Chemnitz: Theater merger threatens theater and cultural variety | EUROtoday

Last yr Chemnitz was European Capital of Culture. Last yr, metropolis leaders acted as if there was nothing extra essential than tradition, nothing extra essential than its artwork golf equipment, museums and venues. There they gave themselves a public look of creative appreciation. But as quickly because the tents are dismantled and the caravan has moved on, the artwork is relegated to the cat desk once more. Will she be demoted to a hunger sufferer who’s within the metropolis’s pocket and will be completely happy if you happen to throw her a couple of leftovers.

There have been fears in Chemnitz for a couple of days that the present may go below. The SPD faction within the metropolis council has, fairly unexpectedly, voted to merge the Chemnitz theater and the opera home for value causes. All 5 divisions of the Chemnitz theater, i.e. musical theater, ballet, drama, puppet theater and philharmonic orchestra, ought to in future be introduced collectively below the roof of the opera home, is the proposal aired within the native press, which apparently additionally finds approval from different factions of the Chemnitz metropolis council. That can be tantamount to a cultural-political clear-cutting on a rare scale. And would have drastic penalties for the sport plan.

In an preliminary assertion from the theater administration, which all division heads have signed, there may be speak of a “halving of the artistic offerings” and the disappearance of “thousands of audience seats”. With at present 250 occasions within the opera home and 450 to 500 occasions within the theater, you may simply calculate what a structural merger would imply when it comes to content material. In explicit, the youngsters’s and youth theater sector in addition to theater schooling can be on the verge of extinction. Apart from that, there are additionally technical causes in opposition to it: the architectural and acoustic situations of an opera home are solely very conditionally appropriate for a spoken theater.

The dialogue about the way forward for theater has been occurring in Chemnitz for a few years – at the least since defects within the constructing construction and fireplace safety had been found on the previous theater in 2016. Since then, as in lots of different German cities, the essential query has been: renovation or new development. The previous theater in Chemnitz is taken into account a mannequin constructing of Eastern Modernism and isn’t solely an essential place of remembrance when it comes to architectural historical past, it additionally accommodates loads of theater historical past: in any case, theater greats equivalent to Corinna Harfouch, Frank Castorf, Ulrich hassle and Michael Thalheimer, who started his profession as a director right here in 1997, labored right here up to now. Nevertheless, renovation was shortly judged to be too costly. In 2021, the previous constructing was closed indefinitely and the so-called Spinnbau, a brick industrial corridor in Alt-Chemnitz, was chosen as an interim venue. According to the most recent concerns, that is precisely the place a brand new cultural quarter must be constructed that would completely home the theater.

Such a forward-looking thought was effectively suited to advertising itself as a cultural capital. But now, it appears, the town leaders are exhibiting their true colours: Now the SPD – which, in any case, has the mayor – is arguing for the price of transferring the drama and puppet theater below the roof of the opera home, the place, along with the music theater, the ballet and the Robert Schumann Philharmonic are already positioned. This shouldn’t be solely a trigger for “outrage” and “stunning,” because the theater administrators mentioned of their assertion, it’s an event to remind metropolis politicians that securing cultural infrastructure shouldn’t be about an act of grace or generosity, however a couple of obligation for the longer term, a mandate that goes past one’s personal horizons.

The choice to not keep its personal theater sooner or later wouldn’t solely be an embarrassing indictment of a cultural capital, it might additionally come on the expense of Chemnitz’s cultural competitiveness. A metropolis that’s already scuffling with questions of repute on account of an absence of infrastructural connectivity (there may be nonetheless no ICE path to Chemnitz!). At a time when questions of energy are more and more being raised within the cultural sphere, this might be a course of deadly negligence.