Saturday, November 25, 2006
An Arts Festival Inspired by Mozart the Social Crusader
New York Times: "Has the well-known provocateur, the man who gave us “Don Giovanni” in Harlem, gone establishment, shilling for tourist dollars? Say rather that Vienna (or those in charge of its cultural funds) is embracing the shock of the new. Of the $38.5 million earmarked for Wien/Mozart, a festival celebrating the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth, fully one-third went to Mr. Sellars for a festival within a festival called New Crowned Hope. Named for Mozart’s Masonic lodge, it consists entirely of non-Austrian artists doing new work. Not a note of Mozart is being played."
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It is so wonderful to hear that instead of Mozart's birthday being celebrated in the simple unoriginal way of presenting a collection of Mozart's arrangements, Sellers has tried to take his musicality and themes and place it in a nowadays setting.
As Mr. Marboe, who seems to be in a PM position put it: “It should be not an homage, but an occasion to do things that one wouldn’t otherwise do, like perform all of Mozart’s sacred music in Vienna’s churches.” This is how all celebrations of great human beings in history should be handled, with something new that pushes the envelope.
Mr. Sellars in his partial explanation of some radical pieces said the role of arts "is to do what cannot be achieved by politics and economics at the moment.” The NY Times said this could be thought of as naive. My question for them is if governments have failed in certain respects, why call it naive when an artist creates big ideas in a hope to change the world in big ways?
-boyce
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