Solid opening match in Salzburg: trial by fire for the culture

The heat in the valley at this bang-awaited opening day. There's not a cloud in the sky, the view is clear. Deceptively clear. As anything in Vogue, no pandemi

Solid opening match in Salzburg: trial by fire for the culture

The heat in the valley at this bang-awaited opening day. There's not a cloud in the sky, the view is clear. Deceptively clear. As anything in Vogue, no pandemic, no Virus would be. You could celebrate carefree the one-hundredth birthday, the cheeks are kissing in the arms and laughing, the champagne, glasses collide let. But: There is no champagne this year, at least on the outskirts of the ideas. There are also no breaks. And even cheek kisses are rarely seen. Instead, they're trapped visitors in the early afternoon, still a little intimidated in the garden restaurants in the city and wait for the evening brings cooling. Above in Maria Plain, the beautiful pilgrimage Church above the town, prayer, a couple of older ladies in evening wear in front of the famous miraculous image. In times of war, people went on pilgrimage used to come here, to the crowned Holy Mary to the conservation of beg. Today, you kneel here, because they are afraid of Contracting the Virus. Like a sword of Damocles, the infection is hovering danger in the anniversary year of the Salzburg festival. A long time it was unclear whether you can really take place, or as Bayreuth, Avignon, and almost all other comparable major cultural festival in the summer of canceled would be.

Simon Strauss

editor in the features section.

F. A. Z. Facebook

The leaders had fiercely wrestled with, and the policy, their extensive program – and even some Opera night – a radical together reduced and strict safety concepts for artists and audience developed, until the decision was made: just in Time for the opening day events with up to a thousand visitors are in Austria again permitted. The Salzburg festival, case, games will be a test for the whole of Europe's cultural autumn: Is it good theaters and concert halls also hope elsewhere to receive soon a larger audience. However, it is wrong, then you may not imagine the loss of confidence for the industry as a whole. The nerves are tense. An actor who is in the Getreidegasse, not far from Mozart's birthplace, still looking for Prime close, told how happy he feels happy to be back on a stage and under more or less normal conditions. But he also says that he spent awake at night, anxious SIPS, and colouring, that he might be the one to bring the Virus to the theatre, and the disaster scenario, cause everyone's so scared of.

welding work or a visit to the Opera

That you have not tried everything to prevent this, you can the organizers, however, was not to blame: 300 000 Euro to be spent out of this year's Budget alone for the pandemic prevention, all Participants are tested regularly and must keep a record of your social encounters to strictly book. In the press office, a Box for used ball-point pens, which are regularly disinfected, stands in front of the theater entrances, welcome reception, ladies with face protection-target the audience – not to a welding job at the work bench, but the visit to the Opera. Of the original two hundred performances scheduled just a hundred instead of ten, less than half of the tickets were sold, and in the various game sites is blocked with a kind of black ribbon, each second place. The proud announcement that the largest classical music festival in the world, visitors from eighty countries – of which from forty non – European arrivals, remains, by nature, non-registered solves. Especially the audience from Asia and America.

Date Of Update: 02 August 2020, 16:19