Opera Camps

Based on the drama Jedermann by Hugo von Hofmannsthal

For young people from 10 to 16 years of age
Camp language: German
Costs: € 475,- per person (siblings beginning with the 2nd child, € 455,- each)

Public Performance: 
Saturday, July 22, 4:00 PM
UNIVERSITÄT MOZARTEUM / MAX SCHLERETH SAAL
(Duration: approx. 50 minutes)

Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s Jedermann (Everyman) lies at the very heart of the Salzburg Festival. ‘The entire city holds its breath for this play’, wrote Max Reinhardt during the 1930s, ‘even the children act out Jedermann’. Indeed, the children back then did perform Hofmannsthal’s ‘Play of the Rich Man’s Death’ for their own amusement.

Just as in the 1930s, the children and young people who take part in the Jedermann camp will experience the original version and present their own play after an intensive week of preparation. The incidental music composed especially for the Jedermann camp also offers exciting challenges for instrumentalists. The alternation between choral singing, instrumental music, acting and stage design will enable participants to slip in and out of different roles and rise to the various tasks that are vital in putting on your own theatre production.

* Application for Opera Camps 2023 is closed as of February 1, 2023.

Based on the Opera Le nozze di Figaro by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

For teenagers from 15 to 17 years of age
Camp languages: German, English
Costs: € 475.- per person (siblings beginning with the 2nd child, € 455,- each)

Public Performance: 
Saturday, July 29, 4:00 PM 
UNIVERSITÄT MOZARTEUM / MAX SCHLERETH-SAAL
(Duration: approx. 50 minutes)

Le nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro) is considered one of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s most successful comic operas and at the same time a devastating critique of an amoral nobility that abuses its power. Figaro and Susanna, a servant couple, are planning their forthcoming wedding. A number of obstacles and odd turns are placed in their way by a domineering count, a betrayed countess, a love-crazed teenager and a lawyer escorted by his scheming housekeeper. The happy couple must be careful not to get entangled up in their plans for rescue and revenge. The participants of the opera camp will sing, act, make music and develop their own take on the work by experimenting with the opera’s characters, plot and music.

* Application for Opera Camps 2023 is closed as of February 1, 2023.

Based on the opera Orfeo ed Euridice by Christoph Willibald Gluck

For children from 9 to 12 years of age
Camp languages: German, English
Costs € 475.- per person (siblings beginning with the 2nd child, € 455,- each)

Public Performance: 
Saturday, August 5, 4:00 PM
UNIVERSITÄT MOZARTEUM / MAX SCHLERETH-SAAL
(Duration: approx. 50 minutes)

According to the ancient myth, Orpheus’ singing bewitched people, gods, animals and even plants. No wonder that his lament at the loss of his beloved Eurydice touches the gods so much that Jupiter allows the bard to descend into the underworld to bring his wife back to the realm of the living. One condition is attached to this favour: Orpheus must not look back at her until they are both out of the underworld.

With Orfeo ed Euridice, Gluck created a work that dispenses with complicated intrigues, and firmly focusses on the character of Orpheus and his feelings. In the opera camp, the children will accompany Orpheus on his journey. With singing, orchestral playing and acting scenes, they will defy lightning, thunder and darkness, dare to cross the river of the underworld, appease the Furies and accompany Eurydice back to the world of the living.

* Application for Opera Camps 2023 is closed as of February 1, 2023.

Based on the opera Falstaff by Giuseppe Verdi

For young people from 13 to 16 years of age
Camp languages: German, English
Costs € 475.- per person (siblings beginning with the 2nd child € 455,- each)

Public Performance: 
Saturday, August 12, 5:00 PM
UNIVERSITÄT MOZARTEUM / MAX SCHLERETH-SAAL
(Duration: approx. 50 minutes)

With his last opera, Falstaff, Giuseppe Verdi produced a wonderfully comic work based on William Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor. Sir John Falstaff is shameless, gluttonous, drunken, cash-strapped and — in his own opinion — irresistibly charming. In an attempt to ease his financial woes, he tries to reel in two rich married ladies by writing them two identical love letters. Too bad that the two ladies are acquainted and read the letters to each other — meaning that their husbands get wind of his advances.

Falstaff has plainly made too many enemies. The young people will engage with Verdi’s music by taking on roles as orchestral musicians, chorus singers, stage designers and stage actors, connecting the themes of the opera with their own range of experiences.

* Application for Opera Camps 2023 is closed as of February 1, 2023.