Welcome to Salzburg Festival 2023!

Grosses Festspielhaus auditorium

This year, thousands of visitors will flock from all over the world to the Salzburg Festival to be captivated by concerts, opera and theater - 179 performances in 15 venues. The opening weekend features live musical and dance performances on the cobbled streets, as well as guided tours, exhibitions, readings and poetry to kick off the Festival. And, inside the magnificant concert hall and the Felsenreitschule venue, once used as a riding school and an open-air theater, the stage sets once more for an epic array of performances.

Blick über die Jedermann Bühne 2015 am Domplatz in Salzburg ©Tourismus Salzburg, Foto: Breitegger Günter

For summer 2023, the concert program features a list of guest orchestras including the SWR Symphony Orchestra which opens the series on the 20th of July followed by the Berlin Philharmonic and the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

Kollegienkirche © Karl Forster

Prominent conductors include Daniel Barenboem , Andris Nelsons, Kirill Petrenko and Franz Welser-Möst. Lux aeterna (Eternal light) is the subject of this year’s Ouverture spirituelle concerts which will be performed by the world renowned orchestras and soloists.

Felsenreitschule © Salzburger Festspiele / Luigi Caputo

Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s famous stage play Jedermann ( Everyman) has been performed at the Festival since it was launched in 1920 directed by Max Reinhardt. This year Michael Maertens, and Valerie Pachner are new cast members. The Festival’s drama program also includes Nathan the Wise at the Perner-Insel theatre and the much anticipated world premiere of Amour ( Love) by Michael Haneke and Die Wut, die bleibt (The Rage that Remains) at the Landestheater.

© Salzburger Festspiele / Marco Borrelli

Opera productions include Giuseppe Verdi's Macbeth and Falstaff, Bohuslav Martinů's The Greek Passion and Christoph Willibald Gluck‘s Orfeo ed Euridice as well as the local child prodigy Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's ever popular Le Nozzi de Figaro. Actually, to encourage more young people to take part in music activities the Festival launched Jung & jede*r, a children's and youth program featuring opera camps and performances of music theatre and drama.

Grosses Festspielhaus © Salzburger Festspiele / Luigi Caputo

And,the Young Singers Project and the Herbert von Karajan Young Conductors Award offer new spaces for artistic and social interaction. The three finalists Hankyeol Yoon, Tobias Wögerer and Vitali Alekseenok will conduct during the Award Concert Weekend competing for the Herbert von Karajan Young Conductors Award, open to conductors from all over the world who are older than 21 and younger than 35.

Hofstallgasse © Salzburger Festspiele / Freda Fiala

Finally, 2023 marks the 150th anniversary of Max Reinhardt’s birth; the Austrian-born theatrical producer established the Salzburg Festival with Hugo von Hofmannsthal and Richard Strauss in 1920 and this year the Festival commemorates it‘s co-founder by reconstructing his last work: the celebrated 1933 production of Faust at the Felsenreitschule, a symposium and a three-part exhibition.

“The Salzburg Festival is a feast of the arts, whose enchantment unfolds through shared experience in the here-and-now. Max Reinhardt invoked this experience in his productions and the idea of holding a festival in Salzburg, “ says Markus Hinterhäuser, Artistic Director, Salzburg Festival.

“On the occasion of his 150th birthday, we are presenting a project – together with Ars Electronica – eliminating the boundaries between stage and audience. Entirely in Max Reinhardt’s spirit, the performing arts merge with the digital ones – including virtual worlds.”

View from the tower of the Franciscan Church