Part One

Founded for political reasons, used by the Nazis for political reasons, revived after the Second World War by the US Army for political reasons, dominated for two decades by Herbert von Karajan, a double member of the Nazi party and rescued by Gerard Mortier who believed that all art has a political purpose, the Salzburg Festival remains the most important music festival in Europe - contentious, outrageous and with a phenomenally high standard of performance.

This is the first full-length history of this tortured, annual cultural bun-fight, with an all-star cast including Herbert von Karajan, Wilhelm Furtwangler, Georg Solti, Simon Rattle, Riccardo Muti, James Levine, Karl Bohm, Toscanini, Curd Jurgens, Maximillian Schell, Klaus-Maria Brandauer, Placido Domingo, Valery Gergiev, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Christa Ludwig, Mirella Freni, Mariss Jansons, Thomas Hampson, Lang Lang, Elizabeth Schwarzkopf, Grace Bumbry, Sena Jurinac, Lisa della Casa, Anna Netrebko, Alfred Brendel, Daniel Barenboim, Seiji Ozawa, Peter Sellars, Pierre Boulez, Bruno Walter, Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, Wilhelm Bachhaus, Richard Strauss, Lotte Lehmann and Adolf Hitler, plus Festival president Helga Rabl-Stadler and Austrian president Dr Fisher.