EXTRA TIME

When theatres reopen, what will have changed?

July 21, 2020 at 5:57 am Leave a comment

“Our audiences are tired of watching things on screen, and desperate for live performance that’s presented safely,” says Polly Graham, the young artistic director of Longborough Festival Opera, and she speaks for nearly everyone running a performing organisation.

The Times had a long article on the current situation of performing arts and theatre venues in the UK. The situation is difficult and the outlook not good. After 16 weeks of lockdown some outdoor events may take place, but theatres will (maybe) open some time in autumn with reduced crowds if Britain can avoid “a second wave”.

Streaming has been the only possibility to watch operas and plays in the months that are lying behind us, and might well be part of “the solution” for the performing arts also within the next months, but without performances in front of a real audience it’s like trying to put a very expensive icing on a non-existent cake.

Timna Brauer and Elias Meiri: “Songs from Jerusalem” in the Südbahnhotel

I have been lucky to watch my first live performance after lockdown last weekend in the “Südbahnhotel”, an old hotel on the Semmering, one hour south of Vienna. They are having a small summer festival there, and Timna Brauer and her husband Elias Meiri sang “Songs from Jerusalem”. I was extremely grateful for this evening. Live music with improvising and communicating with the crowd generates an atmosphere you will never experience in your living room in front of a screen.

I very much hope the measures in place at such events, like smaller crowds (from 1 July, up to 250 are allowed indoors in Austria), distance between the spectators, wearing a protective mask etc, help to avoid the spread of the virus there, and the festival will go on during summer, followed by the reopening of opera and theatres in Vienna in autumn when events with up to 5,000 people in closed rooms (and up to 10,000 outdoors) should be possible under Austrian COVID-19-regulations.

We need the performing arts more than ever, they touch our hearts, nourish the soul and can give hope in these difficult times!

Let’s hope the regulations which make these events possible will not have to be tightened again and the spread of the virus remains under Control.

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