Conductor
1 April 1959, Berlin
Christian Thielemann led the Salzburg Easter Festival for a decade and remains one of the defining conductors of the German repertoire. His connection to Salzburg runs from the Grosses Festspielhaus stage to a professorship at the Mozarteum, where the next generation is learning from a man who learned from Karajan.
Thielemann grew up in Berlin and spent his early years as an assistant to Herbert von Karajan at the Berlin Philharmonic, absorbing a conducting style rooted in the great German-Austrian tradition. That lineage is the key to understanding his place in Salzburg. He conducts in the manner of Furtwangler and Bohm, with a particular authority in Wagner, Brahms, Bruckner, and Richard Strauss.
He became Artistic Director of the Salzburg Easter Festival in 2013, taking over from Seiji Ozawa and immediately installing the Staatskapelle Dresden as resident orchestra. Through 2022, he shaped the festival’s identity around the central German-Romantic canon: Ring cycles, Bruckner symphonies, late Strauss operas. The Grosses Festspielhaus was his primary stage.
His Salzburg ties extend beyond the Easter Festival. He conducted the Vienna Philharmonic’s New Year’s Concert in 2019 and again in 2024. He holds a professorship at the Mozarteum University. A 2019 dispute with festival management over the resident orchestra appointment brought his Easter Festival tenure to a close in 2022, but his presence in the city’s musical life has not ended.
Thielemann left the Staatskapelle Dresden in 2024, receiving the honorary conductor title that only two others had held before him. He is now General Music Director of the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin. The conducting tradition that runs from Karajan through Thielemann remains the most visible thread connecting Salzburg to the living German classical world.
On the map
The 2 places on this page, where they actually stand.
Locations
Built 1693
The Felsenreitschule is a theater carved directly into the Moenchsberg cliff face, which means the backstage wall is living rock and three tiers of 17th-century arcades form the auditorium. It was originally built in 1693 as a summer riding school for the Archbishop's horses.
Completed 1960
The Grosses Festspielhaus (Large Festival Hall) opened in 1960 as a major expansion of Salzburg's Festspielhaus complex, carved in large part from the Moenchsberg cliff face to achieve its 2,179-seat auditorium. Architect Clemens Holzmeister cut the main stage directly into the rock, creating one of the widest stages in the world at 100 meters.
Organizations
One of the world's most prestigious performing arts festivals. Held annually late July to end of August. Founded 1920 by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Max Reinhardt, Richard Strauss, Franz Schalk, and Alfred Roller. Inaugural event: Jedermann on Domplatz. Herbert von Karajan defined the postwar era. Opera, drama, concerts.
