Berlin's Opera Wars

[DudeAsInCool]

A New Act in Berlin's Opera Wars

By ALAN RIDING

Published: March 2, 2004

BERLIN — From the start of the prolonged offstage drama that has been convulsing Berlin's opera world since the late 1990's, two inescapable and contradictory realities seemed likely to determine the outcome. Financially, the city government could no longer afford to maintain three opera houses in the style to which they had become accustomed. Politically, it could not afford to close any of them.

The solution that has now been imposed by the Berlin Senate, amid squeals of dismay and sighs of resignation, was predictable. The three opera houses — the Deutsche Staatsoper Unter den Linden, the Deutsche Oper and the Komische Oper — will remain open, but they must cut costs, including 220 jobs, and learn to live on smaller subsidies. They are also to share workshops, and will shortly merge their three ballet companies into a single Staatsballett Berlin.

"We are starting a new chapter," said Georg Vierthaler, the Staatsoper's managing director, in an interview last month. "In time we will see if it is a comedy, drama or tragedy."

With the German economy in a slump, traditionally generous cultural subsidies are being trimmed across the country. Berlin's situation, though, is special. During the cold war, governments on both sides of the divided city promoted culture for propaganda purposes. After 1990, a united Berlin inherited three opera houses, eight orchestras and 17 theaters, but it lost many of its financial privileges.

As its budget deficit mounted through the 1990's, the city's coddled opera houses became targets for austerity measures. The opera managements protested, with the Staatsoper's music director, Daniel Barenboim, threatening to resign. But dependent on city government subsidies for $142 million of their collective $196 million annual budget, the houses could not elude political pressure.

And as they came under the spotlight, something else was revealed: they were in need of a good shake-up. For 14 years the three houses — the Deutsche Oper in former West Berlin and the Staatsoper and Komische Oper in former East Berlin — have been operating as independent fiefs, mirroring the old divide. Now they will be expected to respond more faithfully to the interests of a united Berlin.

Though it is once again the federal capital, Berlin is a relatively poor city lacking an industrial or financial base. One of its principal assets is culture, not only its fine museums and the legendary Berlin Philharmonic but also its opera houses. Yet unlike, say, the Vienna State Opera, Berlin opera houses have never reached out to tourists, even though attendance by Berliners is falling. Now Berlin's politicians want more for their money.

The key is the creation of the new Berlin Opera Foundation. Headed by a general manager to be named by the city, the foundation will have control over the three opera houses, the new Staatsballett and the service company that will manage costume and décor workshops. The foundation's component parts are all represented on a 10-member executive board, and have collective responsibility for opera and ballet in Berlin.

"In the past when they were in debt they'd come to the Senate and hold out their hand and ask for help," said Barbara Kisseler, the city's under secretary for culture, who is overseeing the reform. "Now this has to be sorted out by the foundation."

This was also a condition laid down by the federal government when it offered to help resolve the crisis. Reluctant to be seen directly subsidizing opera, it took charge of four city museums, freeing up $21 million in city funds, which are to be used by the foundation. Without that money the annual opera and ballet subsidy would have fallen to $100 million from $142 million; now it will level off at $121 million in 2009.

But that still leaves the foundation with a projected shortfall of $21 million, which will be only partly covered by the savings — about $12 million — achieved through sharing workshops and cutting, among artists, 18 musicians from the opera orchestras, 7 singers from the choruses and 28 dancers from the ballet companies. With the subsidy being reduced in stages, the foundation will be in the red again in 2007.

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