Austrian president opens Salzburg festival

Austrian President Heinz Fischer opened the 91st annual Salzburg Summer Festival Wednesday, an unmissable event for lovers of opera, classical music and theatre. The first performances will include Claus Guth's production of Mozart's "The Marriage of Figaro" Wednesday evening. Among the top names performing at the festival will be French conductor Pierre Boulez and Chinese pianist Lang Lang. The festival will also include a tribute to Italian conduct Riccardo Muti, a regular performer at the festival. He will conduct the Vienna Philharmonic 40 years after he first performed at the festival with the same orchestra. Theatre productions will include a daunting production of Goethe's "Faust" by Germany's Nicolas Stemann: it will run to seven hours, without intermissions. There will be 213 different performances until the end of August with tickets costing as much as 370 euros (535 dollars).