No other work written for the music theatre has been performed at the Salzburg Festival as often as Le Nozze di Figaro. Mozart’s opera buffa, this work of genius, was included in the programme of forty-six summers; the more than 200 performances included at least twelve different Figaro productions, and on every occasion only the best Mozart singers of the time were engaged for Salzburg. Mozart’s Figaro performances in Salzburg were above all a task for great conductors, from Franz Schalk and Bruno Walter, Josef Krigs, Herbert von Karajan and Wilhelm Furtwängler to Lorin Maazel, Riccardo Muti and Nikolaus Harnoncourt. It is, however, Karl Böhm above all others who deserves to be singled out, who over many years has had a formative infl uence on the musical image of this opera from Vienna and Salzburg to Munich and New York. To this day Karl Böhm’s performances of Figaro and Cosi fan tutte remain a vivid memory, and his recordings have set a standard.