Editorial: The darkest Salzburg Festival since 1941
NewsLet’s not beat around the burning bush.
This year’s Salzburg Festival is reliant on friends and dependants of a brutal dictator who is presently committing war crimes on a massive scale as the festival prepared for its opening next week.
Parallels with 1941 cannot be ignored.
The 2022 festival is being partly sponsored by a foundation established by Leonid Michelson, a Russian petrochemical oligarch whose company’s products have been fuelling Putin’s wars.
Salzburg’s headline artists include Teodor Currentzis with his St Petersburg ensemble MusicAeterna, which is funded by the Putin-linked VTB Bank. The MusicAeterna Foundation is chaired by Elvira Nabiullina, head of Russia’s central bank. Currentzis recently toured Russia under the banner of the Putin energy supplier Gazprom, previously a major Salzburg sponsor.
Salzburg 2022 may feign deafness, but it cannot block its ears when its cherished donors and artists are complicit in Putin’s wars.
Unlike 1941, when the Salzburg Festival was under Nazi rule, this year’s festival had the opportunity to make a free choice on where it stands in respect to a global aggressor, condemned by the world community. It chose neutrality, always the worst moral option.
When the music plays, innocents will die.
Salzburg’s position is indefensible.
Well said.
Well put, Norman. But doesn’t sound like neutrality to me.
Perhaps some of the more powerful artilleries Ukraine has from NATO should be turned around toward west and aimed at the coordinates 47.8095° N, 13.0550° E.
It seems so unnecessary. Surely they could put on a great festival without these compromised parties involved. They’re not some no-name event in the middle of nowhere.
But they didn’t, right?
How long does it take to plan a Festival? 2 years? Minimum 18 months I’d have thought. Given that the Ukraine war was not even thought of in those days, perhaps DG could advice how could a Festival plan a programme without “these compromised parties”?
Can we PLEASE get politics out of it all! I’m getting UTTERLY fed up with these stupidly unfounded political connotations added to music.
Let the music speak for itself.
Honestly with all these fascists forcibly attaching politics to music (as sensical as saying chalk and cheese are the same) it makes many consider swapping sides during this war. That’s how irritating it’s become!
Your comment strongly suggests you are a Kremkin troll. Been to any Valentina Lisitsa concerts lately ?
Interesting to wonder what you’d think if your home had just been bombed?
What an idiotic thing to say. No I haven’t. And dare I say I wouldn’t be very pleased, that’s for sure. And a lot more than that.
But what does that have to do with music itself? Nothing. Never did. Never will.
Amen.
Music and politics cannot be separated. The past, with Hitler and Stalin, clearly demonstrate this. Not to mention what was apartheid South Africa. PLEASE do some reading.
Yes I did do some reading. And I realised that you are wrong, Sheila, and I am right. Music and politics are separate. End of story, goodbye, the end.
Yes, it is “irritating”. Your comment is also quite irritating. If you do not like the blog SD — just get out and unsubscribe! It is simple!!! Art of ALL TIMES was always connected with politics.
Right back at you, Nick. If you don’t like the Salzburg Festival, then ‘just get out and unsubscribe. It is simple’. Pretty sure they don’t need your ticket and patronage anyway – who are you but a tiny drop of dissent in an ocean of music lovers.
The number of angry failed musicians trying to use politics as any excuse to bring down the big festivals and musicians out of sheer spite and jealousy fails me.
“Angry failed musicians” LOL
You’re not winning many friends around here, hoss
Thank heavens for that!
Reminds me of the monkey with his hands on his eyes and the one with his hands on his ears.
Some people refuse to be the monkey with his hands on his mouth.
The former Chancellor of Germany, Gerhard Schroeder, will receive about one million dollars in fees from Russian energy companies in 2022. He was also on the board of GasProm. In 2017, he received $350,000 from GasProm for a part time job. With connections like that, Salzburg is just going with the flow.
Well, the Austrians have always been rather fond of fascists.
Absolute nonsense. One sponsor and one artist. Out of over 250 events.
Godwin’s law strikes again.
One sponsor and one artist that shouldn’t be there.
And in your opinion, presumably none of the artists should be there because every single one of them is implicitly sponsoring the war due to that one sponsor and one artist.
Next you’ll be saying each time anyone programmes a Tchaikovsky symphony, Russia gets $10000 to spend on bombs.
You should start your own QAnon branch of music politics conspiracy theories.
I hadn’t realised Slipped Disc reached as far as editorials, but this current campaign against certain artists and institutions is frankly pernicious. It’s also opportunistic and cynical and verges on censorship, while the comparison with 1941 is disgraceful. Presumably you, Norman, will no longer be accepting invitations from the Friends of the Salzburg Festival to go and talk to them as you once did; come to think of it, I doubt they’d ask you again.
they did it with all of them to please as most of the performances have deteriorated annually and been so bad but critical kept writing well except last year after awful Giovanni by the hyped brands Currentzis and Castelucci some dared to write how bad it was
nothing in the press can be taken seriously any more and additionally those critics don’t know anything about music like most of the Salzburg audience by the way….it’s embarrassing
What is wrong with inviting this Russian artists as long we buy and pay Russian gas?
There seem to be no alternative to the Russian gas, at least an immediate alternative. I suspect there are many alternatives to a referenced artist. Maybe starting with something that is easier to accomplish would be a good first step.
I could not agree with you more, Norman. The position is utterly disgraceful, and if whoever runs the festival cannot see that, then only disaster lies ahead
I agree with both Christopher Storey and Norman Lebrecht.
Are we to suprised?
Most of the big festivals and concours are as corrupt as f..ck!
It’s only for the bow tie brigade and the elite, not for you.
The elite are there to look beautiful, with their beau monde, and their “fric”, and care nothing about human life or morals.
Putin we know the story from A-Z now.
What more do we need to add?
If you want real music and don’t want to end up throwing up at the elite parties go to masterclasses and the less well known chamber music stuff… like Vladimir mendelsohn’s Kumho festival (sadly died last year) or Argerich in Verbier.
Excuse me but…Verbier? In Switzerland? And they’re supposed to be the morally superior utopia? For remaining neutral in WWII and turning a blind eye to Hitler’s murderous regime against Jews?
If Norman thinks neutrality is the worse, than actually, Switzerland is worse than Russia! Far, far worse!
Not worse, but corrupted by a “neutrality” provision which allows arms shipments to Saudi Arabia which is a belligerent in Yemen, while forbidding the shipment of helmets and body armor to Ukraine.
Great. So why is no one kicking up any fuss about Switzerland then? Why only focus on Russia?
Or indeed, countless more countries that are just as bad?
Yes, “And yet”, you are 100% right. Switzerland is much worse, not only because it PRETENDS to be neutral, but because it has a history of support for fascist regimes.
Lets stick to the facts: Tiny Switzerland, while being surrounded by fascist superpowers and war during WWII managed to evade aggression and occupation, by the will of the majority of the people, the government and by maintaining a big army led by an anti-fascist general. Switzerland took more Jewish refugees than the United States and no Jews came to harm in Switzerland. That politics in these times had to include awkward compromises was not to be avoided.
100% right, “Prighozin is a criminal and runs a troll farm”
Thank you for helping to expose corruption in classical music.
I heard in spring from well-informed sources that the financing of the MusicAeterna orchestra hade broken down, putting its very existence in jeopardy. After a desperate search they were able to secure a multimillion support from Western donors.
Absolutely catastrophic insane your comparison with the situation 1941. Dear Norman Leprecht :you are losing your mind.
….neutrality, which is always the worst moral option.
This should be taught in every classroom, and be shouted from rooftops!
It Brings McCarthy to mind. A number of the Russian-linked artists hate Putin and by that opposition put their careers and families at risk, but a hysteric like Norman doesn’t care.
This, at the same time as the Austrian Chancellor has visited Israel’s Yad Vashem and apologised for its role in welcoming Hitler’s armies and in sending its Jewish population to be murdered. Weird, and very sad.
Very sad and very unfortunate, as history can never be undone. People should remember that first, before they commit hideous acts in the name of fear and insecurity (disguised as a necessary act of superiority) .
Very well spoken!! What a nightmare, both Currentzis and Salzburger Festspile!!
From my perspective, I’ve always thought “what’s the big deal” when it comes to Currentzis (judging by recordings). To me, it’s just another case of sycophantic behavior over a conductor, ending up being a case of the emperor’s new clothes.
What a censorious crowd of judgemental and self-righteous individuals. One ever so quickly compares today’s situation with the Festival during the years of the Third Reich. Seems that name-dropping “Hitler” and “Putin” in one’s opinion automatically gives one moral superiority.
As for Ted and his Band: They’re just not GOOD ENOUGH to be playing at a festival that often overestimates its value to humanity and is acting typically Austrian in its resentful, defiant persistence with ‘offensive donors and musicians.’
By the way, for those of you claiming politics and music don’t mesh and shouldn’t ever do so: Pick up a copy, albeit in German, of the history of the politics played by the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics during the fascist European years: Fritz Trümpi: “Politisierte Orchester: Die Wiener Philharmoniker und das Berliner Philharmonische Orchester im Nationalsozialismus.”
Similarly, read the excellent history of the Bavarian State Opera during this period and on to 1963 in a series of booklets created by that opera house: “Bayerische Staatsoper 1933-1963”. The opera house, its Indendants and conductors, Richard Strauss and Clemens Krauss, et al, rode the coat tails of fascism for many years – and nobody seemed to mind. Richard Strauss’ “Capriccio” premiered in 1942 with all the country’s nazi elite invited. Politics and music are old buddies.
Oh, and do we ban Richard Strauss and excoriate his works? Thank goodness, no!
All Russia has to do is stop invading Ukraine and positioning themselves as an atagonist when all of Europe just wants peace.