At 6:30 pm, at the Haus für Mozart:

HOTEL METAMORPHOSIS, by A. Vivaldi

Les Musiciens du Prince — Monaco

Chorus Il Canto di Orfeo

Gianluca Capuano : Conductor

Barrie Kosky : Director and Concept

Cecilia Bartoli : Arachne/Eurydice

Varduhi Abrahamyan : Minerva/Nutrice

Lea Desandre : Echo/Statua/Myrrha

Philippe Jaroussky : Narcissus/Pygmalion

Angela Winkler : Orpheus

Antonio Vivaldi is one of the most famous and legendary musicians in the history of music, but for a long time he was recognised only as a composer of instrumental works. When Cecilia Bartoli released the first of her successful albums devoted to Vivaldi in 1999, she launched one of the most incredible revivals ever granted to a composer’s output. The Salzburg Festival is breaking new ground for its 2025 edition, with the great director Barrie Kosky imagining a new reading of the Venetian musician’s work. A selection of Vivaldi arias will be interwoven with a German translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, reflecting a world in constant flux. The vocal cast is nothing short of astonishing, with the fabulous Bartoli joined by Armenian mezzo Varduhi Abrahamyan and two of the great French Baroque singers of our time: Lea Desandre and Philippe Jaroussky. Vivaldi fever undergoes another magnificent metamorphosis.

Optional show:

At 7pm, at the Grosses Festspielhaus:

MACBETH, by G. Verdi

Vienna Philharmonic

Concert Association of the Vienna State Opera Chorus
Philippe Jordan : Conductor

Krzysztof Warlikowski : Director

Vladislav Sulimsky : Macbeth

Tareq Nazmi : Banco

Asmik Grigorian : Lady Macbeth

Natalia Gavrilan : Lady-in-waiting to Lady Macbeth

Davide Tuscano : Malcolm

Ilia Kazakov : Docteur

Verdi’s Macbeth is as much a Greek tragedy as a thriller. Following divine intervention, an individual is driven to a life of crime and madness. Verdi’s music brings to this descent into hell an indescribable feverishness in which the most human feelings are portrayed with force and subtlety. An opera as terrible and fascinating as this needs a great director.

Acclaimed at the Salzburg Festival in 2023, Krzysztof Warlikowski‘s production impressed audiences at the Grosses Festspielhaus with its depth and boldness. The show reunites with its conductor, the Swiss Philippe Jordan, principal baton of the Vienna Opera, who leads the legendary Vienna Philharmonic. To interpret this Shakespearean tragedy, Salzburg boasts an exceptional male duo: the Belarusian Vladislav Sulimsky as Macbeth and the Belgian Tareq Nazmi as Banco. But all eyes will be on Asmik Grigorian‘s incendiary Lady Macbeth, a dramatic temperament like few others in history. The soprano thrives in both the score’s Belcantist vertigo and the hallucinatory sleepwalking scene. Sublime!

At 11am, at the Grosses Festspielhaus:

VIENNA PHILARMONIC & MUTI

Vienna Philharmonic
Concert Association of the Vienna State Opera Chorus

Riccardo Muti : Conductor

Ying Fang : Soprano
Wiebke Lehmkuhl : Alto
Pavol Breslik : Tenor
William Thomas : Bass

Programme:
– F. Schubert: Symphony No. 4 in C minor D. 417 — ‘Tragic’
– A. Bruckner: Mass No. 3 in F minor for soloists, mixed choir and orchestra WAB 28.

Riccardo Muti is one of the legends of orchestral conducting. The Neapolitan conductor, currently director of the prestigious Chicago Symphony Orchestra, leads a group he has known for decades (he has conducted the New Year’s Concert seven times!) in an astonishing programme. Schubert’s Symphony No. 4 was written by a young man of nineteen. Dazzled by Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5, the young Franz wanted to confront his elder’s model with a work of dark, tragic sound. Half a century later, Anton Bruckner was dazzled by the music of Richard Wagner, and the shadow of the composer of Tristan and Isolde hung over the Austrian musician’s output. With Mass No. 3, Bruckner created one of his first masterpieces, imbued with a profound mysticism. Vocal quartet, choir and orchestra come together as if in a cathedral.

At 7:30pm, at the Grosses Festspielhaus:

WEST-EASTERN DIVAN ORCHESTRA & BARENBOIM

West-Eastern Divan Orchestra
Daniel Barenboim : Conductor

Lang Lang : Piano

Programme:
– F. Mendelssohn: Piano Concerto No. 1 in G minor op. 25
– L. van Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major op. 55 — ‘Eroica’

Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 marks an important musical milestone. It is true that Mozart’s last symphonies showed a new magnitude in the genre. But never before had a composer been so grandiose, while respecting the formal framework of the symphony form. The length of the first movement alone (over a quarter of an hour) was unusual at the time (only the famous Ode to Joy from Symphony No. 9 would be longer among Beethoven’s movements). The excessiveness and solemnity of Symphony No. 3, known as the ‘Eroica’, opened the gates to Romanticism and ushered in a sumptuous musical period. Since its creation in 1999, the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, which brings together Arab and Jewish musicians, has dazzled audiences the world over with its excellence and humanist message. For this concert, its legendary conductor, Daniel Barenboim, invites the star Lang Lang to perform Mendelssohn’s rare and luminous Piano Concerto No. 1.

At 11am, at the Grosses Festspielhaus:

MOZART MATINEE BY KYOHEI SORITA

Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg

Kyohei Sorita : Conductor

Kyohei Sorita : Piano

Programme:
– W. A. Mozart:

Symphony in G major K. 318; Piano concerto in E-flat major K. 271 — ‘Jeunehomme’; Overture to the opera Le nozze di Figaro K. 492; Piano concerto in D major K. 537 — ‘Coronation’.

55 years! It had indeed been more than half a century since a Japanese pianist had won a major award at the prestigious Chopin International Piano Competition since Mitsuko Uchida. Remember the name Kyohei Sorita. The new star of Japanese music presents here a Mozartian program, which he also conducts from the keyboard. In 1777, Mozart was twenty-one years old and suffered from the lack of recognition by the Salzburg aristocracy. After a stay in Munich and on the eve of departing for a stay in Paris (which would prove disastrous), the Austrian composer broke traditional conventions in the concerto known as “Jeunehomme“ (named after the pianist to whom it was dedicated).

Later, the Piano Concerto No. 26, known as the “Coronation” Concerto, also stood out in Mozart’s body of work. Its subtitle stems from the fact that it was premiered shortly after the coronation of Leopold II in Frankfurt in 1790. In this masterpiece of maturity, the piano dazzles with virtuosic brilliance, much like in Mozart’s youthful concertos.

At 7pm, at the Stiftung Mozarteam, Grosser Saal :

MARIA STUARDA, by G. Donizetti

Vienna Philharmonic
Concert Association of the Vienna State Opera Chorus

Antonello Manacorda : Conductor
Ulrich Rasche : Director

Kate Lindsey : Elisabeth
Lisette Oropesa : Marie Stuart
Bekhzod Davronov : Roberto, Count of Leicester
Aleksei Kulagin : Georges Talbot
Thomas Lehman : Lord Guillaume Cecil

Maria Stuarda is now a major opera of the bel canto repertoire. Yet, it is hard to believe that the work was largely forgotten throughout the 19th century before being rediscovered during the golden age of recording in the late 1950s.

The greatest singers have since taken on the roles of Mary Stuart and Elizabeth I: Montserrat Caballé and Shirley Verrett, Joan Sutherland and Marilyn Horne. The confrontation scenes between the two queens rank among the most explosive (and exhilarating!) moments in the operatic repertoire, with Donizetti’s music achieving extraordinary feats of drama and vocal pyrotechnics.

This new production at the Salzburg Festival has been entrusted to German director Ulrich Rasche, a renowned specialist in ancient theater. The performance will also feature the dazzling soprano Lisette Oropesa, while Kate Lindsey establishes herself as the leading American mezzo of her generation.