Ina Hartwig (SPD), head of the Frankfurt cultural affairs department, feels “dynamism and relief”, Markus Fein, director of the Alte Oper since last summer, reports that more subscriptions have recently been sold than ever in the history of the Konzerthaus.
Philipp Demandt, director of the Städel Museum, the Kunsthalle Schirn and the Liebieghaus, on the other hand, registered "certain weaning factors" that did not allow the public to flock to the cultural venues as lively as was the case last year after the first lockdown.
In a panel discussion, which was embedded in a musical “Evening for the Old Opera”, the head of the department and the two cultural managers looked into the future together with FAZ cultural editor Eva-Maria Magel.
In the audience, some of the Society of Friends of the Alte Oper, which was staging that evening, might have heard with great interest what Intendant Fein was expecting: “The local has taken on a completely new meaning”;
Fein called the work with the local artists and future networks with the Städel as well, Demandt affirmed the now more important look at his own collections.
Strings and larynx singing
Musically, the perspective of the concert was nevertheless far into the distance, as far as Mongolia, where two of the three soloists of the evening come from. The Friends Orchestra, directed by Klaus Albert Bauer, which appeared in the Alte Oper for the fourth time since it was founded seven years ago, with Mathias Bild's Concertino for horse-head violin and strings, provided the more western-style string accompaniment in an exciting contrast to the playing and improvising larynx singing of the Soloists Zolzaya Boldbaatar.
Together with the snake-neck lute player Uranchimeg Nyamsuren, he appeared in a fantasy that the Mongolian composer Delgersaikhan Tuvshinsaikhan wrote for the two traditional instruments and orchestra. Comparable to the vividness of film music, with all the rhythmic sophistication, it made images of nature appear in front of the inner eye.
The members of the Malion Quartet, founded in 2018 and an ensemble graduate from the Frankfurt University of Music, had opened their eyes to the east with the gruff but clearly placed dissonances of the second movement from Béla Bartók's second string quartet and the mildly sweet Notturno from Alexander Borodin's second string quartet . They also strengthened the Friends Orchestra at the first desks, which received unusual support from Artistic Director Fein. He contributed the gentle tam-tam beats in the so-called "Egyptian" Piano Concerto No. 5 in F major op. 103 by Camille Saint-Saëns, which pianist Nuron Mukumi understood with fine pianissimo values as a premonition of the Impressionist.