Peter de Caluwe will become artistic director of the Salzburg Festival in October 2027, assuming one of the arts world's most influential jobs after an innovative tenure at Brussels’ La Monnaie known for world premieres and provocative programming.
De Caluwe takes a position once held by one of his mentors, Gerard Mortier, who revolutionized the festival in the 1990s following the long reign of Herbert van Karajan. De Caluwe replaces Markus Hinterhäuser,
forced out in March after a decade in charge.
“Opera is not a museum. It definitely never has been or it shouldn’t be," de Caluwe said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press on Friday following a news conference in Salzburg, Austria.
Karin Bergmann, whose background is in theater, was hired in April as interim artistic director for this year and next. Much of the 2027 planning was put in place by Hinterhäuser, and de Caluwe will work with Bergmann in a preparatory period starting next month. He starts a five-year term on Oct. 1, 2027, and his first mostly programmed summer will be in 2029.
Kristina Hammer, a lawyer who took over as festival president in 2022 from Helga Rabl-Stadler, was given a second five-year term that starts Jan. 1.
A 63-year-old Belgian, de Caluwe speaks French, Dutch, English, German and Italian. He first attended the Salzburg Festival in 1980 for a performance of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s “Le Nozze di Figaro” directed by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle and has regularly returned.
“The first thing he said to me is: `I’m a team player. I will be listening,’” Hammer said in a separate telephone interview. “That’s something that I find quite beautiful, if somebody starts like this and doesn’t start lecturing about everything.”
During de Caluwe's time running La Monnaie, the company staged 160 productions that included 23 world premieres. Among the new works were Philippe Boesmans’ “Au monde,” Pascal Dusapin’s “Penthesilea” and “Macbeth Underworld” and Mikael Karlsson’s “Fanny and Alexander.”
Andrea Breth’s 2012 staging of Giuseppe Verdi’s “La Traviata” focused on prostitution and included seminaked women, some dressed in sadomasochism gear, one masked and led by a leash as she crawled across the stage. De Caluwe said that was among only about five productions during his tenure that caused a stir.
“That’s too little,” he said. “I would have liked more to be controversy in the way that they cause so much discussion that people really almost felt like a revolution.”
Karoline Edtstadler, provincial governor of the Province of Salzburg and a member of the festival’s supervisory board, acknowledged that before hiring de Caluwe the festival also negotiated with Australian director Barrie Kosky and current Dutch National Opera director Sophie de Lint to form a joint leadership team.
This year’s festival drew more than 261,000 ticketholders for 209 performances filled to 99% capacity from mid-July through August.
De Caluwe becomes the sixth artistic director since Karajan reigned from 1956-89, following Mortier (1992-2001), Peter Ruzicka (2002-06), Jürgen Flimm (2007-10), Alexander Pereira (2012-14) and Hinterhäuser.
De Caluwe worked at La Monnaie under Mortier in the 1980s, shifted to Dutch National Opera from 1990-2006, then returned to La Monnaie as its general and artistic director from 2007-25. He also was mentored at the Dutch company by Pierre Audi, who became artistic head of France’s Aix-en-Provence Festival and New York’s Park Avenue Armory.
“What has inspired me is their constant existence of excellence,” de Caluwe said.
Because the Grosses Festspielhaus is scheduled to be closed for reconstruction during the festivals in 2029 and ‘30, an interim venue in the old city is envisioned for those years. De Caluwe said a staging of Richard Strauss’ “Der Rosenkavalier” is possible for the Grosses Festspielhaus' reopening in 2031.
“We are not bound to a building," Hammer said. "We are bound to a DNA, a vision.”
