"Society must bear that art is free"

Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen inaugurated the 73rd Bregenz Festival yesterday

The puppeteer Nikolaus Habjan led the opening ceremony with a puppet of conductor Karl Böhm. Image: (Forster)

As a puppet under the control of Nikolaus Habjan, Karl Böhm welcomed yesterday the opening of the Bregenz Festival in front of 2000 guests at the Festspielhaus. The conductor (1894-1981), also considered one of Wagner's great performers, is at the center of Paulus Hochgatterer's "Böhm" at this year's festival, Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen and the Minister of Culture Gernot Blümel Proximity of the Nazi regime.

"Yes, they are not?" With this question, Van der Bellen presented in his speech about Habjan and Hochgatterer and immersed himself in his thoughts on the freedom of the arts. The art should be nothing. The art should not be entertaining, it can be a recreational, impressive, critical, "it can be anything, do not do it," said Van der Bellen. On the other hand, she should be allowed to do it. "A society must be able to support that the art is free, because you can measure the liberal and open societies by what they make possible." Freedom of opinion and the press are also necessary, said the president in his humorous speech, because it is precisely this and the fundamental freedoms and rights of every individual who are "rare goods in the world and not very old at the national level – leave that "Van der Bellen concluded his remarks

Check your own opinion

The Minister of Culture, Blümel, spoke of the regimes that consider" art exclusively as a medium, not as an end in itself ". He also referred to this year's scandal at the Echo Awards, when the award for German music was awarded despite antisemitic text lines to two rappers and then returned many awards in the past excellent. As a doctrine should be drawn from the set, "we should never follow the mainstream – and even indignation and criticism – without testing their own opinion."

Hans-Peter Metzler, president of the Bregenz Festival, took the The polarity between the familiar and the unknown as an opportunity to recall the value of art for a society "and the offer not only as a site effect ".

95% of tickets sold

Extracts of artists from the festival program There were, among others, two performances of "Beatrice Cenci", one with Gal James as Beatrice, but also one by Martin Muehle as "Don Jose" of "Carmen".

Also to see and hear were excerpts from other productions like "Maria de Buenos Aires" by Astor Piazzolla, "The Barber of Seville" by Gioachino Rossini and "A Padmore Cycle" by Thomas Larcher. The artistic throw of the festival was the first Austrian of "Beatrice Cenci" in the evening. The focal point of the festival is the rebirth of "Carmen". After all the performances of Georges Bizet 's famous opera were sold to Seebühne last year, about 95% of the 210,000 admissions were sold for this year' s 29 performances

for production. opera and opera "Beatrice Cenci" by Berthold Goldschmidt. reserved for the festival begin about three quarters of the cards. A total of 80 events are on the program for which 224,000 tickets have been launched.

Festival on TV

The premiere of the Austrian premiere of "Beatrice Cenci" by Berthold Goldschmidt will be broadcast on ORF III on 21 August at 21:20

The first will take place in Ö1 on 27 August at 23h . to hear Thomas Larcher's opera "The Hunting Rifle", which will take place on August 15th. The first staging of Karl Markovics will also be broadcast on ORF III on August 19 at 23:35

More information: bregenzerfestspiele.com

Show comments »