"Tutto Mozart", Salzburger Festspiele Pfingsten 2024 | © © Alexia Papadopoulos

Salzburg Whitsun Festival

17 - 20 May, 2024

The Salzburg Whitsun Festival has been a highlight of the Salzburg event calendar since 1973. Experience this festival in early summer as a brilliant complement to the Summer Festival!

The History of the Salzburg Whitsun Festival

Herbert von Karajan brought the original Whitsun Concerts to life back in 1973, in order to assuage the demands of potential subscribers to the Easter Festival. Until 1982, three orchestral concerts were performed on Whit Saturday, Whit Sunday and Whit Monday respectively by the Berlin Philharmonic under Herbert von Karajan.

After the death of Karajan, guest concerts by international orchestras such as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the London Symphony Orchestra were added to the program. In 1998, it was taken over by the Salzburg Festival, who rechristened the Whitsun Concerts as the Salzburg Whitsun Festival. Riccardo Muti became artistic director of the Whitsun Festival in 2007, continuing to serve in that role until 2012, when Italian singer Cecilia Bartoli succeeded him. Since 2012, the main production from the Whitsun Festival is also performed during the Summer Festival.

The Festival in 2024

In 2024, Cecilia Bartoli, artistic director of the Salzburg Whitsun Festival, will be putting Mozart at the centre of the Festival for the first time. The world of the brilliant composer is presented over four days of performances under the title "Tutto Mozart". The varied programme ranges from the rarely performed opera La Clemenza di Tito to piano concertos, a gala with arias from Le nozze di Figaro, Così fan tutte and Don Giovanni, to the C-minor Mass KV 427, which will be performed on Whit Sunday. The opera gala "50 Years of Domingo in Salzburg" concludes the 2024 Whitsun Festival with arias and duets by Rossini, Bizet, Massenet and Verdi.