100 JAHRE SALZBURGER FESTSPIELE

We celebrate 100 years of the world’s most famous festival with a 58-CD retrospective, including unforgettable recordings from 1947–2016. The edition is curated in four chapters and in chronological order: Operas, Concerts, Recitals, and Spoken Word. It includes great conductors such as Abbado, Bernstein, Böhm, Karajan, Muti, Solti and Mehta, unforgettable singers such as della Casa, Domingo, Ludwig, Netrebko, Norman, Prey, Villazón and Wunderlich and outstanding soloists such as Argerich, Brendel, Mutter and Sokolov. 

A 164-page booklet with insightful essays by Karajan biographer Richard Osborne, and by Salzburg’s Director of Dramaturgy, Margarete Lasinger are complimented by detailed documentation and original stage and concert photos from the Salzburg Festival Archive. The set also includes rare recordings of particular interest such as the first CD release of Mozart’s Symphonies Nos. 26 & 30, conducted by Bernhard Paumgartner, the festival’s driving force in the 1950s and the 1958 recording of “Jedermann”, a spoken word theatre play. “Jedermann” (“Everyman”) is traditionally mounted on Salzburg’s cathedral square and is a centerpiece of the festival; and finally Karajan’s 1959 account of Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice: this was a glorious moment in Karajan’s career, and a re-enactment of his own triumphant Gluck performance from 1948.