The crisis at major summer festivals
OrchestrasIn my October essay for The Critic, I discuss the undercurrent of gloom in Europe’s major festivals:
There is a sense of ending in the festival industry, with all the major players in a state of nervous transition. Bayreuth, where you once had to wait years in a ballot for a ticket, now has seats to spare. Salzburg is suffering side-shocks of the Russia-Ukraine war. Lucerne is preparing for regime change. Verbier’s future is clouded in its thirtieth year. Edinburgh is in transition. The formula for producing music at high levels through the long vacation is suddenly cracked, if not broken….
Read on here.
I attended the Lucerne Festival last month- in most of the concerts there were a lot of empty seats. Last year in Salzburg- nearly every concert I attended was sold out: So every festival and it’s own “story”:
However, It is clear that interest in classical music is in decline in most of the world (I think about 30-40 % of the posts in this site deal with low attendance in concerts, economical problems of orchestras around the world) , and this is the main reason for the problems of the summer festivals, just as the regular seasonal subscription programs. We have to accept that both regular concerts season and festivals (with few exceptions) will consist in the future on fewer concerts: Pessimistic view, I know: but we have to be realistic.
Occidental culture is dying. Maybe not enough efforts to share and transmit. Not enough pride. We used to be proud to deal with beauty. Different times. Let people enjoy beauty of rap culture now…
It is true that in music without the oriental the occidental would long ago have died.
Well, I guess everything is in transition these days, and with the future of Arts’ funding, at least in the UK, threatened (as it often is) with cuts – here in Scotland the Scottish Government have recently gone back on their promise and are withdrawing funding from the Arts – the future looks uncertain. The Edinburgh Festival certainly is in transition, although I attended two Usher Hall Festival concerts; Brahms’ Requiem, paired with Szymanowski’s Stabat Mater, with the LSO under Sir Simon Rattle and Tippett’s A Child of our Time with the RSNO and Sir Andrew Davis – both very moving performances – and audiences seemed healthy at both concerts.
At the same time, there have been quite a few festivals this very summer where I’ve had trouble finding tickets because some concerts have been sold out for a long time. There is a lot more variety and viewing the world through Bayreuth, Lucerne, and Salzburg is both myopic and uncreative. The fact is that there are so many fantastic concerts and festivals that overlap that it’s sometimes difficult to choose among them all.
I mean, the story at the Proms this summer was surely of an audience in swift and healthy recovery after the Covid years, with mostly packed houses as the season wore on and plenty of concerts – the Rattle Maher 9, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Sinfonia of London, Aurora, Zurich Tonhalle, AAM Samson and ORR Troyens – that made headlines for both artistic and other reasons, and attracted big crowds while doing so? The consensus among the Prommers I spoke to was that this was the most exciting season in some years.
No “big name” orchestras? What’s Boston? What’s the BFO? Recent Proms appearances by the Vienna Phil have been so lacklustre that they’re not honestly missed. Perhaps the definition of “big hitters” needs revising. This isn’t 1985 any more.
isn’t there an “inflation” of summer festivals? but it seems not in the number of classical music lovers
I don’t know what the European issues are, but in the US so many festivals are becoming prohibitively expensive for the average music lover. The cost of tickets is a minor issue compared to transportation and hotels. Aspen sure puts on a good festival, as does nearby Vail; but both have become playgrounds for the idle rich. Blossom and Ravinia are still reasonable, but who wants to sit outside listening to music piped over speakers? I can at least still afford Grand Teton Music Festival in Wyoming, but this year the programming was so lackluster. And that’s a problem everywhere. There’s no sense of adventure or curiosity about lesser known works – you just get the standard repertoire….again.
Come to Grant Park in Chicago next summer! The only FREE festival in the US, and known for unusual new repertoire and world premieres. Edinburgh’s Christopher Bell is choral director and does the Independence Day orchestra concert.
Grand Teton is another venue where ticket prices are not an issue, but lodging costs certainly are. $400 a night for a mediocre hotel is a discouragement.
Let’s see, Barcelo, these are some of the “lackluster” programs: Ehnes playing Bruch’s violin concerto, with the National Youth Orchestra with violinist Gil Shaham, conducted by Sir Andrew Davis. What’s not to like (the website is horrible).
Not just Europe, I was at the Santa Fe Opera Festival in August and there were many empty seats.