Furious FAZ attack on Currentzis for ‘shameless ego trip’

Le Křenek du jour says:

Herr Kesting asks two pertinent questions in his final paragraphs:
1. Is it a true mark of progress that the age of ‘conductor absolutism’ as the incarnation of power has come to an end?
2. Has the creation of audiences become the greatest achievement of cultural production?

The answer to Herr Kesting’s second question, given his premise, is easy, and it is a resounding YES.
The problem is Kesting’s very premise: the unwarranted amalgamation of ‘cultural production’ (“Kulturproduktion”) with the kind of event he is reviewing. For that kind of show to go on, it needs audiences.
P a y i n g audiences.
Currentzis and Salzburg’s Intendant Markus Hinterhäuser have achieved that.
Fair enough.

Herr Kesting’s first question is more interesting, because the answer is contained, ‘in nuce’, in the production he was supposed to be reviewing: in Mozart’s Don Giovanni.

Towards the end of Act I, Don Giovanni proclaims “Viva la libertà!”

(Let’s skip da Ponte’s astute and essential wordplay on the ‘libertas vs liberalitas’ topos, which eludes most non-native speakers of Italian.)
Which “libertà” is Don Giovanni rasing his toast to? His own, to sovereignly conduct himself as he pleases. Like, of course, a sovereign absolutistic conductor of yore.

Don Giovanni’s toast is cautiously, diffidently, and very ambiguously picked up and echoed by the company (and Mozart subtly manages to hint that they all have their individual agendas regarding that “libertà”, which may turn out as mutually incompatible), but not before they acknowledge his grace:
“Siam grati a tanti segni di generosità”. ‘Liberté octroyée’, their freedom to act as he pleases.
A tension and a contradiction which is one of the major themes underlying Mozart’s opera.

A reviewer more concerned with what was happening before his eyes on the stage than with his own pre-ordained reactions should not have missed this point. It is significant that it appears to have escaped Herr Kesting’s notice.

__________
For the convenience of the reader, the final two paragraphs of Kesting’s FAZ paper are appended for reference:
“Salzburgs Intendant Markus Hinterhäuser, zu dessen ausgepichter Klugheit ebendiese Fähigkeit des kühlen Kalküls ebenso gehört wie die Bereitschaft, das Verantwortungslose zu verantworten, hat im Gespräch gesagt, dass er bei der Planung des Festivals nicht länger auf die Namen von Dirigenten setzen kann, die ausverkaufte Häuser garantieren wie einst Karl Böhm oder Herbert von Karajan. Dass die Ära des dirigentischen Absolutismus aus dem Geist der human-demokratischen Nivellierung als Inkarnation von Macht beendet ist, wird als Fortschritt gefeiert.

Umso seltsamer, dass die Besucher des „Don Giovanni“ den schamlosen Ego-Trip des Dirigenten Teodor Currentzis feierten, der sich für die Wein-Arie mit seinem Orchester auf die Bühne hieven und sich im Flammen von Stroboskop-Blitzen als den wahren Protagonisten feiern ließ. Während sich das Publikum nicht länger zu den Messen jener alten Kunstpriester einfinden mag, folgt es nun dem Lockruf eines Sektenführers; bejubelt es einen von medialem Weltruhmesglanz verstrahlten Egomanen, ohne zu ahnen oder zu spüren, dass es von ihm verachtet wird. Ist es zur größten Leistung der Kulturproduktion geworden, Publikum zu schaffen?”