What inspires you the most in your artistic work and what guides your decision when selecting the program, for example, specifically for the Vienna Opera Summer this year?

I think good artists, they all love music. They deeply love music – that’s for sure. But when it comes to giving performances, concerts, or opera productions, we're always faced with the question of choosing the repertoire. Sometimes, of course, it’s the promoter who has a specific wish. They might say, “We want to invite your orchestra, and we want a Mozart symphony to be included.” Okay, well, that’s easy. Then we’ll include a Mozart symphony.

But many times, they just want the conductor or soloist to suggest the repertoire. And when I decide, I belong to those people who think of the audience first. Depending on where the concert is, what group of people the performance is for, and so on, I choose the repertoire. I don’t decide based on personal concentration on a specific composer over years or anything like that. Some artists do that – there was a conductor who once said, “I’m going to spend two years on Bruckner,” and he would only conduct Bruckner for those years. There’s nothing wrong with that, and if there are promoters who want to hear Bruckner, they’ll go for it.

But for me, it’s different. For example, quite some years ago, I did a few tours to India with the Vienna Chamber Orchestra, where I was principal guest conductor for a long time. These were supported by the Austrian Foreign Ministry and part of a cultural exchange program. Of course, we gave wonderful concerts, and people loved them. But when I performed in India, I made sure to start with a piece everybody knows – something like Eine kleine Nachtmusik – because half the audience had never been to a classical music concert before. You need to catch their attention.

People love familiarity in anything, even with food. You go to a new restaurant, and at least one dish should be something you recognize – ideally, something that reminds you of your childhood. Even people who have never heard a classical concert often recognize the melody of Eine kleine Nachtmusik or Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. Now, some colleagues say, “Oh, this is tacky, this is just being a populist.” But I’m not being populist at all. In terms of quality, I never make compromises. But in terms of repertoire, I always try to choose what people are looking for.

Take the summer opera, for example. We’re a new project – only in our second year. So for the first four or five years, I’m sure we will only perform famous operas. Not just famous operas, but ones that are suitable not only for opera experts – operas where it’s fairly easy to understand the music. Understanding music means understanding emotion.

There are plenty of great composers whose music is actually quite easy to understand emotionally. In our opera festival, in addition to choosing a relatively easy opera, we try to add elements to help the public understand it better, even for those who are not regular opera-goers. Before developing this concept, I analyzed the fact that almost everywhere in the world – especially in German-speaking countries – when children are first introduced to opera, they always choose The Magic Flute.

Now, The Magic Flute's story is actually quite complicated. It’s a fantasy, yes, but not necessarily a straightforward story for children. So why is it always chosen? It’s very simple: the music is beautiful – pure Mozart – but what makes the difference is the spoken dialogue instead of Italian recitatives. Dialogues are accessible to everyone, even children. These dialogues always precede the arias – they explain the conflict or situation, and then the aria expresses that same feeling or story musically.

This makes it much easier for the audience to understand the emotion behind the music. It’s very much like film music. In film, everyone understands the synopsis, and the music then enhances the emotion. If a film is just text, it’s never the same. With music, you experience it more deeply.

That’s why last year, we did Don Giovanni with German dialogues instead of Italian recitatives – so we basically did Don Giovanni in Magic Flute style. People loved it, especially German speakers. For everyone else, we had subtitles in English.

This year, we’re doing La Traviata – an incredible opera, arguably the best Verdi ever wrote. With La Traviata, you can’t delete any recitatives or shorten anything. It’s two hours of perfect music – you cannot change a thing. But between the acts – and there are effectively four, since the second act has two distinct scenes – we will have a narrator.

The narrator will be the reborn spirit of Verdi – the composer himself. And we’ve convinced an extremely famous Austrian actor, Karl Markovics. In Austria, he’s widely known – he was the protagonist in Die Fälscher (The Counterfeiters), which won an Oscar. He’s one of the few Austrian actors to receive such international acclaim. He loves music and agreed to do this. He’ll appear in costume and makeup as Verdi, come on stage, and speak to the audience – explaining why he chose this story, what he saw in Violetta, and what moved him to write the music. He’ll explain the synopsis, but in a deeper, more emotional way. Then comes the music.

I believe this approach will make the opera even more digestible, for lack of a better word. I like serving the needs and interests of the audience. And beyond that, there’s the question of the production itself. At the moment, it’s quite fashionable for opera directors to change the story – to relocate it to a different time or place.

I once saw a production of La Bohème – a story about poor young people in Paris trying to survive. They can’t afford food or medicine. Mimi is sick with tuberculosis. But the director placed the story in modern-day Paris. That can be quite jarring, especially when the text still talks about poverty and illness, yet the characters are walking around with smartphones.

Can you tell me a little bit, about how did the whole festival originate, how did you come to take the role of artistic director? How the whole idea came to life?

I was the Artistic Director of an Open-Air Opera and Operetta Festival in a small town called Kittsee, in Burgenland. It’s a tiny place, but it has a beautiful Baroque castle. The promoter was a good friend – his father came from Kittsee, and he himself was a well-known music manager in Austria. Together, we ran the festival for many years, and for nearly a decade, I was both Artistic Director and conductor.

Unfortunately, the festival ended a few years ago due to a lack of sponsorship. After that, I had to decide whether to look for another summer festival needing an artistic director – which, of course, is difficult, as most festivals already have one.

My partner – the stage director from the Kittsee festival – and I shared a similar philosophy: we believe in serving what people genuinely want. So we started brainstorming and realized something quite surprising: Vienna hasn’t had an open-air opera in about 30 years. Even more surprising, there is no opera at all in Vienna during the summer. All three opera houses close completely.

The major orchestras, like the Vienna Philharmonic, are off in Salzburg or Bregenz. And what remains in Vienna during the summer are tourist-oriented concerts – decent, but not part of the city’s real musical tradition.

So we thought: Why not create something new? A high-quality open-air opera festival in Vienna during the summer. I pitched the idea to the mayor, and he immediately supported it and became the official patron.

Instead of looking for another festival to join, I looked for a company that could promote and manage such an event. I eventually partnered with a Vienna-based events and promotion company that runs large public events like the LichterGarten in Schloss Laxenburg and several Christmas markets. They’re experienced in outdoor productions and agreed to take the risk of launching this new venture with me.

We founded the festival together – and now, we’re in our second year.

You mentioned the production setup – was the stage itself specifically designed and constructed for this new festival? 

Last year, we started at the Belvedere Castle, which was an amazing setting. The castle itself served as the backdrop, and we only needed to build a relatively small stage in front of it. We incorporated the entire façade of the castle into the visual storytelling using high-end projection technology. It allowed us to transform scenes by projecting directly onto the castle.

Unfortunately, the collaboration couldn't continue due to upcoming renovations on the castle and the museum inside it, so we had to look for a new venue. That’s when we found the Wiener Eislauf-Verein, an open-air ice skating rink that's unused during summer. Miraculously, it was completely free in July – an ideal space on short notice.

What's remarkable is that right next to the Wiener Eislauf-Verein is the full-length side of the Konzerthaus, one of Vienna’s main concert halls. The original design of the building actually envisioned the main façade facing the Wiener Eislauf-Verein. So now, we can use this expansive façade as part of the visual experience for the festival.

We got permission to install blinds inside the Konzerthaus to block out internal light and prevent interference with our projections. It’s been a very kind and supportive collaboration.

Since this space didn’t offer the natural elevation of Belvedere, we decided to build a much larger custom stage this time. It’s the most costly part of the production, but it allowed us to keep the immersive experience alive in a new location.

Short Questions

Finally, what advice would you give to young musicians who are trying to build a career in classical music today?

There’s no point in just meeting people if your presence isn’t right, because when you meet a conductor or manager, what do they do? They Google you. Everyone does – whether it’s the director of a state opera or the manager of the Vienna Philharmonic, when they hear about a young artist, they go home and look you up online on Google and YouTube. That’s standard now.

Sending a physical CD? Ninety-nine percent get thrown away. Even sending memory sticks or email recordings isn’t very effective. People don’t really trust what you send directly. They want to hear your name and then do their own research. They think recordings you send might be heavily edited or pieced together to sound perfect, but that doesn’t show who you really are.

Audio recordings alone aren’t enough anymore, because it’s easy to mix together many takes to make something sound flawless. People want uncut, authentic video of your performance. Not edited from multiple cameras, but a single, honest take.

Visual presence is incredibly important now, especially with social media. Psychology is such that people connect strongly with visuals, so being visually appealing in concerts and online is key. The whole package – your presence, your performance, your online footprint – matters for building a career in today’s classical music world.