Elīna Garanča shines at the Salzburg Festival

Artists and audiences alike felt a deep sense of loss when the pandemic put a sudden end to live performances last year. The ability to enjoy digital concerts online was some consolation, but as nothing can quite match the magic of direct contact between performer and audience, the few live concerts that were able to go ahead during this period were particularly meaningful.

Set for release by Deutsche Grammophon on 3 December 2021, Live from Salzburg documents two such remarkable events, featuring mezzo-soprano Elīna Garanča’s appearances at the Salzburg Festival in the summers of 2020 and 2021 with the Wiener Philharmoniker and Christian Thielemann.

These are concerts of historic significance, in part because they defied the crisis facing live performance worldwide, but first and foremost because they provided music-making of such exceptional intensity.