This summer’s Salzburg Festival chatter was dominated by the enthusiastic reviews of the new production of Richard Strauss’ Salome and its new star soprano Asmik Grigorian.

Salzburg doesn’t fear difficult opera. And Alban Berg’s Wozzeck certainly qualifies as one. Infrequently performed on more conventional stages because of the inaccessible music and distressing storyline, Salzburg embraced it wholeheartedly, both musically and visually.

The Salzburg music festival’s new director Markus Hinterhaeuser boldly outlined the motto of this year’s program as ‘power’: “strategies of power, its disgraces and horrors, but also with the ability to forgive.” With this bold declaration Hinterhaeuser possibly tried to

Every now and then the Salzburg Festival puts on a performance of such perfection, we are reminded how this festival became the leading operatic summer event in Europe. This year’s new production of Mozart’s Nozze di Figaro (Marriage of Figaro)

A highlight of this year’s Salzburg Festival was a new production of Beethoven’s only opera, Fidelio. It was largely deemed a vehicle to show off leading German tenor Jonas Kaufmann at his vocal and artistic zenith. And indeed, he did