MUSIC : Saints and Sinners in Salzburg : The most imposing performance was offered not by a conductor, a soloist or an orchestra, but by new director Gerard Mortier

Despite some artistic and political turbulence, virtuoso performances have not been scarce this summer at the prestigious, snobbish, elegant, eclectic, super-costly, often splendid and sometimes just pretentious Salzburg Festival.

Claudio Abbado, Riccardo Muti and Georg Solti conducted the Vienna Philharmonic, which, the administration reminded the press, remains the only official orchestra-in-residence. Interesting, if controversial, guest appearances were made by such upstarts as Simon Rattle with his Birminghamsters and Esa-Pekka Salonen with his itinerant Angelenos.

Nikolaus Harnoncourt--a prophet until recently lacking recognition, much less honor, here in his own city--conducted the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. Christoph von Dohnanyi brought over his Cleveland Orchestra, and Yuri Temirkanov escorted a welcome if rough-edged ensemble stubbornly labeled Die Leningrader Philharmoniker .

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau--67 and still a master, despite diminishing resources--ventured three Lied recitals that may represent his Salzburg swan song. The legendary Anatol Ugorski of St. Petersburg made a sensational debut at 50, replacing the reportedly indisposed Alexis Weissenberg (one of numerous stellar no-shows).

Pierre Boulez returned after 30 years to prove that his modernist vision can be an inspiration at the picturesque foot of the Monchsberg, just as it is in high-tech Paris and sleepy Ojai.

Seven major opera productions graced four opera houses, the largest seating 2,170 and the smallest 784. Mozart was represented with brilliant, modernist stagings of two rarities--”La Clemenza Di Tito” and “La Finta Giardiniera”--plus a dull, all-too-conventional “Figaro.” Solti led a stellar cast in a rather bloated revival of Strauss’ “Die Frau Ohne Schatten,” counterbalanced by a marvelously dark and intimate “Salome,” staged by Luc Bondy and conducted by Cristoph von Dohnanyi.

Leos Janacek made a much-overdue Salzburg debut with a romanticized version of “From the House of the Dead” under Abbado. But, for better or worse, the sensation of the summer involved the sprawling mysticism of Olivier Messiaen’s “Saint Francois d’Assise,” provocatively staged by Peter Sellars and wonderfully conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen, with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in the pit.

For at least one observer, however, the most imposing bravura performance was offered not by a conductor, a soloist or an orchestra. It didn’t even come from a musician. The virtuoso par excellence was Gerard Mortier, Salzburg’s fearless new artistic director.

Inheriting the daunting, oversize mantle of Herbert von Karajan--a local saint and unabashed dictator who in 30 years turned Salzburg into his own commercial memorial--Mortier has blithely stomped in where demons fear to tread. Not content to succeed Karajan, he seems intent on repudiating him.

Fatefully regarded (ergo disdained) as an outsider in this most myopic of international centers, Mortier has offended Salzburg’s wealthy elite while trying aggressively to exorcise Karajan’s ghost. The invited invader from Belgium, 49, has belittled the smug Karajanophiles who still flock to the shrine and declared war on the seemingly arrogant Karajan estate, which controls the interdependent Easter Festival.

Mortier has dared invoke a particularly effective buzzword-- Mafia --to describe the all-powerful record companies that camp here, that advertise their wares not just in all the shop windows but also in those of the university library, and that attempt, not in passing, to influence key artistic decisions. He does not flinch in the face of dangerous enemies.

He has dared suggest in public that the sacred Salzburg Festival logo looks vaguely fascistic. And, horror of horrors, he has made life less than gemutlich for the local hoteliers and restaurateurs.

They pine for the good old days, blame Mortier for an economic recession and complain that the new “avant-garde festival”--that’s how many mislabel it--drives customers away. They gripe, moreover, that many events begin too early and end too late for convenient meal business.

The level of discourse has not always been lofty. If Mortier doesn’t enjoy the controversy, however, he certainly thrives on shrugging it off.

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A baker’s son from Ghent, the product of a Jesuit education, an opera impresario with impressive credentials in Germany and Belgium, Mortier believes his mandate is to dust away the cobwebs creeping down from the towering Hohensalzburg Fortress. For all his bespectacled sweetness, he is a formidable adversary--a cultural Clark Kent, if you will, ready to conquer the Philistines.

He is a man of keen intellect and strong opinions. He is not a man who weighs his words with particular caution.

Monsieur Mortier has decided to bring in new, preferably younger, faces--on both sides of the Salzburg prosceniums. He wants to broaden the repertory and somehow lower ticket prices. He wants to lure back a more democratic, more American audience. He feels a need to take aesthetic risks, and to modernize theatrical attitudes.

He admits to no patience with star egos or with star cults. Salzburg’s doors, he brashly if somewhat tastelessly declares, may not be big enough for Luciano Pavarotti and Jessye Norman. He says he will do nicely this summer without the intended services of Riccardo Muti, Marilyn Horne and Edita Gruberova, all of whom canceled engagements in the wake of managerial disputes. (Disapproving of the contemporary staging scheme envisioned for “Tito,” Muti abandoned Mortier’s ship after a single orchestral concert.)

The new man in Salzburg doesn’t care much for Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s presumably immortal morality play “Jedermann,” which has served as everyman’s ritual here for decades. He doesn’t even endorse the folksy charms and basic gastronomic indulgences that remain central tourist attractions. Mortier actually has expressed distaste for Salzburger Nockerln , a delirious, delicate, possibly symbolic fusion of eggs, sugar and air--mostly air--that is the city’s best-publicized dessert.

Like all revolutionaries, he has his ardent supporters. His detractors, however, seem more vociferous these days.

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The press--particularly the Viennese press, which is notorious for its retrogressive posture in matters artistic--has led the attack. It has been followed by the mayor of Salzburg, a clutch of civic commissioners, a key member of Mortier’s own curiously constructed administrative team and a large segment of an audience that is perfectly willing to pay up to $360 (much more on the black market) in return for a sweetly serenaded nap in a glamorous old world.

Europe takes little Salzburg and its music festival very, very seriously. One recent morning, not long after being summoned to a crisis meeting at City Hall, Mortier faced some hostile accusers at his weekly press conference. Confronting a standing-room-only crowd on his own turf, he smiled, cajoled, joked, expounded, confided and recited. At question time, he defended himself with consummate Gallic wit in three languages.

He never winced, never minced words, never apologized, certainly never retreated. He conveyed an aura of brave bonhomie masking suave superiority.

He smiled even at the most hostile, most mundane queries, always exuding firm politesse. He bristled only when one antagonist made a fuss over the perspiring louts who are allowed to invade the sacred portals of the Festspielhaus in casual attire.

Ultimately, he exuded irresistible charm as, in effect, he told his sanctimonious inquisitors to go jump in the Salzach. Wonder of wonders, the questioners applauded.

Not incidentally, the boss had brought a friend along to the press conference: Peter Sellars. The American enfant terrible confounded the Germanic sophisticates with a lot of giggly gush.

He said he was “extremely thrilled to be here” and called Messiaen’s opera “a great masterpiece--one of the greatest of the century.” He promised “an ecstatic spiritual experience” and added that he wanted “people to leave trembling.”

All this hyperbole produced little more than bemused skepticism. Then Sellars played his trump card: a hidden joker. When no one wanted to ask him any questions, he smiled and rose to leave. On the way out, he reached into his trusty notebook and pulled out a reproduction of a Giotto painting.

“Look,” he told Salzburg. “I carry this around with me all the time. It shows St. Francis driving the devils from Arezzo.”

The not-so-subtle irony was lost on no one. The Salzburger Nachrichten immediately printed a photo of Sellars clutching his Giotto while, at his side, Mortier beamed approval.

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For an interview over lunch a few days later, Mortier chose what seemed like the enemy’s camp: the Goldener Hirsch, favored haven of the conservative chic. The waiters were obsequious as he ordered a glass of champagne to be followed by mineral water to be followed by coffee.

He had been “prepared for the attacks,” he said, “but didn’t think that they would come so early or be so intense.”

Surprisingly, in context, he admitted to some strain. “This is all very hard to support physically. Psychologically, I am doing very well,” he sighed.

He said he regarded Salzburg as a festival in crisis. “It is a question of art versus money. I do not know how it will go on, but it cannot go on as it is now.”

He paused when asked if he thought he might lose the battle. “Maybe. They could make life so unpleasant for me here. I don’t want to be a masochist.”

His initial contract requires him to stay five more years. “I want in any case to stay three years,” he explained. “Then we’ll see.”

Theoretically, Mortier serves as part of an oddly structured directorial triumvirate, sharing duties with Hans Landesmann (who is supposed to focus his attention on orchestral decisions) and Heinrich Wiesmuller (who attends primarily to business matters). The lines defining the divisions of labor are blurred, however, and it is difficult for an outsider to tell chief from figurehead.

Mortier regards himself, he said, as “first among equals.” He also finds the sharing of responsibility “very difficult.” He added, rather emphatically, that he intends to have “talks about all this after the festival.”

There clearly had been some ideological friction between the adventurous Mortier and the more tradition-oriented Landesmann, who helped select Mortier for the post. Landesmann, in fact, had just attacked his colleague in print, and Mortier wanted to know the details. Between courses, he dispatched a waiter to fetch newspapers.

“I would stay here as long as necessary to win the battle,” he insisted, “but if I am not supported--if Mr. Landesmann does not fight for me--it starts to be very difficult.”

Mortier said he was closely involved in scheduling the controversial Johann Strauss-Berg-Mahler program by Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic--the one resoundingly trashed by the German and Austrian press. Ernest Fleischmann of the Philharmonic confirmed Mortier’s initial and essential participation.

“It was decided by L.A.,” Mortier said, “and then accepted by Landesmann and me. We thought it was very courageous to do this program, and very dangerous at the same time. I see now that it would have been better to start a different way.

“I liked the idea of the program, but when I was sitting in the concert I thought maybe I have made a mistake in letting Esa-Pekka open with this. Maybe I failed as a manager. I should have told him before. It would have been much easier to begin with Bartok and have a big success.

“Still, I thought they did very beautiful things in this program. I am sorry Esa-Pekka has taken a confrontation. I spoke to him after the concert and suggested that what he had tried to do was dangerous. He answered: ‘This music is in the public domain.’ I like this attitude.”

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Mortier professed no distress over the negative responses that have marred parts of the Salzburg transition, or over the few specific boos that greeted Salonen’s unconventional reading of the “Emperor Waltz.”

“It is all normal here. They could have played the best ‘Kaiserwalzer’ in the world, and people in the audience still would have complained because it was not Boskovsky and the Vienna Philharmonic.

“The Cleveland Orchestra did a marvelous concert and got some very bad reviews. They were shocked too.”

He thought, in retrospect, that some of the rejection may have been rooted in anti-American snobbery.

“We must not take any of this too seriously,” he philosophized. “After all, they call me the provincial from Brussels.”

Although no American orchestra is scheduled to come to Salzburg next summer, talks regarding 1994 are under way. Mortier is flirting with the idea of a Stravinsky bill to be directed by Sellars and, perhaps, the importation of a “Rake’s Progress” production with Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

He knows that he is in good company as regards festive rejection of artistic innovation. Bayreuth used to disparage Wieland Wagner, not to mention Patrice Chereau. Now both are considered cultural idols.

“I don’t like people who always agree with me,” he said before rushing off to a scheduled confrontation at City Hall.

“It is good to have different ideas. We can discuss things. We can argue. We can debate.”

It all depends, of course, on who debates. And on who wins.

The world of music and musicians is watching Salzburg.