Salzburg Festival opening disrupted by climate protesters

(From left) Actors representing Die guten Werke (Deeds), Sarah Viktoria Frick as Teufel (Devil) and Anja Plaschg as Der Glaube (Faith) perform on July 17, 2023 in Salzburg, Austria, during a dress rehearsal of the play “Jedermann” by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, that will premiere on July 21, 2023 during the Salzburger Festspiele (Salzburg Festival) festival of music and drama. Climate activists disrupted the opening night of the Salzburg Festival of music and theatre in Austria on July 21, 2023, an activist group said, in the latest such protest to target an arts venue.
BARBARA GINDL / APA / AFP

VIENNA—Climate activists have disrupted the opening night of the Salzburg Festival of music and theatre in Austria, an activist group said, in the latest such protest to target an arts venue.

“We are the last generation capable of preventing the point of no return,” three young activists from the Last Generation group shouted at the festival’s premiere of “Jedermann” (Each Man) late Friday, July 21, before being escorted away by security, according to a video posted by the group on social media.

Founded in 1920, the Salzburg Festival is one the world’s top classical music festivals.

“The citizens of the Last Generation Austria demand that we face this question as a whole society,” the group said in a statement. “Especially now, when global heating is getting more out of control and is making itself felt all over the world with ever more extreme temperatures and ever more destructive weather, they can no longer look away.”

The protest came as swathes of southern Europe and the United States were baking in record heatwaves.

The festival disruption marked the latest protest by climate activists at high-profile venues.

At the golf British Open on Friday, protesters set off a smoke flare and threw orange powder onto the course before being arrested.

During the recent Wimbledon tennis tournament, protesters from the Just Stop Oil campaign group disrupted play by running onto courts in two separate incidents. The group had previously targeted the Ashes cricket series and the English Premiership Rugby final.

In recent months, climate protesters have also glued themselves to the base of an ancient sculpture at the Vatican Museums; to Johannes Vermeer’s “Girl with a Pearl Earring” painting at The Hague; and to works by Francisco Goya in Madrid.

In Germany, activists have flung mash at a Claude Monet work and in London’s National Gallery, they have dumped cans of tomato soup over the glass protecting Vincent van Gogh’s “Sunflowers.”  /ra

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