The Salzburg Festival is a celebration of performing arts and music that takes place in Salzburg, Austria every summer. The first festival took place in 1920 with a performance of Hugo von Hofmannsthal's Jedermann in front of the Salzburg Cathedral. The performance of Jedermann in the Cathedral Square has become a tradition of the six week festival. 

Salzburg, Austria during the 2014 Salzburg Festival (photo: Rolex/Ambroise Tezenas)

Salzburg's baroque city center, a Unesco World Heritage site and the birthplace of Mozart, hosts the event that has featured performances by Plácido Domingo, Francesco Meli and Cecilia Bartoli. Bartoli is currently the artistic director of the Salzburg Whitsun Festival, which takes place in the spring. She will also be taking on the role of Maria in a new production of West Side Story at the 2016 summer festival.

The Trapp Family Singers performed at the festival in 1936. The performance is recreated in the filmic adaptation of the broadway musical based on Austria's von Trapp family, The Sound of Music. In the film, the performance takes place in 1938, a historical inaccuracy that was surely devised to heighten the film's drama.

Rolex has been the main sponsor of the Salzburg Festival since 2012. For more information on the 2016 festival, including the sold out production of West Side Story, visit the festival's official site.

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