And so, today, the Financial Times takes up the discussion!

   Clash of the Titans at the Salzburg festival

   Austria is in the throes of a public row over artistic innovation
   versus conservatism, reports Andrew Clark

   It must have struck most of the audience as harmless.  In an address
   inaugurating this summer's Salzburg festival, Thomas Klestil, Austria's
   president, called for "harmony instead of confrontation, consensus
   instead of provocation".  Quoting Hugo von Hofmannsthal, the playwright
   who co-founded the festival in the 1920s, Klestil showed that he was
   not only well-read, but aware of Salzburg tradition.

   But there was more to read between the lines.  The speech was a
   thinly disguised attack on Gerard Mortier, the short, flamboyant
   Belgian whose innovative festival programmes have upset traditionalists
   and polarised Austrian society.  By the time Klestil sat down, Mortier
   was already composing a "private" letter of reply, which he
   simultaneously distributed to the press.  The stage was set for
   the latest scandal of the Mortier era.

   It's not often that a head of state locks horns with a festival
   director.  But Austria is a small country, and culture is a national
   issue: it represents everything Austria has given the world, from
   Mozart to modern art.  Institutions like the Vienna State Opera and
   the Salzburg festival generate a huge amount of tourist income.
   Their wellbeing is a matter of constant debate.

   Most festival directors would have let Klestil's remarks pass; but
   not Mortier, who likes to provoke his opponents and argue his corner
   with the thrust of a street-fighter.  It was as if, after two relatively
   emollient years, Mortier had been looking for an opportunity to
   rekindle the controversies which plagued Salzburg in the early 1990s.
   The president's speech was just the excuse he needed to launch an
   offensive against members of the Austrian establishment who have been
   trying to curb his festival reforms.  He accused Klestil of breaching
   the impartiality of office, and likened his attitude to the Nazi
   campaign against "degenerate" art.

   Klestil's intervention was not an isolated incident.  Barely had the
   applause for his speech ended than Salzburg's department of social
   services banned anyone under 16 from seeing Schlachten!, a widely
   acclaimed 12-hour festival adaptation of Shakespeare's history plays.
   The official reason was the amount of nudity and violence in the
   performance.  The ban provoked loud protests from the arts community,
   which interpreted it as proof of a conservative backlash against
   Mortier.

   The significance of all this is that it coincides with the start
   of the search for Mortier's successor.  His contract ends after the
   2001 festival, by which time he will have been in office for 10 years.
   Salzburg must decide whether it wants to return to the style of the
   1980s, when innovation and experiment were frowned upon, or to continue
   Mortier's modernising policies, which excite liberals and the younger
   generation but have limited appeal to tourists and high society.

   In that context, Klestil's speech may have served a useful purpose.
   On one hand, it raised questions about the right of politicians to
   pronounce judgment in artistic matters; on the other, it sparked a
   debate about the function of art, and how this should be reflected
   at the festival.  Klestil said art was about beauty, style and taste
   - and many Salzburgers will have nodded in approval.  Mortier countered
   that art should not represent a "false paradise".  Klestil said
   Salzburg should support whatever was "unmistakably Austrian".  Mortier
   dismissed this as a plea for "sugar-sweet Mozart", and pointed out
   that Schoenberg, Berg and Webern were no less Austrian.

   In contrast to his terrier-like public image, Mortier is the
   personification of charm in private.  And despite his questionable
   choice of stage directors, the consensus is that he has been a
   necessary force for change.  The festival needed to open itself up
   to contemporary trends, and this summer's programme is generally
   reckoned the best since Mortier's arrival in 1991.

   The world premiere of Berio's Cronaca del Luogo, a 90-minute meditative
   arc of sound and light, has intrigued audiences and repositioned
   Salzburg in the vanguard of modern music - a role which will be
   consolidated over the next two years with new operas by Kaija Saariaho
   and Matthias Pintscher.  A new production of Busoni's Doktor Faust
   has proved a worthy addition to the list of influential 20th cen tury
   scores Mortier has introduced to the festival.  The decision to stage
   Die Zauberflote in a downmarket arena has been vindicated by ticket
   sales and the high-calibre input of the Vienna Philharmonic.  An
   intelligently conceived concert programme has featured Maazel, Muti,
   Pollini and Rattle; divas like Karita Mattila and Cecilia Bartoli
   are much in evidence.

   If you want the best that money can buy, Salzburg is the place to be
   in summer - assuming you are happy spending up to Sch4,200 (200) for
   a good seat.  But thanks to Mortier's clever ticket structure, young
   people can buy a subscription that allows them into the same performance
   for a tenth of the price.

   Of course, Mortier has been forced into uncomfortable compromises.
   To balance his budget, he must still put Don Giovanni in the 2,200-seat
   Grosses Festspielhaus - even though he knows Mozart is ill-suited to
   its gargantuan stage.  Although his relations with the Vienna
   Philharmonic have greatly improved, he has failed to eradicate the
   deputy system, which allows the orchestra to use different personnel
   for rehearsal and performance; this has led Simon Rattle to pull out
   of a Figaro production planned for 2001.  And as the price for a $6m
   sponsorship deal with Alberto Vilar, a Cuban-American businessman,
   Mortier has been obliged to put Vilar's photo at the front of every
   programme-book, as well as in the foyer of the Grosses Festspielhaus.

   Mortier's biggest compromise has been the division of responsibility
   in the committee which decides the festival programme.  He has to
   share power with Hans Landesmann, a low-profile but highly competent
   Austrian impresario, and Helga Rabl-Stadler, a pillar of Salzburg
   society who serves as festival president.  Describing Rabl-Stadler
   as his "watchdog", Mortier uses every opportunity to make jibes about
   her level of artistic knowledge, and accuses her of undermining his
   negotiating position with local funding authorities.

   This hamstrung executive structure is unlikely to change.  Otherwise,
   things seem to be going Mortier's way.  He has already announced a
   strong line-up for next summer, including Berlioz's Les Troyens and
   a new staging of Cosi fan tutte conducted by Abbado; and his grand
   finale in 2001 will feature no fewer than nine operas.  This week
   the ban on Schlachten!  was reversed, and the festival board
   specifically instructed its search committee to find a successor who
   could carry forward Mortier's reforms.  That gives Alexander Pereira,
   an Austrian cultural manager now at the Zurich Opera House, an
   advantage over previously tipped conductor candidates like Daniel
   Barenboim.

   Perhaps, after all the polemics, Salzburg can claim its share of
   beauty, harmony and style.  As Mortier points out, it all depends on
   how you interpret them.

John G. Deacon
Home page:     http://www.ctv.es/USERS/j.deacon
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