 
Heinrich Spängler
Helga Rabl-Stadler
G. Schwaighofer
Josef Hussek
Great success
The little match girl
DaPonte in Santa Fe
Masterclasses
Young Directors
Forging links
The Camerata
Compulsory
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DEAR FRIENDS OF THE SALZBURG FESTIVAL
The official opening of the Salzburg Festival 2002 will take place on the evening before the premiere of Don Giovanni on Friday, 26 July. For the first time it is to be held on the Domplatz (Cathedral Square), providing the weather is kind to us! And the opening is to be integrated into festivities that start in the afternoon and will end around midnight. On the one hand the celebration is intended to arouse curiosity about the Festival and on the other it will give local artists – covering a broad range of genres from folk music to alternative groups – a chance to present themselves.
Festival President
Helga Rabl-Stadler
During his term as artistic director of the Thalia Theater in Hamburg Jürgen Flimm was already successful in stirring up interest for art in the cool north. We are very grateful to him for making it his personal concern to give the opening of this year’s Festival a distinctive character. This is possible thanks to a subsidy from the Friends of the Salzburg Festival. Together with the city and province of Salzburg they have provided funds so that the whole city can celebrate.
The festive address, the heart of every official opening ceremony, will be held this year by our new artistic director Peter Ruzicka. His inaugural speech is entitled “The End of the Celebrations”. Here he will not be dealing with short-term statements about the programme but will reveal the intellectual themes that are of concern to the artistic director of the Festival, the composer and conductor Peter Ruzicka.
“Festivals – traditionalists or trend-setters?” is a frequently posed question. We here at the Salzburg Festival intend to show that these need not be diametrically opposed ideas but indeed combine two important functions of the Salzburg Festival that have to be fulfilled at the same time. “May people open their hearts and minds to the Salzburg Festival, as to an event which does not stand in contradiction to our modern world, a relic of the past, as it were, but on the contrary, as to an event which reveals our hidden origins” – Kurt Hübner, in his festival address in 1987 appealed to people to actively engage in art. However, it has not become easier to provide a positive answer to the question about the sense of festivals. It seems to me therefore to be all the more important to give Peter Ruzicka the chance to outline his future vision for the Salzburg Festival as over the next five years he will influence the artistic character of the Festival. This address will be published and translated into English and French and you will be able to order it from the Friends’ office.
Looking forward to welcoming you again soon in Salzburg …
Helga Rabl-Stadler
Ticket office of the Salzburg Festival
Telephone: 0043 662 8045-500
Telefax: 0043 662 8045-555
E-mail: info@salzburgfestival.at