The Ulm Generalmusikdirektor, Timo Handschuh, has had enough. Handschuh, 44, will step down in 2021 after 10 years in the job and no further up the ladder.
Ulm is no dead end. It’s where Herbert von Karajan launched his career.
Recognise him?
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Let’s not forget this underappreciated Ulm composer. Why don’t we hear more about him, indeed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYMRjnM6j6w
Ulm’s population is 120,000 and it has about 60 opera performances per year. For performances per year, it outranks Washington, LA, Seattle, and countless other major American cities. If Karajan had been an American, chances are no one would have ever heard of him, much less even remember his name.
America is too busy being “woke.” Europe will soon be dealing with a similar problem, I’m afraid.
Why is opera your exclusive measure of the artistic health of a city?
Because the numbers are at hand. These German cities spend equally on orchestras and theater.
Even the idle rich of LA and SF would have trouble attending a small fraction of the cultural programs on offer in those cities. The challenge is keeping less prominent but still excellent theatres, concert series, dance ensembles, museums, and galleries from a variety of cultures situated in the face of rapacious development on one hand and a humanitarian crisis of homelessness on the other.
If a miraculous burst of public arts funding were suddenly to become available, opera would be the last place to put it.
Handschuh has quit the South West German Chamber Orchestra in Pforzheim, not Ulm!!!
he actually quit both!