Salzburg Festival Programme

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23381, 24 June 1939, Page 18 (Supplement)

Salzburg Festival Programme

SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS

The management of the Salzburg Festival Plays recently published the programme for the next season. It breaks with several traditions. The plays will not begin on a Sunday, as in the past 19 years, but on Tuesday, August 1. The last performance is scheduled for September 8. The opera programme will be predominantly Italian. Of the seven operas mentioned, four will be given in the Italian language, namely, Mozart's "Don Giovanni" and "Marriage of Figaro." Verdi's "Falstaff" and Rossini's "Barber of Seville." An Italian cast, with Tullio Serafin as conductor, has been engaged for the latter two. This prominence of Italian, which is also noticeable in the concert programme, is probably a compliment to the Rome-Berlin axis. Richard Strauss' "Rosenkavalier" will again be heard, and Carl Maria von Weber's "Freisehuetz" will make its debut at Salzburg. In this time of political tension it is quite striking that England and France monopolise the dramatic section of the plays. German drama shines by its absence, and German versions of Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing" and Moliere's "Bourgeois Gentilhoaime" take its place. The orchestra concerts, serenatas, •hurch and chamber music are much hhe same as usual, and the most prominent names on the list of orchestra conductors are Hans Knappertsbusch, Clemens Krauss, Willem Mengelberg and Karl Boehm.