Cultural Staycation

Hofstallgasse © Andreas Schaad

City trips are becoming more and more popular. When people think of holidays they not only think of sun, sea and sand, they want to experience culture as well. People stroll through cities, past architectural highlights, churches, museums and other beautiful sights. But city trips scare many people off because of their high costs compared to other holiday offers. Hotels in city centres are usually more expensive, and organised sight-seeing tours squeeze additional money out of tourists. On the one hand, it is absolutely worth the money to go abroad and experience a foreign culture. On the other hand, our home town has a lot to offer as well. It may seem to be boring to stay at home during a holiday. But honestly, how many of us have seen Salzburg’s sights, walked up to the Hohensalzburg Fortress or visited the Salzburg Festival? 

During the summer it is a special pleasure to enjoy Salzburg’s attractions, and it is a real pity that so few people have ever been to a performance at the Salzburg Festival. Most of the people can’t afford regular opera tickets; that is probably the reason why they do not even think about visiting a performance at the Festspielhaus. Others simply say that they are not into classical music and therefore don’t want to spend money on a concert. That may be true for some people but if you’ve never been to a live performance you really have no idea how beautiful opera can be. I myself do not listen to classical music at home or visit concerts regularly, but watching an opera live is simply breathtaking. 

Since this blog is hosted by students from the English Department of the University Salzburg, it is especially worth mentioning that there is a new production of Macbeth taking place in the Felsenreitschule this summer. Of course there are lots of other interesting performances as well, so if you want to see one of these, the Salzburg Festival has a special offer for young people: “3,000 tickets for operas, plays and concerts with a price reduction up to 90% will be reserved for patrons younger than 27.” (Source: Salzburg Festival) Everyone who is interested in one of those tickets should get in touch with Ms. Eva Schörghofer as soon as possible, because they are usually sold out within seconds.

The performances aren’t all held at the Festspielhaus but also on several other stages in Salzburg. The Domplatz is of course well known for the performance of Everyman but there are other important venues as well. The Perner-Insel in Hallein for example hosts dramas every summer and is very popular among guests of the Salzburg Festival. This year Nicolas Stemann is presenting a new production of Faust there. The tickets are highly coveted and every performance is already pretty much sold out. However, some tickets are still available and can be bought via the official webpage of the Salzburg Festival or the ticket office. As soon as the rehearsals start (usually after Whitsun) you can view photographs of all the plays on the webpage to get yourself in the mood for the event.

For all those who don’t manage to get tickets, there is still another possibility. Since 2002 the Salzburg Festival has hosted the Siemens>Festspiel>Nächte in cooperation with Siemens and the Austrian broadcasting corporation ORF. They set up a gigantic cinema screen at the Kapitelplatz and show the best performances at the Salzburg Festival over the last several years. Although it is not quite the same as sitting in a fancy opera house, it is still a spectacular event. Is there a better way to enjoy mild summer evenings, than sitting on the Kapitelplatz watching theatre performances with as much champagne as you want? If you are interested, check out the programme for summer 2011, which should be uploaded sometime during the next several weeks. Since is free of charge, you absolutely have to go to see at least one of the performances and take in the atmosphere. If you don’t like it, you can leave at anytime without having a guilty conscience.