The Salzburg Easter Festival has seen success with the artistic expansion of the programme. The artistic director Nikolaus Bachler had included dance and electronic music in the program for the first time in order to realign the classical music festival founded by Herbert von Karajan in 1967. It was successful: the organizers announced on Monday that the income was higher than it had been since the anniversary year in 2017.
23,000 tickets were sold over the ten days of the festival, and the occupancy rate was 84 percent.
Among other things, the French-Israeli choreographer Emanuel Gat presented the dance creation “Dreams”, for which he was inspired by Richard Wagner’s Wesendonck songs. The German DJ and producer Westbam (Maximilian Lenz) combined several of Richard Wagner’s masterpieces with his own electronic music. According to the festival management, 700 discounted tickets were sold to young people and young adults.
At the 2024 festival, Mediterranean flair is to pervade Salzburg. It will be opened by the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia from Rome under the direction of chief conductor Sir Antonio Pappano. It presents the rarely performed opera “La Gioconda” by Amilcare Ponchielli. Anna Netrebko and Jonas Kaufmann are to sing the leading roles. The festival management announced that the dance and electro section would be continued.
