27 July 27 – 31 August

The 1951 Festival was rocked by a political scandal. Gottfried von Einem had commissioned the playwright Bertolt Brecht to write a new play for the Festival entitled Totentanz (“Danse macabre’) as a replacement for Jedermann. Brecht, recently returned from his American exile, viewed Salzburg as a new forum for his art and had even applied for Austrian citizenship (it was granted in 1950). In the months thereafter, however, he cultivated ties with East German cultural officials, who offered him his own theatre, and took up residence in East Berlin. Salzburg, then at the pinnacle of the Cold War, regarded this as a form of high treason. Brecht turned down his Salzburg offices, and Gottfried von Einem, who supported him to the end, was expelled from the Festival’s board of directors.

Equally eventful was the first performance of Alban Berg’s Wozzeck conducted by Karl Böhm, which marked the arrival of modern music in the Festival. Georg Solti made his Festival début in a new production of Mozart’s Idomeneo[/I, as did Gustaf Gründgens with a staging of Shakespeare’s As You Like It.

1951: Rehearsal of Shakespeare’s As You Like It with Gustav Gründgens.

New production
William Shakespeare
As You Like It
D: Gustaf Gründgens
Ds: Wilhelm Reinking
Landestheater

New production
Heinrich von Kleist
Der zerbrochne Krug (“The Broken Jug’)
D: Berthold Viertel
Ds: Rochus Gliese
Landestheater

New production
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Idomeneo
C: Georg Solti
D: Josef Gielen
Ds/Cs: Caspar Neher
Felsenreitschule

New production
Giuseppe Verdi
Otello
C: Wilhelm Furtwängler
D: Herbert Graf
Ds: Stefan Hlawa
Cs: Eva Pohl
Festspielhaus

New production
Alban Berg
Wozzeck
C: Karl Böhm
D: Oscar Fritz Schuh
Ds/Cs: Caspar Neher
Festspielhaus

Revivals: Jedermann, Die Zauberflöte

8 orchestral concerts, 4 serenades, 3 matinées, 5 chamber concerts, 3 solo recitals, 2 choral concerts, 1 church concert, 5 concerts of sacred music

Details of the several years:

1945, 1946, 1947, 1948, 1949, 1950, 1951, 1952, 1953, 1954, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959,