Conductor
28 July 1941, Naples, Italy
Riccardo Muti has been conducting at the Salzburg Festival since 1971 without interruption. No living conductor has a longer unbroken connection to Salzburg. His annual August concerts with the Vienna Philharmonic are one of the Festival’s most sustained and anticipated traditions.
Muti came to Salzburg because Karajan invited him. It was 1971, and Karajan had heard Muti conduct at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and wanted him at the Festival with the Vienna Philharmonic. The two men were in some ways opposites in temperament, but Karajan recognised ability, and Muti’s debut in Salzburg began a relationship with the Vienna Philharmonic that became one of the longest conductor-orchestra partnerships in the history of the Festival. By some estimates, he has accumulated around 270 Salzburg performances, second only to Karajan himself.
His Salzburg programme has always centred on the sacred choral repertoire he treats with particular authority: Verdi’s Messa da Requiem, Bruckner’s masses, Mozart’s sacred works, and the rarely-heard Cherubini sacred music he has championed throughout his career. His annual Ferragosto concerts, typically scheduled around 15 August, have become a ritual element of the Salzburg Festival calendar, drawing audiences and critical attention every year. The Vienna Philharmonic awarded him their Golden Ring, their highest honour, in recognition of a partnership that has now spanned more than half a century.
Beyond Salzburg, his career has defined Italian opera conductorship: Music Director of La Scala from 1986 to 2005, chief conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra and later the Chicago Symphony. He received Austria’s Grand Decoration of Honour in Gold. He told an interviewer in 2010 that Salzburg’s late evenings on the Salzach river reminded him of his early years with the Vienna Philharmonic. He calls it his second home.
Locations
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.
