It was another gem in a jewel-studded crown when jet-setting superstar conductor Herbert von Karajan launched an annual spring festival in the beautiful Austrian city of Salzburg in 1967. Von Karajan was aiming to build on the popularity of the annual summer Salzburg Festival, an event known for its brilliant operatic productions and the visionary artistic leadership that he provided at the end of the previous decade.
Each year von Karajan led his Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra in a series of operas and orchestral concerts at the Salzburg Easter Festival that showcased the brilliant orchestra and the world’s most acclaimed soloists. While most lauded von Karajan and the orchestra’s live performances as ideal, the maestro would take the orchestra into the studio to film and record the same repertoire, creating note perfect renditions of what was heard in the concert hall.
Sir Simon Rattle is now artistic director of the festival and this year he leads the Berlin Philharmonic in performances of Richard Strauss’s opera Salome and music by Ravel, Stravinsky, Rachmaninoff, Schoenberg and Mahler.
The Salzburg Easter Festival continues to be a star-studded event. In addition to Rattle and the BPO, the exciting young conductor Gustavo Dudamel will lead the orchestra with mezzo-soprano Christianne Stoijn as soloist in Berg’s Seven Early Songs, and violinist Julia Fischer will quicken pulses in the Glazunov Violin concerto with Rattle on the podium. The von Karajan tradition will also continue as the maestro’s daughter, Isabel von Karajan, will narrate Stravinsky’s Histoire du Soldat with members of the Berlin Philharmonic performing under the direction of Stanley Dodds.
If you can’t make it to Salzburg, you can still enjoy recordings of music heard at the festival as well as recordings by many of the festival stars.
Do you have a Salzburg Easter Festival memory or a favorite von Karajan performance? Please share your thoughts with us.
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by Craig Zeichner
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