Especially during festival season, Salzburg becomes a magnet for the international jet set and a culturally minded audience from around the world. However, the premiere of the amfAR Gala topped everything seen before: Around 400 high-profile personalities from the arts, culture, politics, and business experienced an evening in the baroque Residenz Salzburg that combined exclusivity and great emotion.
Under the artistic direction of Gery Keszler and curated by LIFE+, theater, music, fashion, and social discourse merged into a gala evening of international radiance. The gala was opened by Oscar winner Jeremy Irons, followed by moving performances by Ute Lemper and Rufus Wainwright, who paid homage to the city’s musical heritage with excerpts from his Dream Requiem on Mozart’s original clavichord. In a LIFE+-conceived continuation of the iconic play “Jedermann” (Janina Lebiszczak / text, Alexander Wiegold / dramaturgy, and Marie Alice Wolfzahn / direction), new and familiar stars created goosebump moments. Among them: Philipp Hochmair, Karl Markovics, Cornelius Obonya, René Pape, Paul Winkler, Maayan Licht, Deleila Piasko, Kathleen Morgeneyer, Sunnyi Melles, and Stefan Jürgens. Mozart’s Costa violin, played by star violinist Lidia Baich (like the clavichord a loan from the Mozarteum Foundation), sounded, while Elisabeth Fuchs excelled in the orchestral accompaniment with the Salzburg Philharmonic.
For the poetic reinterpretation of Jedermann with impulses from acting, music, and literature, the house of Vivienne Westwood reinterpreted historical festival costumes for the special performance. Re-working the past into the future, the costumes, once worn by opera singers and performers, were selected from the Salzburg Festival’s costume archive by Westwood’s creative director Andreas Kronthaler. Taken apart, combined, re-sewn, and mixed-up with pieces from current collections to tell a new story in the signature style of the house. Depicting the plays’ themes of life and death, possession and loss, power and humility, the Vivienne Westwood costumes tell the story of the plays’ motifs and the characters within it. Following the performance, the special costumes were sold as part of the gala auction.
“Salzburg is special to Vivienne and me, and the house of Vivienne Westwood is honoured to be part of the amfAR gala, held in Austria for the first time. We created costumes in collaboration with the wonderful costume department of the Salzburg Festival for this performance. The costumes were then auctioned to raise funds for the life saving research and the ongoing fight to end the global AIDs epidemic. Theatre is vital.” -Andreas Kronthaler, Creative Director, Vivienne Westwood
Jannic Stockhausen (Dahlmann) was responsible for the gala dinner, staging a multi-course top menu, stylishly served on fine Meissen porcelain. Also a composition in itself are the 60 place plates for the guests around the catwalk – designed by Vivienne Westwood’s atelier especially for the gala, produced by Gmundner Keramik, the plate depicts illustrations from the Westwood house archives representing the two central figures from the classic play, Buhlschaft and Jedermann meeting at Domplatz in Salzburg, dated 24/08/2025. The plates were available for purchase to raise further funds for the charity.
In the finale, one of the greatest philanthropists of our time was honored: Sir Bob Geldof received the Grand Decoration of Honor for Services to the Republic of Austria, presented by Sepp Schellhorn, State Secretary in the Federal Ministry for European and International Affairs, with a laudatory speech by media manager Rudi Klausnitzer.
The premiere brought together personalities of international rank: stars of the film and theater world, influential voices of the music scene, and significant representatives from politics and business. Together they made the gala a social highlight of the festival summer.
The spectacular charity auction under the direction of Simon de Pury raised — in addition to sponsorship funds — over half a million in donations. High-profile lots included works by Andy Warhol, Erwin Wurm, a MINI by Elie Saab, exclusive Harry Winston watches, a legendary Sisi star by A.E. Köchert, Chopard earrings, as well as 18 original festival costumes, reinterpreted by Vivienne Westwood. The guests experienced a roaring finale at the afterparty at Schloss Leopoldskron, sponsored by Wildshut. International DJs (sim0ne, DJ Wittgenstein, Cristiano Gomez), several bars (Red Bull, Wildshut Bio Perlage, Campari) with excellent drinks, and the incomparable setting provided a brilliant conclusion to the first amfAR Gala in Salzburg.
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