Salzburg Festival: history and repertoire, 1935–1937

The period 1935 to 1937 was extremely successful for the Salzburg Festival. The percentage of tickets sold rose from 53% in 1934 to 89% in 1937. Each year during this period of the Salzburg Festival, Arturo Toscanini presented one new production of an opera suitable to the Salzburg atmosphere. He insisted on major fundings and on the best available singers. In 1935 he presented Giuseppe Verdis last opera, Falstaff, performed for the first time at the Salzburg Festival. His choice of Wagners Meistersinger von Nürnberg in 1936 was seen as an act of opposition to the Bayreuth Festival, insisting that this opera belongs to the cultural heritage of the world and not to Nazi Germany. His last Salzburg premiere was dedicated to the genius loci, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and his masterpiece Die Zauberflöte. Another political statement of Toscanini was that each year he conducted Beethoven's freedom opera Fidelio, a masterpiece against tyranny.[1]

Meanwhile, Bruno Walter, who was the only conductor fully accepted by Toscanini, concentrated himself on majors works of Mozart, presented a highly acclaimed production of Glucks Orfeo ed Euridice and expanded the Salzburg repertory by adding rarely performed operas like Wolfs Der Corregidor and Webers Euryanthe. He too insisted on conducting Wagner in Salzburg – Tristan und Isolde with a splendid cast led by Anny Konetzni and Josef Kalenberg.[2]

In addition to the new productions the following works from the repertory were performed at the Salzburg Festival.

• Salzburg Festival: history and repertoire, 1922–1926

• Kaut, Josef (1982). Die Salzburger Festspiele 1920–1981, Mit einem Verzeichnis der aufgeführten Werke und der Künstler des Theaters und der Musik von Hans Jaklitsch. Salzburg: Residenz Verlag. ISBN 3-7017-0308-6.