[ad_1]
110 events, 76,500 visitors from 39 countries, 3,600 crown events: Helga Rabl-Stadler draws a positive balance from the anniversary festival year.
While cultural life in the crown year has largely stagnated around the world, Salzburg has simply dared to festivals for the centenary. On Sunday, the board of directors drew up a successful balance on the “special festival year 2020”, which ends today: 76,500 visitors were counted in the 110 functions, which corresponds to an occupancy rate of 96 percent.
Expectations were not only met, they were “far exceeded,” he said in a broadcast Sunday afternoon. The income generated amounts to 8.7 million euros. The regulars, in particular, remained loyal: about two-thirds of all tickets sold were for this group, 39 nations were represented in the audience this year.
Almost half of the 110 events, 53 to be precise, were concerts, plus twelve performances of the two operas and 29 plays, as well as readings and various events in the supporting program. For the original anniversary program, which has now been largely postponed until 2021, 240,000 cards were issued and 180,000 already sold. These tickets, with a revenue of 24.5 million euros, were invested, and many original guests also “criticized” the modified program: the original bookers bought every second newly issued card.
Not a single case of corona
Festival president Helga Rabl-Stadler emphasized in the broadcast that it was the biggest anniversary gift the 2020 festival could have made. The strict security concept, which received great international attention, contributed to this. “It is a sensation that out of 1,400 participants in the two-month preparation, testing and introduction period, only one employee was infected in early July and that not a single case was reported among the 76,500 visitors,” said Lukas Crepaz, commercial director . It has been proven that cultural events can be carried out in this way without posing a greater risk. Artistic director Markus Hinterhäuser added: “The signal emanating from Salzburg will be the strongest, most vital and essential that can be sent to the world.”
A total of around 3,600 corona tests were carried out as part of the safety concept, including around 1,000 at the place of residence of artists and temporary employees, 2,355 routine tests carried out by people from the “red group” (with them cannot keep safe distance, eg musicians in orchestra pit and performers on stage) and 154 evidence based on suspicion.
Artistically, however, the results for 2020 are ambivalent. The opera division achieved great successes with the two staged productions of “Elektra” and “Cosi fan tutte”. In his first production of Strauss’s opera, the Polish director Krzysztof Warlikowski put a very modern “Elektra” on the stage of the Felsenreitschule, the archaic character of the title became a limit human personality in the interpretation of the Lithuanian Ausrine Stundyte, Franz Welser-Möst performed the Vienna Philharmonic in various ways. the night. An acclaimed performance that takes away the old strength of the piece, but on the other hand makes it more accessible.
The next day, Christof Loy relied on the reduction with his online version of “Cosi fan tutte” kept entirely blank. The Mozart version, developed in conjunction with later celebrated debut director Joana Mallwitz, which was shortened by 45 minutes thanks to Corona, turned out to be a gripping, fast-paced chamber piece with a young ensemble around Elsa Dreisig and Andre Schuen, who it was completely convincing.
More of a duty than a freestyle
The balance in the drama turned out to be more ambivalent when Michael Sturminger’s production of “Jedermann” with lead actor Tobias Moretti, which took place at the Festspielhaus instead of on the Domplatz due to the rain, showed certain signs of fatigue in the rain. fourth year. Not many new shades were offered compared to the previous year despite Caroline Peters’ neo-fanaticism with a strongly ironic show appearance.
The next day, the long-awaited world premiere of Nobel laureate Peter Handke’s “Zdenek Adamec” became more of a duty than a freestyle. In her staging of the play about an 18-year-old who burned to death on Wenceslas Square in Prague in 2003, director Friederike Heller became too subservient to the State Theater text. It kept Handke’s text blocks in the dark and thus produced remarkable lengths overnight.
The last stage premiere of this year’s edition, Milo Rau’s “Everywoman,” for which Swiss director Ursina Lardi recorded a dialogue with a real cancer patient on video recording, was at times poignant. Reflecting “Jedermann”, the secular debate with the questions of death and life was held here.
(THAN)
