Salzburg Festival

 

 

 

See, something great is coming your way, 16 Aug.

by Peter Hagmann

The best thing about Salzburg is the cooking. The rumour cook-up. There the master cooks and top chefs are getting all worked up; they twist and turn over whatever can be twisted and turned over; throw in a statement and mix in a guess. What they’re concerned with is simple, under the gaze of a broad and interested public, it consists of a short question: Who will be the artistic director of the Salzburg Festival from 2017?

The starting position looks clear. Alexander Pereira, the current incumbent, was in difficulties already after the first summer [...]. The expansion of the festival by a whole week, the overloading of the programme and the absence of an artistic concept, along with the appropriation of the festival for the self-promotion of the director – this and much else broke the camel’s back. A dispute arose over the budget for the 2013 festival between its director and his superiors, the board of trustees. Pereira’s appointment as head of La Scala in Milan from 2015 offered a way out of the difficult situation. […]