Picturesque rivers run through many of Europe's great cities—the Arno in Florence, the Seine in Paris, the Tiber in Rome—but nowhere is the journey from one bank to the other as enchanting as it is in Salzburg, especially at festival time. To traverse the Salzach River from the "new city" to the "old city" on an evening when a musical performance is about to begin in one of the town's many concert halls is to find oneself on a grand stage from which harsh realities have been banished. Formally dressed operagoers mingle with backpackers on the pedestrians-only footbridge. A bearded young man gives an impromptu reading from, of all books, The Wind in the Willows. Shoppers on bicycles head home for dinner, bearing flowers and groceries. In the waning sunlight, the city's acropolis—the massive white Hohensalzburg Fortress—turns a pearly pink as it guards the ancient settlement from the Mönchsberg peak.
This tidy city of 150,000 inhabitants in western Austria owed its original prosperity (and name) to the abundance of "white gold"—salt—in the surrounding Alps. Today Salzburg's biggest drawing card is the legacy of its favorite son, Mozart, whose musical genius is the chief inspiration for the city's glittering festivals. Each January, in honor of the composer's birthday, the International Mozart Foundation presents several concerts (011-43-662-8731-5460). Another leading series is the annual Easter Festival Salzburg, founded by the conductor Herbert von Karajan in 1967 (011-43-662-804-5361). Most famous of all is the Salzburg Festival, founded in 1920. It consists of a week of Baroque performances given each spring around Whitsunday (Pentecost) and then a multifaceted celebration in July and August. To mark the 250th anniversary of the composer's birth, this summer's festival (July 23 to August 31) is a Mozart marathon, with all twenty-two of his operas being performed in settings ranging from the Grosses Festspielhaus (Great Festival Hall) to the world-famous Marionette Theater to the Haus für Mozart (the House for Mozart), an auditorium built especially for the occasion. (For information about tickets and dates: 011-43-662-804-5500; www.salzburgfestival.at).
Among the festival's operatic highlights are new productions of The Magic Flute, with Riccardo Muti conducting the Vienna Philharmonic, and The Marriage of Figaro, led by Nikolaus Harnoncourt. Concert offerings include piano recitals by Alfred Brendel, Maurizio Pollini and András Schiff and guest orchestra appearances by the Berlin Philharmonic and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. There is also a gala Mozart concert on July 30 at the town's stunning old summer riding school featuring the English wunderkind Daniel Harding conducting the Vienna Philharmonic in Symphony no. 38 (the Prague) and a starry array of singers (Anna Netrebko, Magdalena Kožená, Thomas Hampson, Michael Schade, René Pape) in Mozart arias. The most moving event will undoubtedly be the year's final spectacle—maestro Harnoncourt directing a performance of Mozart's noble Requiem on December 5 to commemorate the 215th anniversary of the composer's premature death, in 1791.
Salzburg is perfect for strolling, but sturdy shoes are advisable for traversing the cobbled old city, as is light clothing during July and August, when the temperature in the Salzach Valley can get uncomfortably high. At night, opera brings out a dressy crowd, many in black tie and evening attire; at recitals and orchestral concerts, the dress is elegant but less formal. Plan on staying at least three nights to experience a good sampling of all that the city and the festivals have to offer.
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