SALZBURG -- This is one of Austria's most tradition-conscious cities, a place where the face of history looks down from nearly every impeccably maintained building, a place where you can dine in a restaurant -- St. Peter Stiftskeller -- that has been serving continually for about 1,200 years now.
With such a noble past, this pristine, picture-postcard spot inevitably exudes a certain air of primness and propriety. But beneath the surface lingers an old streak of irreverence.
You can find it in St. Sebastian's Cemetery. Below the floor of an elaborate chapel lies the body of Wolf Dietrich, the archbishop and prince who ruled Salzburg at the turn of the 17th century. There is an opening in the floor so that this prelate of the Catholic Church may gaze through eternity at the dome of the chapel, where a crest contains a portrait of the woman who bore him more than a dozen children during his reign.
A few blocks away, across from the elegant Mirabell Palace and Gardens that Wolf Dietrich built for his mistress, is the house where Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart lived several years. Like the building he was born in on the other side of the fast-moving river that divides the city, this place is a museum now. Here you'll find a graphic depiction of Mozart's celebrated flair for vulgar humor -- a very naughty picture he used for target practice in an indoor shooting game.
It's worth remembering such breaches of etiquette when coming face to face with one of the city's greatest and grandest claims to fame -- the Salzburg Festival, which has been showing its own irreverent streak in recent years.
Founded in 1920 by composer Richard Strauss and other luminaries, this summer festival continues to enjoy tremendous prestige as a showcase for the world's leading classical artists. The backbone of the event has been the operas of Strauss and that local-boy-made-good, Mozart, as well as other monuments of the Austro-German repertoire. The Vienna Philharmonic, revered as the ultimate defender of that sacred repertoire, is a regular participant in the festival. So is the no-less-exalted Berlin Philharmonic.
During the three-decade-plus rule of conductor Herbert von Karajan (another hometown hero) as artistic director, the Salzburg Festival chugged along smoothly, like an exclusive country club for the arts, with high-end prices, a formal dress code and comfortable, conservative music. But by the time Karajan died in 1989, some critics were yawning, complaining of staleness and predictability.
Enter Gerard Mortier. In 1991, the decidedly unconventional Belgian was named artistic director, and the Salzburg Festival hasn't been quite the same since.
Mortier's sometimes contentious regime, which ends this year, has seen efforts to give the less affluent a better shot at attending (the best seats go for about $300, but there are also relatively reasonable tickets and deals for students); there also appears to have been a gradual loosening up of audience attire, with fewer tuxedos and gowns. But what really has raised eyebrows is a big dash of modernity and unpredictability, especially in the operatic portion of this multigenre festival.
In addition to challenging works by Olivier Messiaen, Luciano Berio and many others, there have been several decidedly unconventional stagings of classic operas. Mortier brought the deconstructionist directorial style that has flourished since the 1980s and been widely reviled as "Euro-trash" into Salzburg's hallowed halls.
Tweaking the sacred cows
Not surprisingly, Mortier is going out true to form. His parting shots for the 2001 festival, which runs through August, include in-your-face, gender-bender photographs for festival posters; a new production of Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro set in a modern marriage registrar's office and featuring a bizarre extra character, and a revival of Cosi fan tutte from last season staged in a busy, often baffling manner that is about as far from traditional Mozart as one can get.
Mortier seems to delight in tweaking the sacred cows of the Salzburg Festival. But it would be unfair to dismiss his approach as simply a matter of willful defiance.
The impression reinforced during six nights of festival-going was of an enterprise that takes itself quite seriously. The level of musicianship was high (Salzburg still engages the biggest guns of the classical music world, as well as new young talent). And even the wackiest onstage antics were executed with conviction and flair.
Above all, it was impossible to walk out of a performance without having strong opinions about it, or without hearing strong opinions being voiced by others. That, in itself, has to count as a positive thing, especially when safe, bland music-making is sadly common.
