Salzburg Easter Festival: From 2026 again with the “Berliners” – Culture –
After the “divorce” in 2012, the Salzburg Easter Festival and the Berlin Philharmonic dare to walk down the aisle again: In 2026, the top East German orchestra will return to the Salzach, and not just once, but as a permanent orchestra in residence. The concept of the annually changing orchestra, begun by artistic director Nikolaus Bachler, remains only a short interlude.
Herbert von Karajan also founded the festival during Holy Week 1967 as a “promotional event” for the latest records that he recorded with “his” Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. Even after his death in 1989, the orchestra remained in Salzburg for Easter, until it broke up in 2011: the orchestra announced its departure after the 2012 Easter Festival and then moved to Baden-Baden. The annoyance in Salzburg was great, but an adequate replacement was immediately found in the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden under Christian Thielemann – the conductor also became the artistic director of the festival.
Bachler’s appointment as commercial director from 2020 and director from 2022 will follow before he takes up his duties on divergences between him and Thielemann. In September 2019, the shareholders (state and city of Salzburg, Salzburger Land Tourismus, Karajan Foundation and sponsors) intervened in the conflict and promised not to renew the contract with the Staatskapelle and Thielemann after 2022.
Bachler’s concept then envisages an annually changing orchestra. But even before the musicians of the first guest – in 2023 the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra under Andris Nelsons – climbed into the orchestra pit for the first time, Bachler announced the return of the Berliners from 2026. He is very pleased “that it has been possible to tie the founding orchestra back to this very special festival – because the Berlin Philharmonic and Salzburg have more than 40 years of common history, which will blossom again with chief conductor Kirill Petrenko,” he said Bachler on Monday in a broadcast. He has not yet said to himself that the program for 2026 will be announced in the year.