Salzburg books Currentzis as festival centrepiece
NewsThe Putin-supported Teodor Currentzis will feature strongly in next summer’s Salzburg Festival with his Utopia orchestra, it was confirmed today.
He is a favourite of the festival director Markus Hinterhäuser. Morality has nothing to do with it.
Other highlights include Verdi’s Macbeth conducted by Franz Welser-Möst with Asmik Grigorian as the murderous missus, a rare production of Martinu’s Greek Passion and John Eliot Gardiner conducting Les Troyens.
Full rollout here.
A fly on the wall in a Kaffeehaus in Salzburg told me it overheard a conversation, that they did this only to stir you and Brüggemann up. Then they were betting on who will post the most diatribes about it.
We should never underestimate the knowledge of the Café Tomaselli flies.
In the 50s, nobody would write “The Stalin-supported Shostakovich”. Evolution is sometimes just a theory.
Currentzis can opt out of Russia far more easily than Shostakovich, Mravinsky or Khrennikov.
I find it not very empathic to require for another person to leave behind 20 years of hard work and just say: “I’m out” as easy as if he changed his toothbrush.
Nothing to do with what I previously wrote. Actually I agree with your statement.
Personally I don’t identify with all the Currentzis bashing in this blog, although I do find his silence deafening.
He is not even Russian by origin, but by choice.
You’ve nailed it!! Let’s try not to think about it, though, as it’s yet another form of virtue signalling.
actually that was said and written in the 50s. not by the smartest chaps though, but some McCarthy minded tools were willing to get that line out.
https://www.gettyimages.de/detail/nachrichtenfoto/carrying-various-anti-communist-signs-these-pickets-nachrichtenfoto/514963970
So he’s appearing with an orchestra that has nothing to do with Putin or Gazprom and you still can’t leave it alone.
Grow up.
I‘m doubtful it has „nothing“ to do with it. There are too many ways to detour russian money still. My personal interest in Currentzis stopped long before his international entanglements, I find him artistically invalid, due to his extremely egocentric, not music centric, personality.
But the masses, also the ones who consider themselves elitist, like a good con man with charisma. The show must go on.
“…like a good con man with charisma.” You just described most conductors.
Currentzis aside, what a tedious programme in 23 with many opera casts and concert offerings of an averageness that don’t match the extraordinary prices.
So you’re not going then?
I’ve my order already in!
Hinterhaeuser’s pathetic program with dated oldies like unsuccessful Kusej (apparently Vienna’s Burgtheater is massively losing audience) is combined with a weak French conductor but what is even worse is the Swiss/German duo Marthaler/Metzmacher for Falstaff – an absolutely awful combinaton – but its getting even worse: boring Welser Moest for Verdi’s Macbeth!!
Povera Italia! It seems they keep their poor strategy as after Netrebko-shows Grigorian-shows (last year this great singer was a total miscast in Trittico) must follow regardless which repertoire – one can indeed save money and stay away as Salzburg continues it’s ‘Niedergang’
Currentzis utopia orchestra is not financed by Putin but by an Austrian billionaire. I wrote this here before, but seems it needs repeating.
Indeed, as far as I am concerned, your voice was drowned out by the noise. Who is the billionaire donor?
I happen to know about this deal by the person who initiated it. An Austrian billionaire threw up several million Euros under the condition that he remains in the background. I also happen to know that he made his billions mostly in Europe and the US, and that he had stopped his activities in Russia from early march 2022. Currentzis new utopia orchestra was founded in the West because funding for his Russian orchestra had dried up. One might just add that it would be hardly conceivable that Mr.Putin would subsidize such an Western orchestra under present conditions. Whatever one might think of this musician the expression “Putin-funded Currentzis” is untrue, unfair, damaging and burden of proof rest with its author if he already choses to emphasize morality.
It still smells fishy. An anonymous Austrian billionaire with established accounting in many 3rd countries that could serve as intermediate hubs for Russian money sounds like an ideal scenario. 😉 How convenient!
I doubt we saw the Gazprom boss drooling over applauding for TC in Petersburg just a few months ago, long after the war started, and suddenly him cutting the sponsoring…
The Russians also have appetite for cultural export aka imperialism. Not only the Americans.
Oh, joy.
Normally, cancelling the culture of another country, even during war, would seem a bit pointless–sort of petty and beside the point. In the case of the current war, however, there might be a meaningful rationale. Putin invaded Eastern Ukraine under the pretext of protecting Russian culture. He should be shown that violence and militarism do just the opposite, that it deeply harms the appreciation of Russian culture in the world. (If only we Americans would learn the same lesson.)
We should also note that one of the greatest beauties, and the greatest sources of innovation in culture, is when cultures meet and cross-fertilize each other. We think of the glories of Moorish Spain, the unique culture of Alsace–Lorraine, the rich wonders of South Tyrol, the colorful world of the American Southwest, the French culture in the Mississippi delta region, and countless other examples.
And yet how much blood has been spilt trying to make these and other regions “culturally pure?” A Russo-Ukrainian Eastern Ukraine would just be another of these culturally rich regions. It could have also led to open borders and close friendship. It is a terrible thing when a fool has immense power and uses it for violence. And equally foolish for the USA not to have headed this war off three decades ago when it was fully possible to do so. Russia was a ground zero, a blank page, openly asking for help. We should have had a Marshall Plan for Russia in place to create a democratic, prosperous Russia integrated into Europe. What a lost opportunity. And now we see the horrific results.
This is why SWR Radio fires him. He’s rather play there with the Utopia than with them. SWR is on the program too, but where is there Currentzis?
SWR does NOT fire him. The public broadcaster appartschiks have zero balls for it. They let his current contract run out and do not not extend it. That‘s their ‚Gratismut‘. (don‘t know a good translation for that great word)