2024-12-17 14:31:00
Berlin? Degenerated into a “Prussian military training zone without any appeal,” says a prominent castle actress. He knows from personal experience how to do it right. Because Vienna invests more, not less, in culture. And thus it develops attractiveness for investors.
The cultural atmosphere could not be more different than in Berlin and Vienna: in the German capital there is fear and terror. It is to be feared that drastic, short-term cuts of €130 million next year alone could be the beginning of the end for some cultural institutions. Former Culture Minister Monika Grütters (CDU) recently described the Berlin Senate’s plans as “heartless and brainless”. in an interview – a harsh criticism of his own party, which is in coalition with the SPD. Berlin as a city in cultural decline.
Vienna, on the other hand, seems to be on the move. A few days ago the New State Opera, NEST for short, opened a 250-seat space for younger generations and experimental music. It is the fifth opera house in the city, with a population of two million. A new opening like this is an absolute rarity outside China today. Shortly afterwards it became known that a new musical theater was being planned in the Prater. It is destined to become one of “Austria’s most important venues” and to set “new standards in international theater architecture”. Superlatives that you can still afford on the Danube.
Burgtheater actress Caroline Peters (“Murder with a View”) recently told WELT AM SONNTAG that Vienna today seems like the “capital of modernity” again, as it did more than 100 years ago. Now Peters has one open letter wrote to Berlin politicians, saying: “Your way of communicating is cynical and inappropriate or is just a preparation to bring Berlin back to what it originally was: a Prussian military training area without any appeal. How culture is managed in Berlin.” it causes pure disbelief in Vienna.
23 percent more for culture
In Vienna, the city boasts that the 2024/25 double budget includes 23% more spending on culture, of which 137 million euros for theaters alone. There is a culture pass for those who need it, which allows free entry to theatres, museums and cinemas. New municipal housing, new tram and metro lines are being built. Trains run, usually on time, and are not intended to replace emergency shelters for the homeless. Yes, where is something like that? At least not in Berlin. It is no surprise that Vienna has for years been considered the most livable city in the world.
A cultural metropolis with charisma attracts investors and patrons. The construction of the NEST, which belongs to the Vienna State Opera, was largely financed by the Haselsteiner family foundation. And the new Prater theater will be managed privately, in a “strategic partnership” with the city. Could it be that strong public funding also serves as an incentive for private sponsors? In any case, it seems much more promising than the Berlin recipe of now decreeing from above “personal responsibility” for cultural institutions that have been brought to the brink of economic sustainability.
Theater evenings suited to the crisis atmosphere of Berlin also take place in Vienna: on the third weekend of Advent, the out-of-this-world evening “Ever Give” and the auditor comedy “The Revisor” celebrate their premiere at the Volkstheater. On both evenings German theater criticism is represented in large numbers. First settling movements? Berlin theaters have already announced that they will cancel numerous productions due to cuts. And fewer previews mean fewer theater reviews. So less attention to the theater.
“End. Out. Collapse. END. Collapse. Final failure.” This is what flashes on the screen at the beginning of “Ever Given.” It is an evening on the feeling of catastrophe that Helgard Haug of the Rimini Protocol named after the container ship “Ever Given”, which three years ago blocked the Suez Canal for days. Stalled supply chains become a metaphor: not only the flow of goods, but also people are stuck, fleeing borders or stuttering. “I’m a breakup, an accident,” says stuttering artist Marianna Vlaschits.
“Ever Given” literally forces the viewer to discover slowness. You have to accept the interruption of the rhythm. And he is rewarded with poetic images. In one scene you only follow the falling of individual drops of water for minutes, nothing else. The theatrical deconstruction of the just-in-time regime, along with Barbara Morgenstern’s music, evokes the power of art to interrupt: “The world stops and listens. A turning point in the mythical cycle of goods and people that is more “. disastrous than the collapse ultimately is?
Addicted to pleasure and accidentally broken
The circulation of money and sex also permeates Nikolai Gogol’s “The Auditor”, which Mateja Koležnik stages as a dark human comedy with a fantastic ensemble. A corrupt citizen anxiously awaits an auditor. When an official from the capital shows up, he is seduced and corrupted, guided by the mayor (Roland Koch as the perfect embodiment of the provincial tyrant). The young civil servant, addicted to pleasure and greenery by mistake (great: Tim Werths), takes everything that is given to him. At the end there is also the mayor’s daughter (Lola Klamroth), but she is very smart! – has its own agenda which is recognized only belatedly.
Who gives what to whom and how much depends on trust in authority, even if it is the wrong one. The world wants to be deceived. Koležnik relies on exaggerated slapstick with artistic interludes like in silent films to bring to the stage the divided psychology of lower-middle-class society, which oscillates between submissive and rebellious. This is very harmonious, also thanks to the beautiful 80s retro scene by Klaus Grünberg and the costumes by Ana Savić-Gecan, and was widely celebrated by the happy premiere audience. In Vienna the crisis is still being observed on stage, but in Berlin it has now also reached behind the scenes. And this is less funny.
#Vienna #overtaking #Berlin #cultural #metropolis