Where Is Salzburg

Simon Rattle, Emperor Caracalla Seduced by Charms of Baden-Baden: Travel

The Roman emperor Caracalla soothed his arthritis in the mineral waters at Baden-Baden in Germany. Dostoevsky lost big in the gaming rooms, squandering his young wife’s jewels in the process. Bill Clinton , on a visit soon after departing the presidency, proclaimed that “Baden-Baden is so nice you have to name it twice.”

Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic are among the latest to feel the lure of this spa town on the edge of the Black Forest. Last month they announced plans to decamp from the Salzburg Easter Festival , where the orchestra has been showcased since the event started in 1967, and take up Easter music-making at Baden-Baden’s Festspielhaus beginning in 2013.

Classical music at the Festspielhaus has been prominent among the city’s attractions for more than a decade. Yet everything here traces back to the mineral waters, the literal wellspring for what the town is today. Now the waters are purveyed by a sumptuous array of grand resort hotels that you’d think could exist only in a bygone era.

Any one of them would be a landmark somewhere else, yet here the astonishing concentration is matched by the beauty of the setting. Take a stroll along the Lichtentaler Allee and the Kaiser Allee, with their rolling lawns and proximity to the gently flowing Oos River, and you’ll see what I mean -- an idyllic blend of Mother Nature and urban opulence.

Whether the waters actually possess medicinal capabilities may be open to question. Reaching a conclusion is its own reward. Hotels have the full range of spa services, and whether you want to work out or be pampered is up to you. The dress code for saunas and steam rooms is nude, a point worth noting inasmuch as they are co-ed.

Also situated along the Lichtentaler Allee is the Kurhaus or casino. Gambling received a boost in the 1830s when Louis- Philippe banned games of chance in France . Baden-Baden’s proximity to the French border was never more propitious and the city gained its reputation as a place to see and be seen.

Russians came too, a practice already instigated by Tsar Alexander I, who married a local princess and visited regularly. Dostoevsky lost money, then gained literary capital to write his novel “The Gambler.” Another writer, Ivan Turgenev, maintained a residence, which he shared with his companion, the famed mezzo soprano Pauline Viardot.

Other musicians to find Baden-Baden congenial were Brahms and Clara Schumann. Berlioz’s final opera “Beatrice et Benedict” inaugurated a theater in the town at its premiere in 1862.

Ticket allocation at Salzburg and Bayreuth Festivals examined by ...

Both the Salzburg and Bayreuth Festivals have recently been the subject of external audits to assess whether their allocation of tickets is sufficiently fair to justify government subsidy.

In Salzburg, Festival President Helga Rabl-Stadler has been forced to publicly defend the legal structure that guarantees the events finances. Under the system, the Austrian Government, the Province of Salzburg, the City of Salzburg and the Salzburg Tourism Fund underwrite the festival in the respective proportions 40:20:20:20. This system has been in place for 60 years but has recently been the subject of a court audit. Organisations sponsoring the festival are entitled to book a large proportion of tickets to events before the public. The system has escaped the censure of the court because almost all of the tickets are sold to the companies at full price.

However, the main consequence of the system is that the already scarce tickets are made even more difficult to obtain by members of the public. A separate audit in Germany has looked at the same issue at the Bayreuth Festival, where is has emerged that over 60% of tickets are reserved for festival patrons, sponsors and local dignitaries. For those wishing to attend the festival and who don’t fall into one of those groups, obtaining tickets can be notoriously difficult, with waiting lists stretching up to ten years.

A federal audit has condemned the ticket allocation at Bayreuth as “not conforming to Government subsidy goals”. German Culture Minister Bernd Neumann is now putting pressure on the Festival’s supervisory board to make drastic changes to the allocation system.

Bradshaw's illustrated hand-book to Switzerland and the Tyrol

A handbook for travellers in southern Germany, being a guide to Würtemberg, Bavaria, Austria, Tyrol, Salzburg, Styria &c., the Austrian and Bavarian Alps, and the Danube from Ulm to the Black Sea

The Salzburg Connectn

Salzburg Connection

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