(This blog was written on the morning of the day it was revealed that the vote count for the election of the leader of the Austrian Socialists had been falsified.
I assure you that I don't have any magical powers that caused Han-Peter Doskozil's fate to change.😆)
The role of the nobility, the church up to the 19th century and the great wealth amassed by great financiers, industrialists and bankers after the turn of the century were crucial to the realization of painterly, architectural and - most of all - musical Works until the mid-20th century. Then, especially in Europe, it was the state that stimulated artistic creation, following the Soviet example in supporting the arts as a means of expression, entertainment and education, as a necessary element for a cultured , population living in peace.
In the late Renaissance, the great ruling families of Italy encouraged the creation of new styles of music thanks to the economic support they gave to their protégés. This is how opera came into being: the Venetian families, soon discovering that commissioning and producing operas gave them prestige and elevated them above other families, rushed to hire composers to write operas for them and build theaters everywhere . The music served as a showcase for the family's cultural status and economic power.
In the 20th century we saw in Europe and in the Soviet republics a state that was anxious to support the arts also as a means of propaganda and to promote a cultural image towards other nations in which the high quality of cultural events came first position. Austria and Germany have risen above other nations, with the former in particular gaining a trademark that it thrives on thanks in part to the hundreds of thousands of tourists who visit the country for a music event.
If it is true that political clientele has always been very present in Austrian cultural policy, then the programming and organization of these events has been entrusted to specialists. In this way, the real needs of the population, which should continue to be educated and entertained through a prestigious cultural activity such as classical music, opera and operetta, were more and more neglected.
The political class itself became idiotic and increasingly distanced itself from the program designers. They programmed only for themselves and a few critics, who gave them prestige and gave them a career in cultural management of very questionable value.
And they've got us down a hole they're trying to pull us out of by going through the programmers and directors of theaters and festivals
1. Big names with no theater management experience,
2. by economists who are unaware of the artistic merits of the people they hire, and...
Guess who I'm talking about?...
What does Hans-Peter Doskozil have in common with a Renaissance art patron?:
Nothing.
A man who doesn't know there is a play called West Side Story and doesn't understand why it's being programmed. A man who demands an explanation as to why Lehar's Merry Widow is being programmed at an operetta festival and that the only Austrian musician he knows by name is a violinist because he belongs to the same football club as he does little to do with a 16th-century prince who helped create new musical realities.
But as I predicted from the first moment when Daniel Serafin drew our attention to his intentions to unite all Burgenland festivals and put a bad cabaret artist at their head, he achieved all his goals, a favorable environment among the masses that could undoubtedly have made him the next chancellor.
Shameful the voting process in which he declared himself the new leader of the Austrian Socialists. In any case, the art and music of the future are saved in the Austrian Republic. Because Hans-Peter Doskozil is not a patron of the arts.
... better: we are all saved.