The proposal is still subject to final ratification, but the support of the majority owners, the federal government and German radio, makes this seem inevitable.
The head of German radio orchestras claims the decision has been made on artistic grounds - "Do we want one orchestra in the Champions League or the worry a few years down the line about keeping two orchestras in the Bundesliga?" he told an interviewer.
Perhaps more to the point is that a single orchestra would require a maximum of 125 musicians, whereas the two orchestras together currently employ around 180.
The DSO's chief conductor Ingo Metzmacher has spoken out against the plans, but then he's leaving shortly anyway in protest against earlier funding cuts. "It is a great mistake to think that the merger of two first-class orchestras would create an even better orchestra," said his statement. True, but it would be a cheaper one, and the days of unlimited public funding are long gone.
Meanwhile, Berlin's three opera companies are doing themselves no favours with their half-empty houses and uncoordinated calendars. You can for example catch La bohème at any one of the three this month - a total of 13 performances, or something like 30,000 seats to fill in a city half the size of London.
Of the three houses, only the Komische Oper has a clear identity - new, challenging productions in the German language are its mainstay. The Deutsche Oper and Staatsoper Unter den Linden meanwhile scrabble for funding, stars and audiences with patchy results. One of the few new productions to hit the mark this year was Stefan Herheim's Staatsoper Lohengrin, which incorporated a prescient swipe at Berlin's internecine opera house politicking. Some have speculated that the closure of the Linden opera house for renovations at the end of this season offers an opportunity for reorganisation. Who knows?
no surprise here when I was an MEP I went on a delegation to Berlin in 1998 and met with the minister of culture.I discovered that they were spending more on culture than the whole of the UK and because of the division of the city they had duplicated opera houses orchestras etc.The culture minister said they would have to merge some of them so it has only taken 10 years!Also outside of Berlin there are a further 80 plus opera houses with a high level of public subsidy meanwhile we have 4 publicly subsidised companies the Germans may have too many but perhaps we have too few!
Posted by: Hugh Kerr | 06 December 2009 at 06:28 AM
I discovered that they were spending more on culture than the whole of the UK and because of the division of the city they had duplicated opera houses
Posted by: Tiffany | 31 March 2010 at 02:07 AM