– The Salzburg Festival is often called the most aristocratic. What is the essence of this aristocracy in the modern Salzburg Festival?

– Not only Salzburg, but any opera festival, in my observations, is a substitute for aristocratic gatherings. Social receptions and balls have practically disappeared from modern life. Opera festival weeks have become a replacement for this form of leisure. Where else would you wear diamonds, a tuxedo, or a floor-length dress embroidered with sequins? You wouldn’t wear such attire to the cinema or even to theatrical performances. Have you seen how audiences dress at the Avignon Festival? In shorts and flip-flops! Firstly, it’s hot there, and secondly, you have to quickly run from one venue to another. Opera is still perceived not only as an encounter with art but also as a social event. This is particularly evident at the Salzburg Festival – the audience is wealthier, the clothing more luxurious, and the tickets expensive. For example, at the famous Vienna Festival, Wiener Festwochen, tickets are almost ten times cheaper, affordable for almost everyone. But the phrase “I was at the opera premiere of the Salzburg Festival with my wife!” immediately places the speaker in a certain social stratum. All this does not exclude the fact that the audience can see complex directorial concepts by Romeo Castellucci or Krzysztof Warlikowski on stage. But the general atmosphere of a social gathering remains intact.

– And Salzburg, despite such traditionalism, allowed drama onto its territory…

– Wait. What do you mean by “allowed drama”? This is a curious aberration that needs to be addressed. Musical events have been taking place in Salzburg for a long time, since the last third of the 19th century, but the main initiator of the festival as we know it now was Max Reinhardt. The history of the festival, as we know it, essentially begins in the 1920s thanks to Reinhardt’s initiative, charisma, and drive. What were the 1920s for Austria? It was a time of the collapse of a great empire after the defeat in World War I. It was a time of economic hardships on the verge of hunger. Against this historical backdrop, Reinhardt, an outstanding director of dramatic theater, founded the festival. He essentially laid the model for all theater festivals because the idea of combining festivity and modernity belongs to him. Today we take it for granted that festivals play innovative productions with cutting-edge direction – but this was not an obvious thought. Reinhardt, a pioneer in direction and festival movement, was the founder of this concept. For me, as a historian, this is absolutely clear.

– So, it cannot be said that opera has moved aside to make way for drama?

– Well, opera has not moved anywhere. It remains in all its glory. The presence of a dramatic section at a festival founded by Reinhardt is entirely natural. But it’s important to understand that over its 100-year history, the Salzburg Festival has gone through many periods. For example, during the time when Herbert von Karajan was its artistic director, it was primarily a musical festival. Opera was primarily a musical event. Now, it has also become a realm of contemporary direction. For the last ten years, the dramatic part has been overshadowed by the opera and concert sections. I am now trying to bring it out of this shadow, but it is extremely difficult.

– Why?

– Because it has long been centered around German-language theater. It is an outstanding, great theater with very clear generic features. It has a certain aesthetic that the local audience is accustomed to. They already have stereotypes about what theater can be. This, paradoxically, is something we dealt with in Russia for a long time when we heard, “We know what theater should be!” Breaking these expectations and stereotypes is not easy. Moreover, it’s important to consider that the Salzburg Festival is much more dependent on the box office than any other festival. It has a colossal budget, but it also earns a huge part of this budget itself. Wiener Festwochen, which I reference because it’s also an Austrian festival and the most obvious comparison, doesn’t depend on ticket sales to the same extent. For the performance “Sun and Sea,” which won the Golden Lion in Venice, tickets in Vienna cost only 13 euros. For the Vienna Festival, ticket sales are more about how many people attended theatrical events rather than how much money came into the cash register. At the Salzburg Festival, we all depend on a very specific affluent audience with established ideas about theater. Any of my curatorial fantasies must take this into account.

– Does your experience with the Moscow festival “New European Theater,” which you ran for many years, help in Salzburg?

– I would be glad if it helped. But things are so different here! At NET, everything was ten times easier! Yes, we had no money, and I can’t even begin to compare our budget with Salzburg’s. But we were spirited, young, and started with a drive that persisted through the years. We didn’t look back at traditions and weren’t afraid to take risks. Here, there are very clear audience expectations and complex logistics.

– This year’s program includes Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s “Jedermann,” which has once again sparked enormous interest…

– It’s not just interest; it’s an incredible boom. The premiere took place, and it was objectively super successful: tickets for all 14 performances were sold out in early January. Each show plays to a hall with two and a half thousand spectators. We additionally announced a general rehearsal for the audience; at 9:30, ticket sales opened, and by 9:31, everything was sold out.

– What are your feelings about all this?

– It’s a complex set of feelings! A mix of impressions ranging from delight to amazement. But Salzburg is an amazing place. I’m sitting here now with the cathedral domes at eye level against the backdrop of a blue sky transitioning into mountains covered with forests. Half an hour ago, I was at a rehearsal surrounded by the sounds of divine orchestras. My receptors never rest; they are constantly stimulated by visual, auditory impressions, even the smells of blooming plants…

– It must not be easy, probably not far from the “Stendhal syndrome”…

– That’s exactly what it is, even though I’m not in Italy! Plus, the crowds of tourists. It’s like working in an office that’s the Winter Palace, surrounded by people visiting the Hermitage. It’s impossible to work!

– Do you feel like a character in a movie?

– Of course, and I am composing a film script on the go. I have never written scripts before, but the impressions here are not suitable for a play or a novel, but perfect for a Hollywood film script titled “Salzburg.” Sometimes I tell my colleagues – don’t forget, you are all characters in my future film. They laugh.

– Speaking of plays. Your performance “Museum of Unaccounted Voices,” staged at Wiener Festwochen last year – is it a reflection or a snapshot of reality, a record of events happening at home and in the world?

– It’s a reflection, undoubtedly, and a very special one. My biography is unique – few people become exiles twice in their lives, losing their past. When it first happened to me in the 90s in Azerbaijan, where my family lived, I was very young. My psyche tried to cut off the past; I started building a new life. Now, after leaving Russia, when the newly built life was lost again, this new loss shed new light on the previous one. I created the performance “Museum of Unaccounted Voices” and wrote the play “Land of No Return” – two entirely different works. The play will soon be staged in one of Germany’s leading theaters, and “Museum of Unaccounted Voices” is a performative act for which I wrote the text.

– And the entire drama program of Salzburg 2024 fits into this paradigm.

– Naturally. We have “Sternstunden der Menschheit” by Zweig, an emigrant who committed suicide – let’s not forget that he was an exile. And of course, the eve of World War I – “The Magic Mountain” by Mann, staged by Christian Lupa. And the play “Everything That Happened and Would Happen” by Heiner Goebbels, based on Patrick Ourednik’s historical book “Europeana.”

– The Goebbels play is from 2018, right?

– Yes, and this is unusual for Salzburg – to play old performances. Usually, the festival program includes only premieres; this has historically been the case, and it creates additional difficulties. But I am trying to change this. So this year we have two “guest performances” – Heiner Goebbels’ “Everything That Happened and Would Happen” and Alexander Ekman’s “Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

– In your Salzburg Festival program this year, there’s “Orpheus Breaks the Boundaries,” where actors read the letters of Tsvetaeva, Rilke, and Pasternak. This work also resonates with what you are saying.

– Of course. This year, my program has neither Russian directors nor Russian themes. But it would be strange to pretend that I have no connection with Russia, that I’m not interested in what’s happening there – of course, I am. Within the readings, I decided to create two projects. “Hallo, hier spricht Nawalny,” based on Alexei Navalny’s letters from prison, and “Orpheus Breaks the Boundaries,” based on the correspondence of Rilke, Pasternak, and Tsvetaeva, which is about something entirely different. A lot was happening at that time: Tsvetaeva in exile, Pasternak in difficult life circumstances, Rilke living the last year of his life. Yet, their texts seem devoid of all political life. They lived in such sublime heights, in such empyrean realms, it’s simply amazing. These incredible love affairs of people who never saw each other: Rilke and Tsvetaeva lived for over a year with incredible feelings but never met. And then she writes him a short letter with her address, and he dies a month and a half later… And she writes a letter to the already deceased Rilke – beyond existence. It’s a very complex reading. Yes, it’s prose – but prose by poets. And we had to cut it down; otherwise, the audience would simply drown in it. This incredible linguistic structure, the structure of thought. Yet, Tsvetaeva’s emigration sadness, her sense of monstrous loss, abandonment, and shaky ground underfoot break through. Despite not complaining, this is simply the backdrop of her letters.

– And the only remedy against this shakiness is creativity?

– For me, yes. I don’t know other remedies. Perhaps, if you are a deeply religious person, that saves you and keeps you afloat. I am not an atheist, by no means, but my agnosticism engages in a complex dialogue with the attempt to believe. By nature, my mind – everyone has some kind of mind! – has been inclined towards analysis, which is why I became a critic and historian. But there is no therapeutic effect in analysis. I am a psychologically stable person, and paradoxically, this is connected with my inner sense of the tragedy of existence as such, even without external circumstances. I have lived with this worldview from a very young age; it is not related to pogroms, early death of parents, or other tragic events. It is deeply rooted inside me. And the only therapy for me is creativity, it is salvific.