Osterfestspiele Salzburg

Among the many festivals that take place throughout the year in the city of Mozart, the Easter Festival, created by Herbert von Karajan in 1968 and currently directed by Sir Simon Rattle, has a unique character. Although music lovers and admirers of Mozart come here from all over the world, it seems much more intimate and familiar than the summer Salzburg Festival, when this small, beautiful city is transformed into a microcosm in which all languages, races, and cultures co-exist and a visitor can feel somewhat bewildered by the surrounding diversity, as if lost in a labyrinth of Jorge Luis Borges.

The incomparable charm of the Easter Festival has to do with several factors. One is the beauty of the surroundings: an Alpine landscape bidding farewell to the winter cold and beginning to revive in the first warm breezes and first greens of an imminent spring, and Salzburg, a jewel of architecture and Baroque art, which also seems to awaken and come back to life with renewed vigour. In the limpid air, the blue sky, the narrow old streets that are always clean and washed by morning dew, one can observe a joy and enthusiasm that will be generously rewarded by the concerts or opera in the afternoon and evening.

Another reason for the exceptional quality of this Festival is the Berlin Philharmonic, the most extraordinary and accomplished orchestra in the world today. Conducted by an unquestionable master like Sir Simon Rattle, each day it offers a program in which rigor and excellence, fidelity to the best musical tradition, and a spirit open to modernity and the avant-garde combine to offer to the audience a few hours of magic and deep emotion. The Berlin Philharmonic is not an orchestra, it is a miracle, but one on a human scale, made of flesh and blood, that is, of skill, discipline, hard work, knowledge, and love. The unity and comprehension between the Philharmonic and Sir Simon Rattle is total, as in that rarity, a perfect, harmonious marriage. Under the strict, generous, even-handed baton of the British maestro, each instrument makes its presence known and plays a kind of leading part, because it receives equal treatment and is urged to display itself, to stand out for the greater effectiveness of the whole. Listening to the Berlin Philharmonic, one has the fantastic impression at times that all the instrumentalists are soloists. At the Festival, in addition to concerts, the audience hears lectures, has the opportunity to attend rehearsals of the Philharmonic, and can converse with critics, artists, and lovers of opera and of Mozart in an atmosphere of cordiality and culture that the writer of these lines has not experienced anywhere else in the world.

This does not mean, of course, that at the Easter Festival there are not some concerts better than others, or occasional programs that have defects. This simply means that after all the figures are computed, the balance is always overwhelmingly positive, and the successes and triumphs always far outweigh the weaknesses. Salzburg has a personality enriched by history, and Mozart, the most eminent of its children, has transformed it into an emblematic city. Artists, conductors, instrumentalists, and the audience feel possessed by the spirit of the city, obliged to make a greater effort and to give the best of themselves. That is why there is something religious about listening to music in Salzburg, a kind of ceremony in which art adorns itself with a certain magic and mysticism, and our senses are not only exalted but a part is played too by the most secret area of our personality: the ancient instincts, the hidden dreams, the illusion that in the rapture of a symphony or a cantata we have established a silent communication with our most illustrious ancestors, those models of thought and artistic creation whom Hermann Hesse, in Steppenwolf, calls “the immortals.” Remember that in the novel the protagonist, Harry Haller, in the final phantasmagoria, has a dialogue with Mozart, who gives him this peremptory advice: “You must become accustomed to life and you must learn to laugh.”

I would say that this fantasy of Hermann Hesse’s regarding Mozart’s philosophy of life is manifested as a blazing truth in Salzburg during the festivals dedicated to his memory and his music. Mozart’s life, as we know, was not a happy one. Every success and recognition was countered by neglect and injustice, and in the few short years he lived, when he was not involved in his fertile, renovating creative work, his sufferings and defeats were much greater than his satisfactions and joys. And yet his music does not bring with it even a hint of bitterness and resentment. All of it is a song to life, a call to face the world, a challenge that elevates the human being to transcendent heights, an exaltation of love and knowledge, a summons to keep awake the mysteries that surround us, and to act so that spirit always prevails over the animal materiality of our being. Even in that miracle called Don Giovanni (in which Mozart’s musical genius—inspired by the mythical figure who, possessed by the demon of lust and pride, dared to rebel against God and death—surpassed its own limits), what triumphs in the end is the wager in favour of rationality and life. This moral legacy of faith in the species, in the capacity of men and women to conquer their own demons and wager on the angelic in their natures, is alive in Salzburg, it saturates its streets and picture-postcard houses and is displayed with contagious power when the music composed by Mozart is interpreted by a great orchestra or a great soloist under the Salzburg sky.

Another notable characteristic of the Easter Festival, in my opinion, is its format. It is brief, consisting of three concerts and an opera. Its brevity is compensated for by its intensity, as in poems with only a few lines—sonnets, for example—when the poet succeeds in capturing in fourteen lines the ideas, sensations, and images that other poets need to elaborate in long odes or ballads. “Good things come in small packages,” says the old adage, and each year the Easter festival justifies the proverb in the meticulous design, rehearsal, and execution of each piece in the limited program.

A festival does not endure and win followers only because of the performances it offers. Almost as important is the surrounding atmosphere, the climate of approachability and friendship among visitors that it encourages, and the facilities and fascinations that complement it. For me, this is the time of year when Salzburg is most welcoming and accessible. It is not yet crowded with tourists, as it is in the summer, and it is possible to enjoy with circumspection and delight the charm of its narrow streets, its churches and palaces, its parks and gardens, its museums, its outlying woods and villages, in excursions that are journeys through time, allowing the visitor to experience the illusion of a world without harshness or violence, a world of fantasy and art, creativity and coexistence, a life beautified by the music that seems to pour forth here like the rush of waterfalls, clean, crystalline, refreshing, a balm that dissipates anguish and permits humans to commune with the elements. When time began, that must have been what music was like for primitive men and women: a way to communicate with the beyond, to send messages to the gods and receive their replies. And that is one of the sensations experienced in Salzburg by those who are privileged to visit, at this time of year, the birthplace of the young prodigy who was (and continues to be) Mozart.

I began coming to the Easter Festival in Salzburg some ten years ago, and I can say without exaggeration that the days I have spent here have enriched my life in a very profound way, not only because of the hours of pleasure they afforded me as I listened to great artists but also because of the friends I made here, the conversations and comments and fraternal coexistence encouraged by the spirit of a city that seems to bring out the best in us and, for a few days at least, causes everything that motivates discord and cruelty in human relations to disappear

I fervently hope that the Easter Festival enjoys a long life and continues to transform Salzburg, during these two weeks in April, into an enclave of civilization, beauty, and peace.

Mario Vargas Llosa
Lima, February 2008

(Translated from the Spanish by Edith Grossman)