DEAR AUDIENCE, DEAR ARTISTS,

what a joy fills me as I write these lines, the "Curtain, open" for the program of the Mozart Week 2024!

After five acclaimed years of "pure Mozart", we are beginning a new cycle in 2024. Although Mozart's œuvre will remain central and will be the body, heart and soul of our festival, in the coming years we will invite some other great maestros whose presence will allow us to illuminate the life, the work and the incomparable genius of our celebrated Wolfgang Amadé.

In 2024 Antonio Salieri enters the scene, a great composer who had the misfortune of being a contemporary of three musical geniuses at once: Beethoven, Haydn and Mozart. He was the teacher of the first, conducted - shortly before his death - the last homage to the second, and as for the third, Mozart, a real legend developed. Interesting works were born from this legend. We present three of them in our Mozart Week 2024:

Miloš Forman's fantastic film adaptation which, despite numerous biographical errors, brought Mozart's genius and wonderful luminosity to the attention of so many people - myself included - in Mozartkino; a new production of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's opera Mozart and Salieri based on Pushkin's dramolet in collaboration with our friends at the Marionette Theater and the Mozarteum University; and the premiere, a new production, of Peter Shaffer's play Amadeus together with the Salzburg Landestheater.

This important part of our program is joined by outstanding orchestras, sensational soloists, wonderful conductors, actors, performers, dancers - they
all will be present to let Mozart's work shine in all its facets. In between, compositions by Salieri and his students Hummel, Schubert, Beethoven and Franz Xaver Mozart will be heard. Haydn has also crept in. There will also be talks with artists and scholars, and of course we continue to develop our popular Trazom formats, offering a diverse program for all.

Welcome dear audience, welcome wonderful artists, welcome Signor Antonio Salieri together with his students! The red carpet is rolled out for our host, the inspiration of our festival: Wolfgang Gottlieb - and loved by us all - MOZART.

Mil abrazos

Rolando Villazón