Breaking: Berlin Philharmonic quits major festival
NewsIt has just been announced that the Berlin Phil are pulling out of the German spa’s Easter Festival, ending the partnership in 2025. Berlin will return the following year to the Salzburg Easter Festival.
‘We are very grateful to the Berliner Philharmoniker that they built up the Baden-Baden Easter Festival with us and then combined it twelve times by 2025 with new opera productions and many concerts. The orchestra gave us important impetus for the seven annual Baden-Baden music, opera and dance festivals, which we would like to develop further with other artistic partners at Easter,’ said Baden-baden’s Benedikt Stampa.
‘We are very grateful to the supporters and the entire team of the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden for the many years of friendly cooperation at this special festival,’ said Andrea Zietzschmann, Artistic Director of the Berliner Philharmoniker Foundation.
What’s behind it?
Berlin huffed out of Salzburg Easter Fest a dozen years ago because Baden-Baden was rolling in money from Russian oligarchs and offered vastly inflated fees. That cash has now gone and a squeeze has set in.
Salzburg is not untainted by dubious investors but it has not been affected quite so badly by the Russian-instigated war in Ukraine. A privately-owned festival it received aorund a 15% subsidy from the Austrian State and the city of Salzburg.
As for B-B, it will probably increase its dependency on the heavily compromised Theodor Currentzis and his Kremlin-funded ensembles.
This is the music industry’s first major power shift of the New Year.
There seems more to the story. Who was courting whom, made possible by the arrival or departure of whom , etc ? Namely, what roles did the rivalries of Rattle, Thielemann, Petrenko, all playing in the same Austro-Germanic sandbox, have in this game of musical chairs?
What role should Rattle and Thielemann NOW have in Salzburg vs Baden-Baden? None, they are not involved in any way.
“Die Frau ohne Kurschatten”
Excellent !
In the early Baden-Baden years the DCH showed a good deal of the BPO’s participation there – including some of the staged operas (Magic Flute, which was magical). But less so in recent years.
All this palace intrigue seems silly; it costs money to run an orchestra. If Baden-Baden offered a better deal, it made sense to take it. If Salzburg offers a better situation when the Baden-Baden deal concludes, makes sense to go there. No power politics needed.
And a decade later, I don’t see Thielemann-Dresden having gotten the better of Rattle-BPO with this Salzburg/Baden-Baden intrigue.
Rattle was never great in opera and overrated anyhow – he fits better in Birmingham than Salzburg let’s face it
@MacroV – It wasn’t Thielemann/Dresden who did the intriguing: that was the BPO, who were lured away from Salzburg. Thielemann and the Staatskapelle (masterminded by Peter Alward) actually saved the Salzburg Easter Festival so I don’t see why it was for them to have “gotten the better” of Rattle and the BPO.
That’s how Norman pitched it in his piece a decade ago.
missing the russian oligarchs money?