Breaking: Salzburg cancels Mozart

Breaking: Salzburg cancels Mozart

News

norman lebrecht

January 13, 2022

It’s due to Covid, not owning slaves.

Here’s the release:

The situation in Salzburg has deteriorated dramatically, and according to the relevant authorities, no improvement is to be expected. We have done our utmost, but in view of this assessment it would be unacceptable for all concerned to hold the 2022 Mozart Week. The health and safety of our performers, our employees and our audiences has to take priority”, says artistic director Rolando Villazón, and he adds: “With unutterably heavy hearts, we are therefore compelled by the pandemic to cancel the 2022 Mozart Week entirely.” 

Mozart Week looks back on a long tradition. Since 1956, the Salzburg Mozarteum Foundation has held this festival to celebrate the great composer’s birth in the town on 27 January 1756. 

Comments

  • Gustavo says:

    “Nun wohlan! es bleibt dabei!
    Weil mich nichts zurücke hält,
    gute Nacht, du falsche Welt!”

  • henry williams says:

    who knows. this virus may be for many years. the scientists are not sure when it
    will finish.

  • Ragnar Danneskjoeld says:

    More time for Rolando to study Loge…

  • Bill says:

    There hasn’t been a “Mozart week” for about 3x as many years as there has been one. Probably not much danger he’ll escape our memory.

  • Gustavo says:

    No Mozart-week due to Omicron:
    Said Salzburg’s Rolando Villazón.
    The system is defeated.
    Mozart’s balls are depleted.
    So let’s exclaim: The show must go on!

  • Peter says:

    Austria. A country where even the threat of prison for non-vaccinated won’t help. Not to mention triple vaccines, triple masks and triple tests.

    How peculiar. I believe Einstein said something about doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

    • La plus belle voix says:

      Fact check: Threat is of fines, not coercive detention (“Beugehaft”).

      Link here:

      https://www.tagesspiegel.de/politik/impfpflicht-kommt-ab-februar-oesterreich-plant-hohe-strafen-fuer-verweigerer-jedoch-keine-beugehaft/27866018.html

      And I realize Peter you did not actually state that prison was being threatened, but your comment kind of insinuates that, even if you did not mean it that way.

      • Peter says:

        I did mean it that way, because prison -is- a threat. In Austria, as almost anywhere else, there is the option of going to prison if you can’t pay or refuse to pay. As the lower age limit is 14 years, one can imagine that quite a few simply won’t be able to come up with the money.

        It would of course be fun if all the 1,4 million Austrians who has not taken a single corona shot refused to pay the fines. Do the Austrian government have prison space for all these people? [redacted]

        • La plus belle voix says:

          Fact check #2:

          “Die eingenommenen Beträge sollen nicht in die Kassen der Bezirksverwaltungsbehörden wandern, sondern örtlichen Krankenhäusern zukommen. Sollten die verhängten Geldstrafen bei den Impfverweigerern nicht fruchten, soll es nach Worten von Gesundheitsminister Mückstein allerdings nicht zu einer ‘Beugehaft’ kommen.”

          We assume you know more than the Austrian government. Yes, “Beugehaft” is a possibility under Austrian law, just not for failure to pay fines arising from refusal to get vaccinated.

          But what do I know already?

        • Hermann says:

          Oe has a deal with the USA, will use Guantanamo for the Covid prisoners, lol

        • Jim C. says:

          Why don’t they just get vaccinated, and then take precautions?

          Why the ridiculous stubbornness?

        • La plus belle voix says:

          Just a PS to Peter (English version) about fines, so-called “Beugehaft”, and the Austrian justice system:

          From the Austrian Health Minister:

          “The amounts collected shall not to go into the coffers of the district administrative authorities, but to local hospitals. If the fines imposed on the vaccination refusers do not have any effect, however, according to Health Minister Mückstein, there will be no ‘coercive detention’.”

  • Amos says:

    Given the servitude experienced by countless people, of varying ethnicities, over the centuries the glib comment is beyond reprehensible.

  • Ben says:

    But in Vienna preparation continues for Peter Grimes (Jan. 26) with, I think, three role debuts: Lise Davidsen, Jonas Kaufmann and Bryn Terfel.

  • Sibylla says:

    Support the arts by joining events with masks !

  • Corno di Caccia says:

    It sounds like a right old Mozart balls-up to me. Can anyone else hear the hilarious laugh from the Amadeus film in the background? I wasn’t planning on going anyway. I’ll just have another CD/DVD fest. It’s much cheaper. No doubt Wolfie will rise again.

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