Salzburg faces certain Easter closure
mainThe board of the Salzburg Easter Festival will hold a distanced crisis meeting next week.
Insiders say the chance of going ahead with the festival are ‘very low’. Ticket sales have been stopped, rehearsals have been put on hold and there are no hotels open for artists or visitors to stay.
The main operatic cancellation will be Turandot with Netrebko.
photo Michael Pöhn/Vienna State Opera
Pity. It would have been her first complete Turandot, and she can really sing the role. Eyvazov is an excellent Calaf too. With Alfano’s completion and the duetting, a treat was in store, supported by the fabulous Dresden orchestra. On the other hand, having the only black member of the cast as the slave was insensitive.
Dresden is a good orchestra, which makes me wonder whether your remarkable comment was indeed meant to be sarcastic.
Eyvazov was NOT an “excellent Calaf” in the recent Met production. Actually, he was the one voice on stage that stood apart from the rest of them – and not in the way anyone would want to.
It’s not a beautiful voice. He is however an excellent musician who gives notes their full value and invests them with squillo where needed. He also acts Calaf well.
Might as well, given the deplorable state of her instrument.
I hope they would close the Easter Festival permanently now that their ex-National Socialist Party conductor Herbie is no longer at the helm.
JussiB – oh dear, oh dear. Also, do try to keep up: Karajan died over thirty years ago.
Well, I got my tickets for Tosca today with a mouthwatering cast of Harteros, Kaufmann and Terfel – don’t pop my bubble with your insider talk! While there is hope, there’s reason to live.
Saw the same cast years ago in Munich. H & K were quite good at their game — I will neither praise it nor compare it to the past because that’s what it is — their own. T was not in the same class. Someone had told him he was a stage animal, so he snarled the part rather than sing it properly, which is very wrong. Puccini, the old sadist, has given Scarpia an endless melody that must be done musically.
Tiny point, but hotels in Salzburg are open for essential travellers (including artists), as can be seen by Mozartwoche’s recordings which have been taking place this week and continue in the coming days. Artists are staying in a number of hotels in the city to make it happen.
You are right though, I have no doubt Salzburg Easter Festival will not be able to go ahead in its current guise, but the logistics of the festival can be overcome if a reduced festival is what’s required in the end…
Yet the summer festival went ahead with 108 of its planned 200 events before an audience distanced but not obliged to be masked.
Opera lovers will have to go to Verona in July to hear Netrebko in Turandot, Covid permitting.