But no lawsuit

Festival reaches agreement with Davydova

The Salzburg Festival has reached an out-of-court settlement with Marina Davydova. The former head of drama had been dismissed for "breaches of contractual duties". Following the settlement, she refrains from taking legal action.

Following the dismissal of head of drama Marina Davydova from the Salzburg Festival, the directorate and Davydova have now reached an out-of-court settlement. This means that there will be no proceedings at the labor court. The former head of drama had announced legal action. "Both parties are sticking to their legal positions, but have reached an amicable agreement to avoid lengthy and costly legal and judicial disputes", the Festival announced in a press release on Friday.

The festival had terminated Davydova's employment with immediate effect at the end of November "as a result of breaches of contractual duties, in particular Marina Davydova's work at a Berlin theater festival, which was neither reported nor approved". Davydova, however, did not see any breach of official duties: Her "secondary employment" had consisted of "the fact that Ms. Davydova was one of two members of the artistic committee of "The Voices Performing Arts Festival" in Berlin completely unpaid", her lawyer argued. This festival is an artistic platform for displaced artists and is mainly dedicated to political emigrants from Russia.

The Festival emphasized today that Marina Davydova's programmatic and artistic achievements for the 2024 Festival season and for the summer of 2025 are beyond dispute, "for which we thank her and which will of course be fully implemented as conceived by Marina Davydova".