The Garmisch-Partenkirchen market is breaking new ground in terms of culture and politics: After the debacle over the Richard Strauss Festival, the tourist destination is betting on a music summer with a broader and more audience-oriented program next year.
Garmisch-Partenkirchen - It was one of these legendary endless meetings of the Garmisch-Partenkirchen municipal council on Thursday evening. The public part of the discussions in the Olympic Hall alone lasted around four and a half hours. The central topic: the crisis-ridden Richard Strauss Festival - or the question of how it should go on.
The prehistory is well known: The renowned festival in honor of the famous composer who lived in the district was canceled this year due to the corona - and in financial terms it turned out to be a bottomless pit. Finally, the artistic director and conductor Alexander Liebreich also retired.
Richard Strauss Festival: a new beginning with cost control
Even in the run-up to the meeting, voices had been raised calling for a fresh start in a stripped-down form - and equipped with strict cost controls. This should now be the case next year. After a lively and controversial debate, the committee decided with clear majorities - several individual resolutions were to be voted on - for a rough concept that the newly founded GaPa Kultur gGmbH had developed. Working title: "Garmisch-Partenkirchen Music Summer".
As before, it is no longer just about Richard Strauss care. Rather, under the leadership of the aforementioned non-profit GmbH - shareholders are the market and GaPa Tourismus - different events are to be united under one roof. Aim: A colorful program for everyone - and not just for Strauss lovers. A return to the smaller (and cheaper) format of the Richard Strauss Days on an (extended) weekend in June is planned. As a further highlight, in addition to the Hermann Levi Days (June or July), a weekend for the Italian composer Gioachino Rossini (mid-September) is planned. And local musicians should also find a stage.
Mayor Elisabeth Koch (CSU), Michael Gerber, Head of GaPa Tourism, and Dr. Dominik Sedivy, head of the Richard Strauss Institute, passionately advocated taking this path. The town hall chief is particularly interested in the cultural cooperation with Rossini's birthplace Pesaro. "We have to understand access to culture as a common European task," she said. "If we bring the works of Strauss and Rossini together and convey them across borders in both places - Garmisch-Partenkirchen and Pesaro - to people, we will strengthen our common identity and, at the same time, European cultural values."
For the time being, the music summer has only been decided on for 2021. Gerber is already thinking ahead, however, and can imagine taking up not only music but also other forms of culture in the future. Sedivy took the same line: “We can start small,” he said - and then develop the whole thing further.
There was criticism
This view apparently convinced the majority of the people's representatives. “This is the ideal solution for 2021”, commented Second Mayor Claudia Zolk (CSB) - and appealed to her colleagues: “Try it out”. Claus Gefrörer (CSU) focused on finances. “We have to take the difficult budget situation into account,” he warned. The market's own share in the Musiksommer project is a maximum of 110,000 euros - significantly less than at the Richard Strauss Festival. Still too much for FDP man Martin Schröter. But his request to reduce the sum to 50,000 euros was thrown out. To this end, the local council agreed with his suggestion that the events should only take place in Garmisch-Partenkirchen.
But there was also criticism. The Richard Strauss Festival was something “unique”, explained new councilor Ulrike Bittner-Wolff (SPD) - and will now be “buried” with the change of course. Anton Hofer (Garmisch + Partenkirchen together) criticized the concept presented: "That is still relatively half-baked." And Greens spokesman Dr. Stephan Thiel warned: "We should be very careful." Next: "We have to think about: What is our culture worth to us?" work out, fell through.