July 19 – August 31, 2025
The world’s most important festival for opera, classical music and drama will also offer an extensive program in 2025
174 performances in 45 days at 15 venues, as well as 57 performances in the youth program “jung & jeder*r.”
The theme of the 2025 Festival Summer:
“As if under a magnifying glass, our questions, our doubts, our loneliness, our fears, and our brightest hopes are condensed in these works – similar to Hofmannsthal’s Everyman, who, in the face of death, reflects on his past, whose memories congeal in the hour of death – and yet who nevertheless experiences redemption.” Kristina Hammer, Markus Hinterhäuser, Lukas Crepaz (Salzburg Festival Board of Directors)
The entire program of the Salzburg Festival
Opera
At the extremes of human existence, the audience encounters the protagonists of the coming festival summer: In Peter Eötvös’ Three Sisters the almost forgotten inhabitants of a Russian provincial town; in Schönberg’s expectation a woman wandering through the forest and, in Mahler’s “Farewell,” a plaintively lonely wanderer. A doctor in a deadly snowstorm by Vladimir Sorokin and the desperate seer Cassandra by Christa Wolf and Michael Jarrell. We look to Rome and Egypt, to the historical centers of power around Caesar, to Macbeth in Scotland and Mary Stuart in England. We meet powerful people who face the inevitable. They are all on the verge of the end, staring straight into it (Verdi’s and Sciarrino’s Macbeth), fearing it (Handel’s Giulio Cesare), staging it triumphantly (Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda), or longingly calling for it (Three Sisters). They await it in lonely solitude (Jarrell’s Cassandra), experience it in the fever of highest excitement (Erwartung), or ultimately find solace and transcendence in the cosmos (in Mahler’s Song of the Earth).
Play
Since 1920, Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s famous play “Jedermann” has been an integral part of the festival. The story tells of the wealthy Everyman, who is called to account by God at the end of his life—with Philipp Hochmair as Everyman and Deleila Piasko as the Paramour.
Other highlights include The Last Days of Mankind by Karl Kraus, Sorokin’s Blizzard (both on Perner Island) and Le Passé by Leonid Andrejew.
Concert
The Vienna Philharmonic has set the musical standard for which the Salzburg Festival is world-renowned. The Vienna Philharmonic traditionally presents five concert programs in Salzburg, including Igor Stravinsky’s THE SOLDIER’S TALE.
Chamber concerts and song recitals also offer an experience where the audience can concentrate on the music and the artists’ interpretations. Kleine Nachtmusiken, soloist concerts, and Mozart matinees offer the audience the opportunity to experience masterpieces of classical music.
jung & jede*r – The Salzburg Festival’s Youth Programme
With 57 performances and numerous school programs, the Salzburg Festival offers a wide range of activities for children and young people throughout Salzburg from April to the end of August. For music and theater fans of all ages.
On July 25, the world premiere of Sebastian Schwab’s opera for children, “Musketeers!”, will take place in the Schauspielhaus auditorium. This summer, the children’s opera orchestra will be comprised of members of the Vienna Philharmonic’s Angelika Prokopp Summer Academy for the first time. Before the performances, there will again be introductory workshops—We Play Opera!—and much more.
In the opera camps, music-loving children and young people aged 9 to 17 delve into the world of opera and spend a week at Arenberg Castle with artists and experienced educators.
