Experience Salzburg and visit the Salzburg Withsun Festival. Cecilia Bartoli, the art director of the festival, will offer also 2023 an interesting programme.

Central to the 2023 program is Orpheus' journey to the Underworld. Under the theme of the four-day festival Les Passions de l'âme, Cecilia Bartoli brings together Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridic, Joseph Haydn's L'anima del filosofo and Monteverdi's L`Orfeo. The Italian opera singer plays the role of Orpheus in the new stage production of Gluck's opera and the role of Eurydice in Haydn's opera.

The festival program concludes with the Schubertiade and a benefit concert in honor of Daniel Barenboim, one of Bartoli's most important mentors.

Cecilia Bartoli says:

"In 2023, I would like to present you with some essential operatic renderings of the Orpheus myth, each containing its own scenic and musical solutions, and each with a different resolution to the story. Our new fully staged production is Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice, directed by Christof Loy, in the rarely played Parma version from 1769. Gluck created this score for the famous soprano castrato Giuseppe Millico, his good friend.

Five years later, in 1774, he reworked this opera in Paris and accordingly changed its title to Orphée et Eurydice. Orpheus was now to be sung by a very high tenor, or haute-contre, and Gluck added a series of lavish dance scenes, as was expected by the French audience. Some of you might remember the deep impact John Neumeier’s Midsummer Night’s Dream made upon us in a fantastic performance at our festival some years ago. His ability to mix theatre and dance in an equally musical, intelligent and poignant way made me decide to ask him to bring back the Hamburg Ballet to Salzburg with this alternative choreographed version of Gluck’s opera.

On the same day you might listen to an Orpheus opera that has always been very dear to me, Haydn’s L’anima del filosofo – an unfinished and in some ways cryptic work with stunningly beautiful arias and exceptionally profound choruses that in their depth of emotion and complexity match those of Mozart’s Requiem. I always think of this work, among others, as a rehabilitation of Haydn as a serious composer of operas, for which he is unfortunately still not generally known.  

Monteverdi’s ur-opera L’Orfeo, the historical foundation of this 400-year-old genre, will be presented in an unusual version in collaboration with the 200-year-old Milanese marionette company Carlo Colla e Figli. The singers, all early music specialists, will be placed in the pit with the orchestra. We will hear their voices, but the stage action will be carried out by the Italian puppeteers, and will be colourfully illustrated with carefully designed miniature sets and costumes. It will be fascinating to discover how this ‘alienation’ effect will change our experience of Orpheus’ journey into the chasms of the Underworld, his everlasting loss and final ascent to heaven.

As I considered the power of a voice to move us not only in a concert hall, but also in our lives outside it – where we seem to encounter an ever-increasing amount of grief and conflict – I immediately thought of Daniel Barenboim, who turned 80 quite recently. I will forever be grateful to him for discovering and advising me at the early stages of my career, and for remaining an endlessly inspiring musical partner and faithful friend for 35 years. Actually, Daniel is probably responsible for my connection with Salzburg and the Whitsun Festival! Shortly after he heard me on television for the very first time and invited me to audition for him, he got a phone call from – according to his account for the only time in his life – Herbert von Karajan. Karajan enquired whether Daniel had heard this very young and totally unknown Roman mezzo-soprano and whether it might be worth bringing her over to sing for him. And that is how I first arrived in Salzburg. My opera debut here took place in 1993, and one year later I was fortunate to be re-invited for a memorable new production of Don Giovanni staged by Patrice Chéreau, with a wonderful cast, and conducted by Daniel Barenboim, who at that time taught me the basics about Mozart.

Laying out my plans for the Salzburg Whitsun Festival 2023, I originally thought of creating a festival in which Daniel would actively participate as a conductor and musician in honour of his special birthday, mainly as a testament of my humble admiration for his passionate and untiring voice – expressed through his words and music-making – which he so fearlessly raises against general currents again and again, and which has changed so many people’s lives.

As we all know, Daniel is currently unwell. Nevertheless, I want to dedicate one day of the Whitsun Festival 2023 to him with a Schubertiade in which he can hopefully join me and Martha Argerich, while a gala concert in the evening unites a group of his most intimate friends and peers. With this, I hope to celebrate Daniel Barenboim and send him endless amounts of positive energy for his speedy recovery.  

For me, people like Daniel Barenboim show that great myths are not simply creations of our ambitious minds. Evidently, they can be real, and their origins can lie in profoundly humane persons. As with Orpheus, Daniel’s voice, and no less importantly, his music, have the power to touch our innermost thoughts and emotions, to move profoundly, inspire greatly and bring about sustained changes which most of us might have considered impossible."