Salzburg Festival Contributes Money To Refugees

By Francisco Salazar

The Salzburg Festival is donating 50,000 Euros to facilitate musical education for Syrian refugee children in Jordan over the next two years.

The festival announced that the money being donated to MECI (Middle East Children’s Institute)  was the net profit from ticket sales for the dress rehearsal of Verdi’s “Aida” performed on August 3, 2017.

The performance starred Anna Netrebko, Francesco Meli, Ekaterina Semenchuk and Luca Salsi. Riccardo Muti conducted the new production by Shirin Neshat.

Neshat said, “It is a great honor for me to make a small contribution to this wonderful organization by donating the revenue from the ticket sales. I am very grateful that the Salzburg Festival has made this wonderful collaboration possible. Such a humanitarian efforts are seldom found, but it is so important and a good example in our day. ”

“Aida” is scheduled to open on August 6 and is the highlight of the season as all performances have been sold out for months. The production will mark the role debuts of Netrebko as Aida and Meli as Radamès. It also marks the third collaboration between Muti and Netrebko and also reunites Netrebko and Meli, who have collaborated at La Scala and Salzburg on numerous occasions.

Verdi’s “Aida”  runs through August 25 with Vittoria Yeo and Yusif Eyvazov starring in the last two performances.

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