The Salzburg Festival sees itself as a “world brand”.

Tradition, artistic achievement, evening dresses, added value - all top class.

We are happy to let others confirm that we can be satisfied with ourselves.

For example, from the local Chamber of Commerce, which found in a study that the number of full-time jobs created by the festival was 2,800 in Salzburg and 3,400 in all of Austria.

The festival generates 77 million euros a year in direct and indirect taxes and duties.

Full-bodied and also a little hand-rubbing, the festival is described as an “excellence infusion” from an economic point of view.

The question of what is being infused by whom and for what purposes was not the focus of the Chamber of Commerce.

Hubert Spiegel

Editor in the Feuilleton.

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Since 2017, a private Swiss mining company called Solway Investment Group has been one of the festival sponsors.

The company, which was founded by Russian-Estonian businessman Alexander Bronstein, is considered the world's largest private nickel producer and, according to media reports, has close ties to the Kremlin.

Solway operates mines in Ukraine, North Macedonia, Indonesia and Guatemala, where the company has been embroiled in violent disputes with activists and critical media for several years.

The allegations are massive and range from environmental pollution and violations of the rights of the indigenous people to corruption and the persecution of journalists.

Solway's dubious dealings in Guatemala

A few weeks ago, more details about Solway's dubious business practices in Guatemala became public.

This had consequences: due to the latest revelations and Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine, "this sponsorship has become toxic," write the Swiss writer Lukas Bärfuss and the American-Latvian director Yana Ross in a press release distributed on Wednesday.

The Salzburg Festival now has a problem that could quickly become endemic.

In the future, many cultural institutions are likely to be confronted with the keyword “toxic sponsoring”.

The consequences could be drastic.

Ross and Bärfuss are actually supposed to work on a new version of Schnitzler's "Reigen" on behalf of the festival, but first they demand a revolution in Salzburg's handling of sponsors and give the festival management an ultimatum: "Immediately", but by July 27, 2022 at the latest to terminate business relationships with Solway.

In addition, "binding guidelines" for the financing of the festival should be developed.

For the future, Ross and Bärfuss demand complete transparency: “The sponsorship of the Salzburg Festival must be comprehensively examined by an independent body and the result made accessible to the public.

Sponsorship and other partner contracts, as well as finances and appointments are to be examined.”

The fact that Ross and Bärfuss are already thinking outside the box of Salzburg is shown by the following demand: "Only clean money in public institutions!" see was.

But how clean can money be in a globalized economic system?

How much dirt is enough to mess up an entire supply chain?

And what is easier to wash: money or sponsors?

You're going to have to merge many accounting firms with even more ethics committees to find out.