Teodor Currentzis 2019 in the Elbphilharmonie – whose money made him so great?
Image: Claudia Höhne
The war in Ukraine makes us question humanity in art anew. Gergiev, Netrebko and Currentzis have conquered the world. We aided them – and their backers without knowing their intentions.
“This Peace” and “This War” are the titles of two essays that Thomas Mann wrote in 1938 and 1940. World-historical considerations on the one hand about the putrid peace, in which the destruction of Czechoslovakia and the annexation of Austria were tolerated, on the other hand about the self-abandonment of democracies, which led to the war. For many, history currently appears as the second coming of the same.
“It is terrible that artistic relationships, at least temporarily, fall under the collateral damage of Putin’s actions”. What a word with which the director Peter Gelb announced that the Metropolitan Opera in New York would end its cooperation with sympathizers of the Russian dictator. Collateral damage! Not so long ago it was voted “nonsense word of the year”. No, it’s not just about “accompanying damage”, but about the betrayal of culture – culture in the broader sense understood as the basis of humanity – by a brutal, brutal revanchist. He has worked for two decades to give Europe the pay for a categorical failure. Despite years of increasing blackmail, Europe was not willing to politicize the mind in the name of culture and freedom.