norman lebrecht
December 09, 2020
A frontline post, exclusive to Slipped Disc, from Ivor Bolton, chief conductor of Sinfonieorchester Basel and music director of Teatro Real Madrid:
After the first, stringent lockdown, my first concert was a Mozart programme with choir and soloists at the Salzburg Festival. Salzburg was the only major international Music festival to go ahead this last summer and did so thanks to the strong determination of its management ( In particular its Praesidentin, Helga Rabl-Stadler) and the support of the Austrian Government who consider high culture to be an existential part of any civilized society. In the end around 200 events went ahead over a period of one month, somewhat less than the originally planned 900 or so but this in itself was a miraculous outcome. This was achieved by a rigorous regime of constant CoVid testing of all artists, choirs and orchestras being carefully socially distanced (the former singing behind perspex screens).