“kulturMontag”: Russian money in the classical music business, the future of the Salzburg Easter Festival, filmmaker Kurdwin Ayub in the studio
Afterwards: Documentary “George Orwell, Aldous Huxley – 1984 or Brave New World”
Vienna (OTS) –
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The “kulturMontag” moderated by Clarissa Stadler on 4.
April 2022 at 10.30 p.m. in ORF 2 deals with the dependence of the classical music business on Russian sponsorship money, the future of the Salzburg Easter Festival and welcomes filmmaker Kurdwin Ayub, whose latest film “Sonne” opens this year’s diagonal, as a live guest in the studio. Following the culture magazine, the documentary “George Orwell, Aldous Huxley – 1984 or Brave New World” (11:15 p.m.) is on the program.
Art and coal – Russian money in the classic business
Conductor Valery Gergiev has mutated into persona non grata in the modern classical music scene, has lost his jobs between Milan and Munich. In return, he was offered the management of the Bolshoi Theater by President Putin. His colleague Teodor Currentzis, who was born in Greece and has a Russian passport, also got caught between the fronts, because his success is partly based on the millions from the Russian state apparatus, the oligarchy and the VTB bank, which the West received after the war of aggression against Ukraine subject to sanctions. The SWR Symphony Orchestra, which Currentzis has been conducting since the 2018/19 season and with which he will soon be performing at the Vienna Konzerthaus, has so far retained its chief conductor. His contract was only extended last September. SWR director Kai Gniffke is full of praise: “Currentzis has given us no reason to doubt that he is also clearly committed to peace.” Peace, joy, building bridges? Teodor Currentzis repeated his acclaimed collaboration with Romeo Castellucci for the production of Béla Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle at this year’s Salzburg Festival. A look at the festival reveals that the classical music industry is also dependent on Russian money: oligarchs and corporations that are closely linked to the Russian regime act as sponsors and use the festivals for their own PR. Now the sanctions should hit them. How does the festival position itself on this? The director of the Salzburg Festival, Markus Hinterhäuser, in an interview.
A new chapter – quo vadis Salzburg Easter Festival?
The Salzburg Easter Festival was founded 55 years ago by Herbert von Karajan and has since been regarded as an exclusive, artistically brilliant festival. Star conductor Christian Thielemann, once a student of Maestro Karajan, has been leading his talent with great international success since 2013. This year he will say goodbye with Wagner’s “Lohengrin” at Easter with his Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden as resident orchestra. Because with the new artistic director Nikolaus Bachler, a new chapter of the festival is to be opened. He has programmed three current innovations. For the first time in history there will no longer be a permanent resident orchestra, although repeated visits by certain orchestras cannot be ruled out. Secondly, ticket sales are to be changed: In addition to single tickets and special youth tickets, a “subscription to go” at a low special price will be introduced. The third innovation is sometimes the most spectacular: the premiere of a dance choreography by Emanuel Gat. With his company he is working on a dance piece based on Richard Wagner’s Wesendonck songs. In the run-up to the decision about the new direction of the Easter Festival, there was a real fight between Bachler and Thielemann. Bachler won the power struggle. In September 2019, the supervisory board confirmed that the 2022 festival would be separated from Christian Thielemann and the Sächsische Staatskapelle. What remains? And how does it continue?
Freedom is mine – The idiosyncratic world of filmmaker Kurdwin Ayub
She is a bundle of energy, direct and spirited, and knows exactly what she wants. At the tender age of twelve, Kurdwin Ayub dreamed up her first Hollywood film. At almost 32, her feature film debut “Sonne”, which was supported by the ORF as part of the film/television agreement and produced by Ulrich Seidl, about young people between social media, self-discovery and rebellion, was awarded best debut work at the Berlinale and opens on April 5th Diagonal (detail on the ORF focus at presse.ORF.at). With a dynamic camera, the Iraqi woman who grew up in Vienna uses semi-documentary elements to approach the fictitious family life of a young Viennese Kurdish woman who spends her free time between the headscarf requirement, social media addiction and girlfriends fooling around. Ayub is concerned with self-determination without negating cultural roots. She processed her own experiences as the daughter of Kurds from Iraq. She cast her own parents in “Sonne”. A married couple of doctors who fled to Austria via Turkey with Kurdwin when she was still having babies during the first Gulf War. The family quickly took root, but everyday racism runs deep in the system. Ayub was accepted into the painting class at the University of Applied Arts by Christian Ludwig Attersee, studied animation with Judith Eisler and performance with Carola Dertnig. In 2012 she shot her first short film “Family Vacation” about the relationship between parents who had migrated to Austria and their relatives who stayed in Iraq. In 2016 she finally traveled for the documentary “Paradise! Paradise! – My father, the Kurds and I” (as part of the “Long Night of the Diagonal” on April 3rd in ORF 2) again the home of their ancestors. Kurdwin Ayub is a live guest in the studio on the occasion of her first feature film “Sonne”.
Documentary “George Orwell, Aldous Huxley – 1984 or Brave New World” (11:15 p.m.)
Data storage, fake news, designer babies, the massive use of antidepressants – today’s reality has almost caught up with yesterday’s fiction. More than 70 years ago, two writers warned of such developments in their works Brave New World and 1984: Aldous Huxley and George Orwell turned out to be ingenious visionaries of the future. The two Englishmen were contemporaries: Huxley was born in 1894 in Godalming in Sussex and Orwell, whose real name was Eric Blair, was born in 1903 in Motihari, India. Their paths in life crossed at the famous Eton College, although they came from two completely different worlds: Huxley came from a clear intellectual dynasty, while Orwell grew up in poor circumstances. Can their different nightmarish future scenarios be traced back to their different paths in life? And do we live today more in the world of “1984” or in the “Brave New World”? Director:
Philippe Calderon, Caroline Benarrosh