Wolfgang mozart biography salzburg festival 2018

Annual music and drama festival held in Salzburg, Austria

The Salzburg Festival (German: Salzburger Festspiele) is a prominent festival of music and drama established in 1920.

It is held each summer, for five weeks starting in late July, in Salzburg, Austria, the birthplace of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Mozart's operas are a focus of the festival; one highlight is the annual performance of Hofmannsthal's play Jedermann (Everyman).

Since 1967, an annual Salzburg Easter Festival has also been held, organized by a separate organization.

History

Music festivals were held in Salzburg at irregular intervals since 1877 by the International Mozarteum Foundation but were discontinued in 1910.

A festival was planned for 1914, but it was cancelled at the outbreak of World War I. In 1917, Friedrich Gehmacher and Heinrich Damisch formed an organization known as the Salzburger Festspielhaus-Gemeinde to establish an annual festival of drama and music, emphasi