Salzburg Festival Parts Ways With Artistic Director Markus Hinterhäuser Early

Originally offered a third term running from October 1, 2026 through 2031, Markus Hinterhäuser walked away from a renegotiated deal the Salzburg Festival's board had trimmed to just one year. After weeks of negotiations between the board of trustees and the artistic director, Hinterhäuser did not accept the contract extension before the deadline on Friday, and the split became irreversible.

"Due to irreconcilable differences of opinion, the Salzburg Festival and artistic director Markus Hinterhäuser have decided to part ways, effective immediately," the festival's supervisory board said in a statement Thursday. The decision, according to the supervisory board, "is the result of a meeting between the lawyers for the Salzburg Festival's supervisory board on the one hand and the artistic director and his counsel on the other." Hinterhäuser will be on paid leave until the end of September when his contract expires.

Hinterhäuser has served as artistic director since October 2016, and as recently as April 2024 his contract had been extended by the Supervisory Board for another five years, through September 2031. He had been in position to become the Salzburg Festival's longest-serving artistic director since Herbert von Karajan, who held the role from 1956 to 1989. That distinction now falls to someone else.

The rupture traces at least partly to tensions within the directorate. Hinterhäuser fell out with the board over "irreconcilable differences of opinion and disagreements" following his dismissal of the head of spoken theatre. That earlier dismissal, in November 2024, saw drama director Marina Davydova terminated for allegedly conducting unauthorized work at a Berlin theatre festival without the directorate's knowledge or approval. The board chair is Karoline Edtstadler, Governor of Salzburg province, who demanded that Hinterhäuser be "given a yellow card."

The board is now under pressure to find a new artistic director, with further decisions expected at the next meeting of the Board of Trustees. The festival's supervisory board said it would appoint a provisional artistic director "without delay" and confirmed that conversations with potential candidates had already begun. No names have been announced.

The leadership void arrives at a precarious operational moment. This year's festival is scheduled to include 171 performances at 19 venues from July 17 to August 30, plus 37 youth performances, with productions of Carmen, Ariadne auf Naxos, and Così fan tutte among the planned program. No one can currently say who will be in charge this summer.

Kristina Hammer, a lawyer, took over as festival president in 2022 from Helga Rabl-Stadler, who had been in charge since 1995. Hinterhäuser, an Austrian pianist who turns 68 this week, built a reputation during his decade at the helm for programming that placed contemporary and experimental work alongside the festival's marquee opera productions. In measurable terms, Hinterhäuser has been the festival's most effective director this century, a stabilizing presence where others had disrupted; his departure carries artistic consequences that are unlikely to be obviously beneficial.