MUSIC

Conductor Herbert von Karajan, who last week canceled a performance at the Salzburg music festival because of illness, resigned Thursday from the festival’s board of directors. The 80-year-old maestro announced his resignation in a brief letter to festival president Albert Moser, which was later released to the Austrian Press Agency. The letter did not give a reason for his decision. Last week Karajan’s doctors advised him to withdraw from a performance of Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” because of circulatory problems brought on by Austria’s recent heat wave, but a festival press spokesman said Karajan was already rehearsing with the Berlin Philharmonic for performances on Sunday and Monday.