TL;DR
The Salzburg Easter Festival closed April 6 after 11 days of sold-out performances, marking the Berliner Philharmoniker's return and the opening of a new Ring cycle under Kirill Petrenko.
MSM Perspective
The Financial Times reviewed Serebrennikov's staging as 'visually loud' while Seen and Heard International praised Petrenko's conducting; the Berliner's blog documented the homecoming extensively.
X Perspective
Classical music accounts on X are treating the Berliner's return to Salzburg as the restoration of the festival's founding identity after 13 years in Baden-Baden.
The Salzburg Easter Festival closed April 6 after an 11-day run that sold out every performance [1]. The festival's centrepiece was the opening of a new Ring cycle -- Wagner's Das Rheingold, premiered March 27 under chief conductor Kirill Petrenko with the Berliner Philharmoniker [2].
The orchestra's return to Salzburg carries historical weight. Herbert von Karajan founded the Easter Festival in 1967 as a vehicle for the Berliner Philharmoniker. The orchestra decamped to Baden-Baden in 2013, leaving Salzburg to fill the void with rotating ensembles. None matched the founding relationship. Petrenko's Ring, staged by Kirill Serebrennikov, restores it [2].
Critical reception has been split on the production but united on the playing. The Financial Times found Serebrennikov's post-apocalyptic staging "so visually loud it almost drowns out the music" [3]. Seen and Heard International was less reserved about the orchestra, writing that Petrenko's Mahler Eighth "swept all before it" [4]. The Berliner Philharmoniker's own blog called the return "a new chapter in a great tradition" [2].
The festival also ran chamber concerts and the Be Phil project, which brought amateur musicians from nine countries to play alongside the orchestra [2]. Die Walkure follows in 2027, with the full Ring cycle completing in 2030 -- interrupted in 2028 by Schoenberg's Moses und Arnon [5].
-- CHARLES ASHFORD, London
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