Just in: Leipzig shuts the Gewandhaus

Just in: Leipzig shuts the Gewandhaus

News

norman lebrecht

November 23, 2021

The lights are going out all over Europe again.

The city of Leipzig this morning told the Gewandhaus and the opera house to stay shut until December 12 at the earliest.

Berlin shivers in fear of the next edict.

 

Comments

  • Leipziger says:

    Just got the info that all public performances will be canceled already until January 9 in Leipzig.

  • Bet says:

    Not all over Europe. Just Germany and Austria. France is doing fine. Italy is doing fine.

    The progression of this virus is dictated entirely by human behavior. We are our own worst enemy.

    • Hmus says:

      True at the moment perhaps, but viruses are not known to adhere to any particular national allegiance, and don’t seem to recognize lines drawn on a map.

      And, with the incessant encouragement of anti-vaxx sockpuppet posts here on Slipped Disc, concert audiences in particular are being targeted by the kind of people to whom live performances, and probably music itself, means nothing.

  • Michael says:

    Meanwhile, the UK has a higher infection rate, COVID mortality rate, and lower vaccination rate than Germany, but as long as BoJo says you are “free”, it’s only the Continent that is in trouble… Hypocritical gloating may sell, but wears poorly. Some may fear the next edict, at least they are not prey to gross indifference.

    • Alan says:

      What’s happening in the UK is an absolute scandal. 150-200 a day dead. But who cares.

    • Thomas says:

      UK has a higher booster shot rate than Germany.

    • Althea T-H says:

      The UK’s full vaccination rate is 0.7% higher than Germany’s – according to yesterday’s statistics.

      • Amos says:

        Pause a moment from your efforts at disinformation and the report the actual critical number, what is the % of fully vaccinated individuals? Do your anti-vax efforts really provide you with personal satisfaction?

      • Amos says:

        As of this morning from CNN:

        Only 54% of Europe is fully vaccinated, WHO official says.

        A recipe for disaster for any airborne highly infectious virus. At any other time in modern history it would have been considered lunacy to refuse to get vaccinated with a vaccine that demonstrated ~ 95% efficacy and minimal side effects. Again, when people lined up to receive the polio vaccine scientists understood, in retrospect, <10% of the mechanism(s) of the immune response but the available tests suggested efficacy and minimal risk.

  • mchaley says:

    Wow, even Hitler allowed music until the last year of the war. Good luck Europe. 🙁

  • Player says:

    Can it be that Boris (with a little help from the T-cell stimulating AstraZeneca vaccine) was right to open up fully over the summer?

    • Amos says:

      No, but then again the effects of T cell stimulation only influence brain function among the disinformation crowd.

      • Player says:

        See CEO of Astra Zeneca’s comments yesterday on BBC Radio 4. Could explain why UK doing better than Europe at the moment: we (especially older people) have had a lot more AstraZeneca jabs than in France and Germany, where Macron and Merkel dissed it. Not so smart, if that is the vaccine which is preventing hospitalisation and death rather better. More data needed on this, but still one to watch.

        • Amos says:

          Focus on the efficacy of the 3 primary vaccines; 90-95% efficacy with equivalent neutralizing Ab levels indicates equivalence.

  • Frank Flambeau says:

    This is necessary and smart. Deal with Covid first.

  • Michael P McGrath says:

    The arts’ superb efforts to create safe environments – which in fact they ARE if rules are followed as in Salzburg again this summer – have paid off thus far. They have proven that culture performances can safely take place in times of “the virus.”

    Yet the Gewandhaus and other houses are now forced to shut. Because hysterical politicians (who also cut the number of ICU beds during the virus’ quiet season) and media-savvy “experts” stop people from breathing. Would they’d focus on getting people vaccinated – and in the interim optimize and leverage the advances in safe and commercially viable running or our cultural institutions.

    But rubbing your tummy and patting yourself on the head at the same time seems past them. And hey, the taxpayer will pay in the end anyway.

  • MOST READ TODAY: