The 2024 Salzburg Festival was ceremoniously opened yesterday (July 26th) by Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen in the Felsenreitschule – as well as live on ORF 2, 3sat and on ORF ON. The festivities continued today, on Saturday, July 27th, in Salzburg with the ORF’s traditional annual festival reception, which was attended by General Director Roland Weißmann on the occasion of the evening “Everyman” TV premiere (8:15 p.m., ORF 2 and ORF ON). had invited the residence in the DomQuartier next to the Domplatz, where the next live performance of the new “Aktivermann” took place immediately afterwards. The focus of the event, moderated by ORF-TV head of culture Martin Traxl and attended by around 150 invited high-profile guests from art and culture, media, business and politics, was the successful collaboration between the public broadcaster and the festival, which is taking part again this year a tri-media focus comprising around 100 program hours (details at presse.orf.at). A special reason for celebration was a new framework agreement with which the two institutions extended their almost 100-year partnership into the future.
The signing by ORF general director Roland Weißmann, Salzburg’s director Markus Hinterhäuser and his commercial director Lukas Crepaz, state governor Wilfried Haslauer, festival president Kristina Hammer and the entire ORF management with commercial director Eva Schindlauer, program director Stefanie Groiss-Horowitz, radio director Ingrid Thurnher and the technical director Harald Kräuter, as well as state director Waltraud Langer, Ö1 boss Silvia Lahner and the ORF III managing directors Peter Schöber and Kathrin Zierhut-Kunz, “Everyman” Philipp Hochmair also didn’t miss out and graduated – for his own sake Domplatz appearance already in costume and mask – a short visit. He summed up his Domplatz performance in three words: “Heated, erotic and explosive!”
“The Salzburg Festival and the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation are two essential pillars of the cultural nation of Austria. The ORF has an almost 100-year successful partnership with what is probably the most important classical music festival in the world, which we are now extending with a new framework agreement. This means that the Salzburg Festival, as a top content provider, will continue to be the program highlight of the annual ORF cultural summer, which offers everyone in Austria the opportunity to be there and experience outstanding festival highlights,” says ORF General Director Mag. Roland Weißmann. “In 2024 we will once again present our audience with around 100 hours of Salzburg programming on TV and radio with live broadcasts and recordings of top-class operas and concerts, accompanying documentaries, artist portraits, magazine programs and detailed cultural reporting. My thanks go to everyone involved for the wonderful collaboration, especially the Salzburg Festival and our production and sales partner UNITEL, as well as all employees for their commitment.”
Hinterhäuser: “Reaffirmation of our intensive partnership”
“The signing of this framework agreement is an affirmation of our intensive partnership with the ORF, which can look back on decades of proven tradition,” emphasizes the director of the Salzburg Festival, Markus Hinterhäuser.
Haslauer: “Always a success story” and “ORF is an indispensable ambassador for Salzburg”
“The collaboration between the ORF and the Salzburg Festival has always been a success story, which guarantees that this world-famous cultural flagship of our country can be brought to all people interested in art and culture at the highest level through media and technology. With over 100 hours of programming to and from the Salzburg Festival, the ORF is an indispensable ambassador for Salzburg. On the one hand, he delivers images of Salzburg all over the world and on the other hand, he brings culture into people’s living rooms. The diverse ORF offerings are, so to speak, an expression of the fact that through the wonders of technology, the wonders of culture become readable, audible, visible and ultimately tangible for the miracle of humanity,” emphasizes Governor Dr. Wilfried Haslauer.
The ORF Festival reception was also attended by, among others, Salzburg Festival concert director Florian Wiegand, board of trustee members Johannes Honsig-Erlenburg (President of the Mozarteum Foundation) and Christian Kircher (Managing Director of the Bundestheater-Holding), as well as the board of the Friends of the Salzburg Festival Siegbert Stronegger, United Stage Vienna managing director Franz Patay, Vienna Music Association director Stephan Pauly, also the board of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Rapid president and former ORF general director Alexander Wrabetz with “Golden Note” initiator and presenter Leona König, the cultural managers Johanna Rachinger (Austrian National Library), Bettina Leidl (MuseumsQuartier), Danielle Spera (member of the Leopold Museum Private Foundation) and Katarzyna Lutecka (Amalthea Verlag), actress Sunnyi Melles, media manager Hans Mahr, the media spokespersons from the Greens and NEOS, Eva Blimlinger and Henkrike Brandstötter, as well as the Greens’ cultural spokesperson Nikolaus Ganahl, Salzburg’s deputy governor Stefan Schnöll (ÖVP), the former Siemens board member and current vice president of the Austrian Chamber of Commerce, Wolfgang Hesoun, on the part of ORF’s main co-production partner UNITEL Magdalena Herbst (Head of Production), who is responsible for the joint cooperation Siemens Fest>Game> nights responsible artistic director for Siemens Arts Programs, Stephan Frucht, Everyman” director André Turnheim, the film producers Mucky Degn, Ingrid Klingohr, Hannes Schalle and Tommy Schmiedle, as well as the ORF’s chief producer Michael Krön, the artistic director of the ORF RSO Vienna, Angelika Möser, the presenters and Commentators Teresa Vogl, Romy Seidl-Laux, Peter Fässlacher, Raffaela Schaidreiter, the board members Franz Medwenitsch, Herwig Hösele and Gerhard Berti and many more
The next program highlights of the 104th Salzburg Festival on ORF
After the start on July 26th with the live broadcast of the ceremonial opening ceremony from the Felsenreitschule on ORF 2, 3sat and on ORF ON, the concert performance of Richard Strauss’ “Capriccio” broadcast live on Ö1 as the opera premiere of the season and the first of Four editions of the format “EverymanEverywoman – The Salzburg Festival Magazine” (July 26th to August 16th, Fridays, 6:30 p.m., ORF 2, Dacapos from July 28th, Sundays, 7:50 p.m., ORF III) will be the ORF program comprising around 100 hours of programming. Salzburg’s focus on TV and radio continued this evening (July 27th) with the broadcast of the completely sold-out scenic realignment of the stage classic “Everyman” (8:15 p.m., ORF 2 and ORF ON) with Philipp Hochmair in the title role.
Tomorrow, on Sunday, July 28th, at 11:03 a.m., Ö1 will broadcast a live broadcast of a concert by the Vienna Philharmonic under the musical direction of Herbert Blomstedt with Johannes Brahms’ Song of Destiny for mixed choir and orchestra op.54 and Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy’s Lobgesang op . 52 – a symphony cantata based on words from Holy Scripture. With the traditional “kulturMontag Spezial” from Salzburg, the next live TV broadcast is on the schedule on July 29th (10.30 p.m., ORF 2 and ORF ON).
Jacques Offenbach’s “The Tales of Hoffmann” (Friday, August 16th, live with a time delay, 9:20 p.m., ORF 2; Saturday, August 31st, 7:30 p.m., Ö1), Sergei Prokofiev’s first major opera “The Player” (Saturday, August 17th, 7:30 p.m., Ö1; Saturday, August 24th, 8:15 p.m., 3sat; Sunday, September 8th, 11:15 p.m., ORF III) with star soprano Asmik Grigorian, as well as the one under the title “The RSO at the Salzburg Festival : Music as Resistance” (Tuesday, August 6th, 11:20 p.m., ORF 2) recorded short opera “Il prigioniero” by Luigi Dallapiccola, which is part of a Salzburg guest performance evening by the ORF Radio Symphony Orchestra Vienna, broadcast entirely on Ö1.
Asmik Grigorian is also the soloist in a concert conducted by Gustavo Dudamel, which can be experienced on ORF III under the title “Two Superstars for the Vienna Philharmonic” (Sunday, August 25th, live at 8:15 p.m.). Other top concert dates from Salzburg include: the “Concert of the Vienna Philharmonic: Gustav Mahler’s 9th Symphony” (Sunday, August 11th, 11:00 a.m.), conducted by Andris Nelsons and shown live by ORF 2, as well as the one on this day under the TV title “A Festival for Mozart” (9:10 p.m., ORF III) live, time-shifted performance by the Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra under the direction of its designated chief conductor Roberto González-Monjas.
Kulturradio Ö1 is presenting a total of 18 concerts from Salzburg this year, five of them live, including another matinee by the Vienna Philharmonic on Thursday, August 15th (live at 11:03 a.m.) with Riccardo Muti, further matinee concerts by the Mozarteum Orchestra with Ivor Bolton ( Sunday, August 4th, live at 11:03 a.m.) and Maxim Emelyanychev (Sunday, August 25th, live at 11:03 a.m.) or two guest performances by the ORF Radio Symphony Orchestra Vienna – the Young Conductors Award 2023 winner’s concert with Hankyeol Yoon at the conductor’s podium (Tuesday, August 20th, 7:30 p.m.) as well as an already mentioned guest performance evening (Friday, August 2nd, 7:30 p.m.) under the direction of Maxime Pascal with Luigi Dallapiccola’s short opera “Il prigioniero” and Luigi Nono’s cantata “Il canto sospeso” – a setting of the farewell letters of those sentenced to death from the European resistance for soloists, choir and orchestra with Tobias Moretti as speaker.
Further details on the ORF Salzburg focus with operas, concerts, accompanying documentaries, artist portraits and conversations, magazine programs and detailed cultural reporting are available at presse.ORF.at. An overview of all Ö1 concert dates and contributions is also available at https://oe1.ORF.at/festspielsender.