Cover Salzburg streets are abuzz with music and energy during the annual festival. (Photo: courtesy of Ambroise Tzenas, Rolex)
Salzburg streets are abuzz with music and energy during the annual festival. (Photo: courtesy of Ambroise Tzenas, Rolex)
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Founded as a way to unite Europe after the First World War, the Salzburg Festival has grown into the world’s leading classical music, opera and drama event, expanding its reach by spotlighting global artists
Inside Salzburg’s Grosses Festspielhaus, a 19th-century cavalry barracks transformed into a world-class concert hall complex, the strings of the Vienna Philharmonic ring ferociously while a choir howls on stage. Trumpeters positioned across the auditorium envelop the audience in a bellowing canopy of brass. Under the baton of Italian conductor Riccardo Muti, the world-renowned orchestra and choir deliver Giuseppe Verdi’s intensely dramatic 1873 Requiem. As the piece grows ever more ominous with each movement, the 2,000 audience members listen in spellbound silence, before erupting into a standing ovation with rapturous cries of “Bravi”.
While such heavy programming might seem out of place on a sunny August Saturday morning, it is par for the course in Salzburg. This is, after all, a city synonymous with music—the birthplace of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the backdrop to Julie Andrews singing to the hills in the 1965 film The Sound of Music, and a city where opera and symphonic performances are woven into the fabric of daily life.
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Above Salzburg’s historic streets at night. (Photo: courtesy of Ambroise Tezenas, Rolex)
Salzburg’s historic streets at night. (Photo: courtesy of Ambroise Tezenas, Rolex)
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The annual Salzburg Festival, one of the world’s oldest and most prestigious performing arts events, stands as proof of the dynamism of the city’s heritage. The 2026 edition, which ran from July 17 to August 30, brought together visitors from more than 80 countries for over 170 classical and contemporary performances.
Founded in 1920 by composer Richard Strauss, playwright Hugo von Hofmannsthal and theatre director Max Reinhardt, the festival was originally conceived as a spiritual and cultural project to unite a war-torn continent in the wake of the First World War. In its founding manifesto, Hofmannsthal wrote: “This is not the founding of a theatre, nor the project of a few dreamy idealists, nor a local matter for a provincial town. It is a matter of European culture.” With its striking Baroque architecture, deep Mozartian roots and distance from the metropolis, Salzburg offered the ideal artistic, peaceful and picturesque setting for a cultural festival. The inaugural festival was a production of Hofmannsthal’s play Jedermann staged in the cathedral square; the event was soon expanded to include orchestral concerts, chamber music and grand opera.
Above An ambitious 2026 staging of Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s Jedermann, the foundational production that launched the Salzburg Festival in 1920. (Photo: Courtesy of Salzburg Festival)
An ambitious 2026 staging of Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s Jedermann, the foundational production that launched the Salzburg Festival in 1920. (Photo: Courtesy of Salzburg Festival)
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Today, the festival’s mission has evolved beyond European concord to embrace a global artistic exchange. Supported by Rolex as a main sponsor since 2012, the event regularly features international virtuosos, including the late operatic legend Luciano Pavarotti, violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, and Chinese American pianist Yuja Wang, a Rolex Testimonee since 2009. On August 14, Wang performed a wide-ranging programme spanning works by Maurice Ravel, Frédéric Chopin, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and Philip Glass.
The Vienna Philharmonic, an exclusive partner of Rolex since 2008, could be described as being at the heart of the festival. “The Salzburg Festival is perhaps the longest-standing partner in our history—we have performed here for over a century,” says Michael Bladerer, the orchestra’s CEO and general manager. “For us, a summer without Salzburg is simply unimaginable.”
This sentiment is echoed by Daniel Froschauer, president of the Vienna Philharmonic, who highlights the philosophy shared by the orchestra, the festival and their main sponsor. “Rolex and the Vienna Philharmonic share a fundamental commitment to the search for excellence and the preservation of tradition,” he says. “It is a completely natural partnership.” Bladerer adds that this pursuit of quality extends to every detail: “Excellence isn’t limited to music; it applies to everything. Working with Rolex has heightened our awareness of that level of precision, whether in crafting a fine timepiece or staging a complex symphonic work.”
Above Acclaimed singer Cecilia Bartoli has represented Rolex since 1994. (Photo: courtesy of Emmanuel Fradin, Rolex)
Acclaimed singer Cecilia Bartoli has represented Rolex since 1994. (Photo: courtesy of Emmanuel Fradin, Rolex)
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That commitment to artistic rigour was equally evident on August 16, when Italian mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli, a Rolex Testimonee since 1994, starred in Gioachino Rossini’s 1825 comic opera Il Viaggio a Reims. The performance was followed by an evening reception at Felsenreitschule, the historic theatre that appears in The Sound of Music for the scene set at the Salzburg Festival, from which the Von Trapp family escapes. “Through the support of Rolex, we are able to have great shows like this,” Bartoli says, describing the relationship between the brand and the artists as “a good marriage”.
Alongside beloved classics, the 2026 season debuted ambitious new stagings and productions, including fresh interpretations of Olivier Messiaen’s opera Saint François d’Assise, Georges Bizet’s Carmen and Hofmannsthal’s Jedermann, the performance that started it all.
With its horse-drawn carriages, cobblestone alleys and throngs of concertgoers dressed in traditional dirndls and lederhosen, Salzburg might appear frozen in time. But rather than remaining a passive museum to its past, Salzburg thrives because of its relentless commitment to artistic excellence.
Zabrina is the Senior Editor, Arts and Culture of Tatler Hong Kong. She specialises in performing arts, visual art and film. Her wanderlust was first fuelled by the Mighty Rovers Antarctica Expedition 2010. Over the years, she has interviewed A-list artists and filmmakers, including Oscar winners Chlóe Zhao and Tim Yip, Golden Horse winner Sylvia Chang, In the Mood for Love cinematographer Christopher Doyle, Pachinko author Min Jin Lee, and Coachella’s first Chinese solo singer Jackson Wang. She won gold at the WAN-IFRA Asian Media Awards for her 2021 feature on the waves of hate crimes targeting Asian Americans.
