The Salzburg Festival, one of the world’s most prestigious arts gatherings, will launch on Saturday hoping to prove that a reduced budget and fewer shows do not mean a less exciting programme. After an eight-percent budget cut down to 60 million euros ($65.2 million, £41.8 million), the 95th edition will feature only 188 performances compared with 270 last year. The tighter schedule is a telltale sign that interim directors Helga Rabl-Stadler and Sven-Eric Bechtolf have made good on their promise to lower costs after the extravagant two-year reign of Alexander Pereira, who quit in 2014 to direct the La Scala opera house in Milan. The latest edition, which runs until August 30, has chosen as its theme ‘Inequality’ to highlight the complex interdependent relationships between ‘masters and servants, the powerful and the powerless, oppression and protest’, the pair said in a statement. Like every

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