Salzburg Festival

In a city that has preserved its baroque architecture in almost perfect condition and therefore is a breathtaking backdrop in itself, the Salzburg Festival presents performances of opera, plays and concerts of the highest artistic standards over a period of five to six weeks each summer. The Salzburg Festival is often described as the greatest and most important festival in the world, and this reputation is confirmed by countless superlatives: witness the number of performances and of annual visitors, or the wide-ranging programme. Conductors, stage-directors, orchestras, singers, actors and virtuoso instrumentalists of world renown can be seen and heard in July and August in the town on the river Salzach. Even the most eminent opera stars come together here to rehearse productions intensively for several weeks, thereby fulfilling the creed of the Salzburg Festival as it was originally envisioned by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, one of the Festival’s founding fathers: "Dramatic play-acting in the strongest sense is our intention; routine, run-of-the-mill performances have no place here."