Salzburg - Event

For ten days over Easter, the Berliner Philharmoniker decamps south to Salzburg for an opera production and various orchestral concerts at the Salzburg Easter Festival. In 2008 music director Sir Simon Rattle reaches the second part of Wagner's Ring Cycle, Die Walküre (15 & 24 March).

The Salzburg Easter Festival was established in 1968 by the then-head of the Berliner Philharmoniker, Herbert von Karajan. It has continued under both his successors: Claudio Abbado (who introduced a contemporary chamber music series, Kontrapunkte) and - since 2003 - Sir Simon Rattle.

Following Fidelio (2003), Così fan tutte (2004), Peter Grimes (2005) and Pelléas et Mélisande (2006), Rattle now turns to a four-year project to stage Wagner's Ring Cycle, shared with the Aix-en-Provence festival and both directed and designed by Stéphane Braunschweig.

Die Walküre is unveiled at the 2007 Aix-en-Provence festival and comes to Salzburg with Sir Willard White again as Wotan, Eva Johansson as Brünhilde, Lilli Paasikivi as Fricka, Robert Gambill as Siegmund, Eva-Maria Westbroek as Sieglinde and Mikhail Petrenko as Hunding.

The Berliner Philharmoniker's concert programmes are already announced. On 16 & 20 March Seiji Ozawa conducts violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter in Beethoven's Violin Concerto preceding Shostakovich's Symphony No 10. Rattle conducts the other two - Haydn's Die Schöpfung (The Creation) with soprano Genia Kühmeier, tenor Michael Schade and baritone Thomas Quasthoff (17 & 23 March); then Busoni's Sarabande (Doktor Faust Studies), Dvorák's Cello Concerto with Heinrich Schiff and Brahms' Symphony No 1 (18 & 22 March).

In accordance with Herbert von Karajan's original idea, the festival receives no public funding and relies totally on its patrons and members. Demand is so high that often there are no tickets available for the general public.