepiece is always the annual performance of Hugo von Hoffmansthal's Jedermann, which is being performed outdoors in the Domplatz.

The 2019 opera programme at the festival has an implicit theme of myth and how it relates to the human condition. It is noticeable that artist director Markus Hinterhauser has chosen quite a few of the directors from people who worked at previous festivals and there is very much a sense of him creating a house style, working with a selected group of directors.

Simon Stone, who directs Cherubini's Medée
at Salzburg in 2019 (Photo Sandra Then)

The highlight for me must be the new production of Cherubini's Medée, directed by Simon Stone, in a production which is described as 'decidedly contemporary' with Thomas Hengelbrock conducting the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra with Sonya Yoncheva in the title role. The opera is being given in French, so we must presume the original version with spoken dialogue is being used though none of the singers is a native French speaker. Another highlight must be on of the real masterworks of the 20th century, Enescu's Oedipe directed by Achim Freyer with Ingo Metzmacher conducting the Vienna Philharmonic, with Chirstopher Maltman in the title role and John Tomlinson as Tiresias.

And the chamber music of Enescu is the focus of one of the festival's concert strands, Zeit mitEnescu, with five concerts each featuring a work by Enescu.


The opera programme opens with a new production of Mozart's Idomeneo directed by Peter Sellars, and with Teodor Currentzis conducting the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, with Russell Thomas and Paula Murrihy as Idomeneo and Idamante.  A lighter approach to myth is Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld which is being directed by Barrie Kosky. And the final new production is Verdi's Simon Boccanegra, what Markus Hinterhauser described as Verdi's most pessimistic and fatalistic work, which is being directed by Andrea Kriegnburg and conducted by Valery Gergiev with Luca Salis, Marina Rebeka, Rene Pape and CHarles Castronovo.


Romeo Castellucci's production of Richard Strauss' Salome is returning, with Asmik Grigorian in the title role, and Damiano Michieletto's new production of Handel's Alcina from the Salzburg Easter Festival is appearing at the Whit Festival with Cecilia Bartoli, Philippe Jaroussky and Sandrine Piau. The two concert performances are Cilea's Adriana Lecouvreur with Anna Netrebko, and Verdi's Luisa Miller.

Other approaches to Medea appear in the festival too, with showings of Pasolini's film Medea which features Maria Callas in the title role, and a performance of Pascal Dusapin's opera for solo soprano Medeamaterial which forms the centrepiece of another strand in the festival Zeit mit Dusapin with a series of concerts themed around the work of the French composer as well as an exhibition of his photographs.

The main orchestral strand includes concerts from the Vienna Philharmonic with conductors including Herbert Blomstedt and Bernard Haitink, as well as visiting orchestras including the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. Herbert Blomstedt is also conducting the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester with baritone Christian Gerhaher performing Dvorak's Biblical Songs. And Gerhaher is also giving a song recital at the festival performing Purcell, Brahms and Mussorgsky with pianist Gerold Huber.

Full details from the Salzburg Festival website.