23 July – 31 August

To commemorate Mozart’s 250th birthday Peter Ruzicka put all 22 operas by Mozart on the programme of the Salzburg Festival and thus made his last season as artistic director a record summer. Never before had there been so many productions and performances in a festival season, never before did so many visitors come to Salzburg, and revenue was the highest achieved in the festival’s history. The new production of Le nozze di Figaro (conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt and directed by Claus Guth) was the first premiere in the new Haus für Mozart and enthusiastically received. Rarely heard works such as Il re pastore, Il sogno di Scipione as well as the double bill Apollo and Hyacinth and Die Schuldigkeit des ersten Gebotes attracted huge crowds of visitors. All 22 productions were recorded and have recently been issued as DVDs. The concert programme had a radical concept: only works by Mozart coupled with music of the 21st century were performed and 16 commissioned works were given their world premiere. Head of drama Martin Kusej devoted himself this time to comedy and presented a brilliant opening with his production of Nestroy’s Höllenangst (Fear of Hell). Together with Alexander Kluge he hosted a salon to investigate the fundamental principles of comedy; authors, philosophers, musicians, gourmet chefs and a football trainer were his guests. Dimiter Gotscheff directed Molière’s Tartuffe, Stefan Bachmann directed Kleist’s Amphitryon and the Parisian company Deschamps & Makeieff made a guest appearance with their marvellous production Les Étourdis. Young German-speaking directors took part in the Young Directors Project 2006; David Bösch was the winner with his production of Shakespeare’s Much Ado about Nothing.

Details of the several years:

2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006,