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    As Ukraine War Goes On, Where Is Teodor Currentzis’s Red Line?

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    Teodor Currentzis, whose MusicAeterna receives funding from a Russian state bank, has eluded censure at the prestigious Salzburg Festival.When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the classical music world’s reaction was swift. Artists with ties to President Vladimir V. Putin, or those who had publicly supported his war efforts, were dropped by orchestras and opera houses across the West.One person who seemed to elude such punishment, though, was Teodor Currentzis, who is leading concerts and a production of Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” at the prestigious Salzburg Festival in Austria. More than two years into the war, his continued presence there is frustrating to many, raising uncomfortable questions about what is acceptable in service of music.Currentzis, who was born in Greece, was given Russian citizenship by Putin’s government in 2014, the year Russia invaded the Crimean peninsula. Two decades ago, he founded MusicAeterna, a small musical empire that started as an orchestra and now includes a choir and dance company in St. Petersburg.MusicAeterna doesn’t have any direct affiliation with Putin, but it came under scrutiny after the 2022 invasion because of support from the state-controlled VTB Bank (which has been penalized by the United States), as well as other government-related donors. Currentzis has been silent about the war, neither denouncing Russia nor supporting Ukraine.And he has lost some work as a result. Earlier this year, the Wiener Festwochen in Austria canceled an appearance by him and the German SWR Symphony Orchestra after fierce criticism from the Ukrainian conductor Oksana Lyniv, who appeared at the same festival with Ukrainian musicians.Salzburg has stood by Currentzis but not by his Russian musicians. The “Don Giovanni” here is a revival of a production that originated in 2021, with him conducting. Then, the pit ensemble was MusicAeterna. Now it’s Utopia, the all-star group, in the spirit of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, that he started in 2022; pointedly, it is based in Western Europe.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Performance by Maestro With Russian Ties Is Canceled in Vienna

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      A Teodor Currentzis concert at the Wiener Festwochen was canceled after the Ukrainian conductor Oksana Lyniv, also on the program, raised concerns about his ties to Russia.When the Wiener Festwochen, a prestigious festival that brings leading international artists to Vienna, announced this spring’s lineup, the backlash was swift and fierce.The festival had planned to make the Russian invasion of Ukraine a focus of its programming, juxtaposing an appearance by the Ukrainian conductor Oksana Lyniv with a concert by the maestro Teodor Currentzis, who has faced scrutiny over his connections to Russia. Critics, including Lyniv, had argued that the pairing was insensitive and ignored the suffering of Ukrainians.Now, after weeks of pressure, the festival has abandoned its plan, saying that it would cancel the appearance by Currentzis while moving forward with the one by Lyniv.“The decision was clear and there was no alternative,” Milo Rau, the festival’s artistic director, said in an interview on Tuesday. “This was the best solution from bad ones.”Since Russia invaded Ukraine, many cultural organizations have severed ties with close associates of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and the government there. Some institutions have been criticized for overreach after canceling performances by Russian artists with no known connections to the government. Others have grappled with how to handle artists who had less clear-cut allegiances.Currentzis, a Greek-born, Russian-trained maestro whose leadership of the Russian ensemble MusicAeterna turned him into one of the world’s most prominent conductors, has been at the center of the discussion because of his relationship with VTB Bank, a Russian state-owned institution that has been under sanctions by the United States and other countries. VTB Bank was the main sponsor of MusicAeterna. Currentzis has also drawn scrutiny for his association with Russian officials: In 2014, Putin awarded Currentzis citizenship by presidential decree.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Review: The War in Ukraine Looms Over an Orchestra’s Debut

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      Utopia is the latest project from Teodor Currentzis, whose home ensemble has faced scrutiny over its ties to Russian state funding.HAMBURG, Germany — After Claude Debussy heard a young Igor Stravinsky’s “Firebird,” he was said to have quipped, “One has to start somewhere.”That start turned out to be auspicious. And Utopia — a new ensemble that has assembled some top performers from groups throughout Europe and abroad — has similar potential. It debuted this week, with a slight but superbly executed program of, as it happens, “The Firebird” and works by Ravel that it is currently touring, with a stop at the Laeiszhalle here on Wednesday evening.Utopia’s name inspires eye rolls; but its sound, awe. Tensions like that always seems to attach themselves to its founder and conductor, Teodor Currentzis, who often appears to serve himself more than music yet at the same time reveals what can feel like a previously veiled truth.His already complicated artistry has been complicated further since the war in Ukraine began. Currentzis was born in Greece but has long been based in Russia, where he was given citizenship by presidential decree in 2014. The invasion brought fresh scrutiny to his ensemble there, MusicAeterna, and its funding from the state-owned VTB Bank. Currentzis, for his part, has been silent, caught an irreconcilable position between Russia and the West. Members of MusicAeterna, however, have been seen on social media championing the invasion.Some presenters in Europe have canceled MusicAeterna’s or Currentzis’ engagements over the war — most recently, the Philharmonie in Cologne, Germany this week — while others have stood by them, including the mighty Salzburg Festival in Austria.When the creation of Utopia was announced in August, its rollout — seeking little press, and with only brief tours of one program at a time — came off as a rushed reaction to MusicAeterna’s troubles. After all, it was billed as an independent orchestra with independent (a euphemism for Western) funding. But the ensemble has been in development for several years.The State of the WarRussia’s Retreat: After significant gains in eastern cities like Lyman, Ukraine is pushing farther into Russian-held territory in the south, expanding its campaign as Moscow struggles to mount a response and hold the line. The Ukrainian victories came as President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia illegally annexed four regions where fighting is raging.Dugina Assassination: U.S. intelligence agencies believe parts of the Ukrainian government authorized the car bomb attack near Moscow in August that killed Daria Dugina, the daughter of a prominent Russian nationalist. American officials said they were not aware of the plan ahead of time and that they had admonished Ukraine over it.Oil Supply Cuts: Saudi Arabia and Russia, acting as leaders of the OPEC Plus energy cartel, agreed to a large production cut in a bid to raise prices, countering efforts by the United States and Europe to constrain the oil revenue Moscow is using to pay for its war in Ukraine.Putin’s Nuclear Threats: For the first time since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, top Russian leaders are making explicit nuclear threats and officials in Washington are gaming out scenarios should Mr. Putin decide to use a tactical nuclear weapon.Currentzis could have more control over the story of Utopia if he weren’t so reticent because of the war. Then, he might be able to offer a stronger argument for the group’s existence than what has been advertised: simply to bring together “the best musicians from all around the world” for the web3-like purpose of decentralizing classical music.That said, there is undeniable talent among Utopia’s ranks. Sure, the concertmaster on Wednesday was Olga Volkova, who holds the same post in MusicAeterna, but elsewhere there were ambassadors from the Staatskapelle Berlin, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and the Paris Opera; plenty of players born in Europe, but also ones from Australia, Asia and the Americas.With little rehearsal time, they gave their first concert in Luxembourg on Tuesday. After Hamburg comes Vienna, then Berlin, where vast swaths of the Philharmonie remain unsold. That was not the case on Tuesday at the more intimate Laeiszhalle, which was nearly full with a warmly receptive audience. Outside there was nary a protester, as there have been at the Russian soprano Anna Netrebko’s recent recitals, and inside Currentzis was greeted with cheers surpassed by only the riotous applause that followed each piece.It’s not hard to see why. This was an evening that never sagged or lacked in interest, even if Currentzis’ style tipped toward the profane. He relished extremes, with hyperbolic readings of the scores that you could say reflect a lack of trust or taste — but that you could also say are riveting from start to finish. Love or hate them, his performances make people truly care about music.If there were doubts that this pickup group wasn’t ready for the public, they were dispelled at the sound of the players’ sharp, decisive articulations and unison string downbows in the Stravinsky — his 1945 version of the “Firebird” suite — or their unwavering precision in the encore, Ravel’s “Boléro,” which on Wednesday began so softly, its patient, extended crescendo had the feel of a traveling band entering the scene from afar then boisterously announcing itself.On the program were three ballet scores, and Currentzis treated them with fitting sensuality and freedom. His Stravinsky breathed fire while also luxuriating in the winding tendrils of a flame. Ravel’s second suite from “Daphnis et Chloé” blossomed organically from a wispy opening’s gentle enchantment to a densely textured tableau that, even then, refrained from giving away too much too soon. But when the climax came, it was so powerful that I felt the nudging vibration of my watch warning me that the sound had pushed past 90 decibels.Throughout, the Utopia players were visibly pleased, and united. During Ravel’s “La Valse,” Currentzis didn’t keep time so much as swing his arms broadly from right to left and back again, yet the orchestra maintained controlled instability in this affectionate but darkly ambiguous tribute to Johann Strauss II and his symphonic treatments of Vienna’s signature dance.Ravel nearly named the piece after that city, with the German-language working title of “Wien.” Currentzis’ interpretation was largely one of entropy, but it also had transporting, whirlwind glimpses of a joyous ballroom. Those moments were a painful reminder of his current relationship with Vienna, where Utopia is welcome but MusicAeterna is not.These days, that kind of bitter aftertaste accompanies all of Currentzis’ performances, both the good and the bad — certainly on Wednesday, and who knows for how long.UtopiaPerformed on Wednesday at the Laeiszhalle, Hamburg, Germany. More

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      Star Maestro With Russian Ties to Depart German Orchestra

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      Teodor Currentzis, who has faced scrutiny for his association with a Russian bank, will step down as chief conductor of the SWR Symphony Orchestra in 2025.The conductor Teodor Currentzis, who has been criticized since the start of the war in Ukraine because of his ties to a state-owned bank in Russia, will step down as chief conductor of a prominent German orchestra in 2025, the ensemble announced on Friday.Currentzis, who has led the ensemble, the SWR Symphony Orchestra in Stuttgart, since 2018, will leave his post when his contract expires at the end of the 2024-25 season, the orchestra said. He will be replaced by François-Xavier Roth, who leads the Gürzenich Orchestra in Cologne, Germany.The SWR Symphony Orchestra has faced pressure in recent months to cut ties with Currentzis because of his affiliation with VTB Bank, a Russian state-owned institution that has been sanctioned by the United States and other countries. VTB is the main sponsor of Currentzis’s longtime ensemble, MusicAeterna.In a statement to The New York Times, the SWR said Currentzis’s departure had been decided last year and had nothing to do with concerns about his Russia ties.“The announcement of today is not related to the discussion about the financing of MusicAeterna,” Matthias Claudi, a spokesman for SWR, said. He added that the orchestra hoped to continue to work with Currentzis after he steps down.A representative for Currentzis did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Currentzis, 50, is one of classical music’s most prominent conductors. Since the start of the war, his career has been complicated by questions about Russian support, with some presenters canceling or postponing engagements. He has been denounced for his silence on the war and criticized for working with associates of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, including some who sit on the board of MusicAeterna’s foundation. Putin awarded Currentzis, who was born in Greece, citizenship by presidential decree in 2014.Working to get beyond questions about his Russian benefactors, Currentzis announced in August that he would form a new international ensemble, called Utopia, with the support of donors outside Russia. The benefactors include a private foundation called Kunst und Kultur DM, which is affiliated with Dietrich Mateschitz, an Austrian businessman who is a founder of Red Bull. Beginning next month, Utopia will tour Europe, continuing through next year.Currentzis has continued to perform with MusicAeterna, which he founded in Siberia in 2004, often before sold-out crowds. More

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      The Classical Music Event of the Summer Is in Salzburg’s Shadow

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      With surprising concerts performed at the highest level, the Ouverture Spirituelle is part of the Salzburg Festival but outshines it.SALZBURG, Austria — Shostakovich’s “Babi Yar” Symphony, a celebration and condemnation of Russian life and cultural memory, was met at the Grosses Festspielhaus here on a recent evening with a standing ovation that lasted over five minutes.Preceded by a setting of the Kaddish and opening with an evergreen reproof of antisemitism, the symphony is the kind of music that welcomes reflection. But it was understandably difficult to keep quiet after a performance of a masterly art delivered with mastery.And that was only the first concert of the night.Such a lengthy, substantial evening is typical of the Ouverture Spirituelle — a Salzburg Festival series separate from the main slate, and originally designed to ease into it — which started with the “Babi Yar” on July 19 and continued through Thursday, often with at least two programs a day.Now in its 10th edition, the Ouverture Spirituelle is still in the shadow of the rest of the festival. Not all performances sell out; the audience is visibly less international; and the press coverage doesn’t come close to comparing with, say, the main-stage glamour of a starry new “Il Trittico” at the Grosses Festspielhaus last week.Videos by the artist Shirin Neshat, who is staging “Aida” at the festival, were screened at the Kollegienkirche.Marco BorrelliNight by night, though, the Ouverture Spirituelle is the superior event this year — it’s also the finest I’ve attended all summer. Each program holds some sort of surprise: unfamiliar repertoire, illuminating juxtapositions of music old and new, opportunities to hear works that are typically reserved for concert halls but shine in spaces like the airy Kollegienkirche, or Collegiate Church. Above all, its artists are as top-tier as those at the main festival. And some, like the pianist Igor Levit, appear at both but break new ground at the Ouverture Spirituelle.Alexander Pereira, a former artistic director of the festival, introduced the Ouverture Spirituelle in 2012, with the aim of focusing each edition on the music of one world religion. But that approach had exhausted itself by the time Markus Hinterhäuser took over as artistic director, presenting his first slate in 2017.“The idea from my predecessor was wonderful,” Hinterhäuser said in an interview. “But this is done. I cannot repeat that, and I don’t want to repeat that.”Instead, he and Florian Wiegand, the director of concerts, have organized the Ouverture Spirituelle around themes, like “Transfiguration,” “Pax” and, this year, “Sacrificium,” meant in both a sacred and secular sense. Intentionally broad, they allow for “the whole geography of music history to be used,” Hinterhäuser said.The pianist Igor Levit introduced new repertory in Paul Dessau’s “Guernica” and Hartmann’s “27. April 1945” sonata.Marco BorrelliCrucially, he and Wiegand have a direct hand in organizing the concerts, which is less the case with the main festival, in which touring artists and orchestras often come with their own traveling repertory. “Of course when you ask Jonas Kaufmann to do a recital,” Wiegand said, “he delivers the program.”But for the Ouverture Spirituelle, the process works in something like the reverse. Hinterhäuser and Wiegand spend a lot of time listening to music and discussing what could work with the theme. They have some goals, like pairing early and contemporary repertoire to essayistic effect, or giving the quasi-religious themes a political edge. Then they begin to match the programming with artists, sometimes calling them directly instead of going through managers.This results in concerts that artists — including this year’s guests, like the Tallis Scholars, the violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja and John Eliot Gardiner with his Monteverdi Choir — don’t perform anywhere else. “That is what a festival should be,” Wiegand said. “If it’s going to Lucerne or the Proms, why should people come to Salzburg?”Maxime Pascal led a one-night-only performance of Honegger’s enormous “Jeanne d’Arc au Bûcher,” featuring, at his left, the French actress Irène Jacob.Marco BorrelliTrue. As a critic, I’m less inclined to dip into other festivals when I see programs that have already taken place elsewhere or that will make their way to New York. The Ouverture Spirituelle, however, is densely packed with music that I haven’t even heard of, and that I’m not likely to come across again.That Shostakovich concert — played by the Mahler Youth Orchestra under the baton of Teodor Currentzis — was about as traditional as the Ouverture Spirituelle got this year, aside from Handel’s “Messiah,” which was led by Jordi Savall but with smaller, clearer forces than usual and at the less-than-400-seat Kollegienkirche.With its pride of place on the Ouverture Spirituelle’s opening night, the “Babi Yar” — nicknamed for its setting of a poem about remembering the massacre of over 30,000 Jews at the site in Ukraine — might have seemed a response to the war there, where Russian missiles struck the area around the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center in the early days of the invasion. But, in an eerily prescient move, it was programmed last year.Beyond that, the program was conducted by Currentzis, who with his ensemble MusicAeterna is under scrutiny for ties to the Russian state. (On Tuesday, he announced the formation of a new group, Utopia, with Western backing; tellingly, the news release referred to him as Greek instead of Greek-Russian, as he had been identifying himself, and made no mention of what this development means for the future of MusicAeterna.)At the “Babi Yar” concert, though, the audience’s focus seemed to be more on the performance itself, given the ecstatic response to the orchestra and Currentzis — not to mention members of the MusicAeterna Choir and the Bachchor Salzburg. The soloist, Dmitry Ulyanov, had a characterful, sonorous bass that was reason enough to forgive indulgences by Currentzis like having the instrumentalists stand at an emotional climax (a gesture that doesn’t trust the music), or interminably holding his arms up to keep the hall silent at the end of the symphony (a gesture that doesn’t trust the listeners).The evening took a more adventurous turn not long after at the Kollegienkirche, where members of Cantando Admont and Klangforum Wien presented two harrowing and hauntingly resonant works by Luigi Nono, one inspired by horrors in Poland during World War II (“Ricorda cosa ti hanno fatti in Auschwitz”), the other by oppressive Soviet rule (“Quando stanno morendo. Diario polacco n. 2”).Threading one concert to the other in the same night, or one piece to another within a single program, is part of the planning thrill. “It has to do with knowledge and intuition,” Hinterhäuser said. “There’s always this kind of balance, what Robert Musil would say is between the sense of possibility and reality.”The possibilities, with the Salzburg Festival’s cachet and budget of nearly 60 million euros ($61.5 million), are extensive. This year, it has meant bringing the Monteverdi Choir to the Kollegienkirche for the brief but exquisite Carissimi oratorio “Jephte”; a pickup ensemble including Kopatchinskaja for Giya Kancheli’s “Exil,” from the 1990s and now unimaginable in a space without that church’s acoustics; and, on that same program, the Tallis Scholars making a cameo appearance in 16th-century music by Orlande de Lassus.Jordi Savall led an intimate “Messiah” at the Kollegienkirche.Marco BorrelliIt has meant one-night-only performances of Josef Myslivecek’s “Abraham ed Isacco,” an oratorio with turns of phrase that prefigure Mozart, by Collegium 1704; Honegger’s “Jeanne d’Arc au Bûcher,” with a magnetic Irène Jacob as the heroine and a tireless Maxime Pascal on the podium; Levit in Paul Dessau’s tintinnabulary “Guernica” and Hartmann’s doleful, trudging “27. April 1945” sonata (just the first part of a concert that also included the Hagen Quartet in Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 8 and the MusicAeterna Choir in Shnittke’s Requiem for Soloists, Mixed Choir and Instruments).Some programs were mercifully given two performances, like the “Messiah,” sublimely intimate with agile soloists joined by Le Concert des Nations and La Capella Nacional de Catalunya. The visual artist Shirin Neshat, who is back in Salzburg to restage her “Aida” from 2017, screened four works — on a spectrum from subversive to shallow — at the Kollegienkirche, which attracted an audience not typically seen at concerts there. And, as part of the festival’s homage to the living composer Wolfgang Rihm, his 1979 chamber opera “Jakob Lenz” was given a welcome showing, with terrifying intensity and utter commitment from Le Balcon, under Pascal, and its phenomenal Lenz, the Austrian baritone Georg Nigl.If this sounds a bit overwhelming, it is. (Imagine being Hinterhäuser and Wiegand, who were spotted at every performance.) But for fans of classical music — especially the most curious among them — it doesn’t get much more fulfilling than the Ouverture Spirituelle.As it heads into its second decade, Wiegand said, the series can promise more of the same — at least through 2026. That’s when Hinterhäuser’s contract expires. “The plan until then is to continue with the themes,” Wiegand added. “Then, we see what comes next.” More

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      Under Pressure to Cut Russian Ties, Maestro Forms New Orchestra

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      Teodor Currentzis, who has been criticized for his association with a Russian bank, has enlisted European benefactors to finance his new group, Utopia.The conductor Teodor Currentzis, who has faced scrutiny since the start of the war in Ukraine because of his ties to a state-owned bank in Russia, announced on Monday that he would form a new international ensemble with the support of donors outside Russia.The ensemble, to be called Utopia, will bring together 112 musicians from 28 countries, many of them soloists and principal players in renowned orchestras, for a European tour that is to begin this fall and go through 2023, according to a statement. The group will rely on ticket sales as well as donations from European benefactors to finance its operations, the statement said.Currentzis, who has made a career of defying conventions in classical music, said he wanted the new group to shake up the traditional model of orchestras, in which musicians play together for years in the same concert halls. He said in a statement that the new group would “leave behind the framework of respectable institutions which, while being blessed can also be doomed to create what could be described as a certain standardized international sound.”“We are stepping into a more experimental field of searching for the perfect sound with masterful musicians who all crave it,” he added.The statement did not address Currentzis’s future with his longtime ensemble, MusicAeterna, which has drawn fire for its reliance on VTB Bank, a state-owned Russian institution that has been sanctioned by the United States and other countries but remains the ensemble’s main sponsor. Representatives for Currentzis and MusicAeterna did not respond to requests for comment on Monday.The statement did not offer details about Utopia’s European benefactors, except to say they included a private foundation called Kunst und Kultur DM.Currentzis has faced pressure in recent months to secure financing outside Russia for MusicAeterna, which he founded in Siberia in 2004. He has also been criticized for remaining silent on the war and working with associates of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, including some who sit on the board of MusicAeterna’s foundation. Several of the ensemble’s engagements have been canceled or postponed since the start of the war because of concerns about the ensemble’s benefactors.Still, MusicAeterna has pushed forward with engagements in Russia and abroad. In recent days, Currentzis, who was born in Athens but was awarded Russian citizenship by Putin in 2014, has led performances before sold-out crowds at the prestigious Salzburg Festival in Austria.Some of his artistic partners praised his decision on Monday to form Utopia.Matthias Naske, the artistic director of the Vienna Konzerthaus, who has said he would not engage MusicAeterna until it secured independent financing, called Utopia an important achievement. The new group will perform at the concert hall in October, during a tour that includes stops in Luxembourg and Germany.“I am grateful to Teodor Currentzis for his commitment and look forward to many encounters with his new project in the interest of cultural life in Vienna,” Naske said in a statement. More

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      Review: Salzburg Festival Opens With Operatic Apocalypses

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      Romeo Castellucci directs, and Teodor Currentzis conducts, an unusual double bill of a Bartok classic and an Orff rarity at the Salzburg Festival.SALZBURG, Austria — The public has spoken.Any fears the Salzburg Festival had over whether the conductor Teodor Currentzis’ presence there would attract boos or disruptive protests were dispelled on Tuesday. Since the invasion of Ukraine began, he has attracted controversy over his and his ensemble MusicAeterna’s Russian state support, as well as their silence on the war and ties to associates of that country’s president, Vladimir V. Putin. But at the opening of a new double bill led by Currentzis and featuring members of the MusicAeterna choir, the audience responded only with applause.Whether the evening — a pretentious, overlong yet occasionally illuminating marriage of Bela Bartok’s “Bluebeard’s Castle” and the Carl Orff rarity “De Temporum Fine Comoedia,” directed by Romeo Castellucci at the expansive Felsenreitschule — could have been divisive on artistic grounds is one thing. Politically, however, it was extremely complicated, worthy of neither cheers nor boos but rather more of a “hmm.”The festival itself was under scrutiny for standing by Currentzis. Unlike, say, the Metropolitan Opera in New York, which has taken a hard line on Russian artists with links to Putin, such as Valery Gergiev and Anna Netrebko, Salzburg has kept a close eye on the European Union’s sanctions list and said in a statement, “We see no foundation for artistic or economic collaboration with institutions or individuals who identify with this war, its instigators or their goals.”Do Currentzis and MusicAeterna fall into that category? Based in St. Petersburg, they are primarily sponsored by VTB Bank, a Russian state institution that was sanctioned this year, and some prominent Russian officials sit on the board of the ensemble’s foundation. As a collective, it doesn’t have any public stance on the war, though organizations and critics have mostly demanded one from the safety of their Western perches.At the very least, Currentzis seems to have fallen into careerist behavior. Since 2004, he has been building MusicAeterna toward the international standing it enjoys, and as the ensemble went freelance in recent years, it found Russian funding that has since been revealed as untenable. To survive in the West without scandal, it needs a new home, and new sponsors. And the longer this war goes on, the more silence will become as impossible as the group’s current position.Teodor Currentzis leading a rehearsal with the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra, the pit ensemble for the production.Alexandra MuravyevaIn an interview on Monday, Markus Hinterhäuser, the Salzburg Festival’s artistic director, said that if people are looking for a statement from Currentzis, “the signs are there.” His work has subtly condemned Russian state beliefs, as well as the country’s troubled 20th-century history; and in 2017 he was outspoken about the arrest of the director Kirill Serebrennikov, which was widely seen as punishment for his theater that was critical of life under Putin.The examples could go on in either direction. But outwardly, Currentzis remains a mystery. If his previous projects have offered signs of his beliefs, there were few if any political revelations in the double bill on Tuesday. All that was left to judge was the art-making itself.And that was something of a sequel to Currentzis’ collaboration with Castellucci last year: a staging of Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” here that stretched the score an hour beyond its typical running time, with recitative delivered at the speed of snow melting in the nearby Alps. I remember spending four hours inside the Grosses Festspielhaus trying to understand why an interpretation like this was necessary; I still don’t have an answer.Both men are strong-willed, provocative auteurs. Separately, they have been capable of awe-inspiring work; together, they seem to mutually enable an exasperating self-indulgence. Their Bartok and Orff, then, made for an uneven night, as double bills can be — a “Bluebeard” of misguided tempos and dynamics but committed performances and a “Comoedia,” for all the work’s flaws, more persuasively executed than on Herbert von Karajan’s original recording, in a staging characteristically monumental yet somewhat pompous.Once again, the evening was longer than it needed to be. Each score contains about an hour of music; with an intermission, the double bill ran a little over three and a half hours, in part because of tempo choices, but mostly because the scenes in the Orff were padded with new, atmospheric transitional passages written by Currentzis. This prolonged a piece that few find enjoyable to begin with, and that Castellucci didn’t have much to say about.Members of the MusicAeterna choir and the Bachchor Salzburg in Carl Orff’s “De Temporum Fine Comoedia.”Monika RittershausHis biggest interpretive statement was in bridging the two works, which wouldn’t appear to share much beyond different scales of apocalyptic events. In “Bluebeard,” it’s intimate — the slow-burning drama of a wife unveiling her new husband’s pained world, to the destruction of them both. And in the “Comeodia,” which premiered at Salzburg in 1973, it’s cosmic, with an impersonal, aggressively Christian vision for the end of time.Castellucci has the spoken prologue of “Bluebeard,” a cameo role called the Bard, given with a declamatory grandeur that later matches the musicalized speech of the “Comoedia.” (The Bard is also played by Christian Reiner, who returns at the end of the Orff as Lucifer.) And he threads the action of the first opera with the second: Bluebeard and his wife Judith, Castellucci suggests, are here an established couple in grief over the loss of their child, and in a dreamy, dark void of just water and fire. Peace comes for them at the end of the “Comoedia,” where they return in an act of redemption that renders Judith as a sort of Eve bringing about universal salvation.Elsewhere, visual motifs — masks, costumes and even stains — recur throughout both works, which are otherwise aesthetically distinct. The trouble is that these Easter eggs, along with the more explicit gestures, and stylized movement choreographed by Cindy Van Acker, exist more to justify the double bill than elevate the meaning, and, crucially, the emotional impact of either work. Both the Bartok and the Orff come out feeling less operatic for it.Ausrine Stundyte brought a compelling, fierce humanity to her Judith.Monika RittershausNot that emotion was absent from the performance. As Judith, the soprano Ausrine Stundyte made a bizarre treatment of the character — constantly on the verge of self-immolation — at least compelling, with a fierce humanity largely absent in the staging. (Her counterpart, the bass Mika Kares, was a resonant but wooden Bluebeard, a passive presence where he should have outdone her unraveling.) The Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra played with organic unpredictability yet skilled precision, and brought animalistic intensity to the Orff.Where they took a wrong step, they were following Currentzis’ baton, which was less reliable than when he and the orchestra performed a moving, sweeping account of Shostakovich’s “Babi Yar” Symphony during the festival’s Ouverture Spirituelle last week. His reading of “Bluebeard,” an opera of accumulative power, was one of luxuriant tempos and high emotional temperature with nowhere to go but occasional crests that drowned out the singers, despite the hair-raising power of Stundyte’s voice.Currentzis’ take on the Orff, though — realized by the orchestra with a game combination of the MusicAeterna choir, the Bachchor Salzburg and the Salzburger Festspiele und Theater Kinderchor — was a triumph that reveled in the primitive, ritualistic nature of the work and rose to rattling clashes that you could feel deep within your ears.In an evening of looking for signs in Currentzis’ work, it was difficult to miss that his podium sat empty during the final, prerecorded moments of the “Comoedia” score. So he was nowhere to be seen as a single sentence spread over supertitle screens above the stage: Pater, peccavi. Father, I have sinned.Bluebeard’s Castle and De Temporum Fine ComoediaThrough Aug. 20 at the Felsenreitschule, Salzburg, Austria; salzburgerfestspiele.at. More

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      Teodor Currentzis and MusicAeterna Face Scrutiny Over Russian Ties

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      Teodor Currentzis and the ensemble MusicAeterna have faced backlash in the West over their partnership with a state-owned bank in Russia.SALZBURG, Austria — Teodor Currentzis is revered as one of classical music’s most original voices, a rebellious conductor who can breathe fresh life into well-known works. In this European cultural capital, where artists, agents and impresarios gather each summer, he is omnipresent, his name emblazoned on banners and brochures. His fans travel from around the world to hear his performances.But this summer, it is not just his music that is the talk of the Salzburg Festival, one of classical music’s premier events. Currentzis — who is conducting a new double bill of Bartok’s “Bluebeard’s Castle” and Carl Orff’s “De Temporum Fine Comoedia” here beginning Tuesday — and his ensemble, MusicAeterna, are drawing attention for another reason: their ties to Russia.Amid the war in Ukraine, Currentzis and MusicAeterna have been assailed for their reliance on VTB Bank, a state-owned Russian institution that has been sanctioned by the United States and other countries but remains the ensemble’s main sponsor. Currentzis and the ensemble have been denounced for their silence on the war and criticized for working with associates of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, including some who sit on the board of MusicAeterna’s foundation.This scrutiny has complicated the career of Currentzis, one of the industry’s most in-demand stars. And it has rattled the 102-year-old Salzburg Festival, whose leaders have stood by MusicAeterna even as it has been shunned by other cultural groups.“It’s not that I’m a coward; it’s so sensitive,” Markus Hinterhäuser, the festival’s artistic director, said in an interview. “We are not for Putin. There is absolutely nothing to discuss about that.”Currentzis and his musicians are now at the center of a debate about how cultural groups should handle artists linked to Russian institutions. Many have cut ties with close associates of Putin, such as the conductor Valery Gergiev, a longtime friend and prominent supporter of the Russian president, who was once a fixture at the Salzburg Festival.Currentzis, center, with the MusicAeterna choir and the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra.Marco BorrelliiOther Western institutions, however, have been criticized for overreach after they canceled performances by Russian artists not associated with Putin, and even with some who had spoken out against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.The Bartok-Orff double bill features the MusicAeterna choir. And its appearance, with Currentzis in the pit, has already drawn protests from politicians, artists and activists, who say the festival should not provide a forum to MusicAeterna during wartime.“He belongs to the system of Putin,” Vasyl Khymynets, the Ukrainian ambassador to Austria, said in an interview. “He hasn’t criticized this brutal war, yet he has the chance to be presented on one of the most famous stages in Europe and probably in the world.”Our Coverage of the Russia-Ukraine WarGrain Blockade: A breakthrough deal aims to lift a Russian blockade on Ukrainian grain shipments, easing a global food crisis. But in the fields of Ukraine, farmers are skeptical.An Ambitious Counterattack: Ukraine has been laying the groundwork to retake Kherson from Russia. But the endeavor would require huge resources, and could come at a heavy toll.Economic Havoc: As food, energy and commodity prices continue to climb around the world, few countries are feeling the bite as much as Ukraine.Inside a Siege: For 80 days, at the Avtostal steelworks, a relentless Russian assault met unyielding Ukrainian resistance. This is how it was for those who were there.The esteemed pianist Evgeny Kissin, a frequent performer in Salzburg, said that while he would not object if Currentzis appeared with a Western orchestra, MusicAeterna’s ties to the Russian government were problematic.“In the current situation, groups funded by the Russian state should not be allowed to perform in the civilized world,” said Kissin, who was born in Moscow and is now based in Prague, citing Russia’s “criminal war in Ukraine.”Currentzis, through his representatives, declined to comment.Since founding MusicAeterna in Siberia in 2004, Currentzis has sought to defy labels. He is known as an uncompromising classical musician but has also earned a reputation as a punk, a goth and an anarchist. Born in Athens, he went to Russia in his 20s to study music and now carries a Russian passport. (Putin awarded him citizenship by presidential decree in 2014, the Russia news media reported.)Currentzis began his career as an outsider trying to build artistic centers away from the traditional bases of Moscow and St. Petersburg, including at the Novosibirsk State Opera in Siberia and in the industrial city of Perm. He stood up to the Russian authorities, including in 2017, when his friend and collaborator Kirill Serebrennikov, one of Russia’s most prominent theater directors, was detained in Moscow, a move seen as retribution for his critical portrayals of life under Putin.More recently, Currentzis has worked to win the support of the establishment, finding a partner in VTB Bank, which since 2016 has helped finance MusicAeterna’s concerts and recording projects. With that bank’s support, Currentzis opened a base for the ensemble in St. Petersburg in 2019.The invasion of Ukraine, on Feb. 24, coincided with his 50th birthday. That same day, he led a birthday concert with MusicAeterna in St. Petersburg, where he conducted Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. He performed the same piece again two days later in Moscow before an audience of more than 1,500 people, according to Russian news reports.Soon after, the ensemble began to face questions about its benefactors, and a performance at the Philharmonie de Paris was canceled while one at the Bavarian State Opera was postponed to 2024. In Vienna, a planned benefit concert in April in support of Ukraine was canceled after activists and officials — including Khymynets, the ambassador — objected to the idea of featuring Russian artists at an event for Ukraine.Some presenters were concerned about hosting an ensemble with ties to several prominent Russian officials, including Andrey Kostin, the chairman of VTB Bank; Alexander Beglov, the governor of St. Petersburg; and Elvira Nabiullina, the governor of Russia’s central bank. They all sit on the board of the MusicAeterna Cultural Initiatives Support Fund.Currentzis after a performance in Perm, Russia, in 2019. James Hill for The New York TimesOthers were sympathetic to Currentzis and his musicians, believing that if they expressed opinions on the war they could face punishment in Russia. As criticism of the group has intensified, they have faced pressure to speak out against the invasion, and to secure financing outside Russia.In March, SWR Symphony Orchestra in Germany, where Currentzis is the chief conductor, issued a statement calling for peace, though it did not criticize the Russian government or Putin. “Teodor Currentzis and the members of the SWR Symphony Orchestra unequivocally support the common appeal for peace and reconciliation,” the statement said.Louwrens Langevoort is the artistic and managing director of the Cologne Philharmonic. In an interview, he recalled that Currentzis, while smoking a cigarette in his dressing room after an appearance with the SWR Symphony there in late March, said he longed for an “ideal world” in which he could work in both Russia and the West.“He was really aware that something has to be done,” Langevoort said. “Pressure came from all sides and he — for reasons of safety for all parties living in Russia — would not make any declaration.”Even some of Currentzis’s staunchest supporters are pushing the ensemble to find new backers. Among them are Matthias Naske, the artistic director of the Vienna Konzerthaus, who said in an interview that his hall would not engage MusicAeterna until “completely independent financing of the orchestra is secured.” Currentzis will still be allowed to perform there, he added.“Teodor Currentzis is an exceptional artist who uses the power of music to stand up for humanistic values,” he said. “He feels responsible and sticks to his ensembles in Russia that he has built up there. It is wrong to punish him for not abandoning his musicians.”In Salzburg, leaders of the festival have sought to counter accusations that they are endorsing Russia’s cultural aims. The opening ceremony of the festival on Tuesday included a work by Valentin Silvestrov, Ukraine’s best known living composer. A keynote speech, by the Bulgarian-German writer Ilija Trojanow, was titled “The Tone of War, the Keys of Peace.”Hinterhäuser said he did not want to force MusicAeterna’s artists to speak out against the war.“They are not soldiers; they are not responsible for what’s happening,” he said. “It’s not a collective guilt.”The festival’s other ties to Russia have also come under scrutiny. One of the sponsors of the production of the double bill is GES-2 House of Culture, which is affiliated with the Russian oligarch Leonid Mikhelson. He was sanctioned by the United Kingdom and Canada — though, crucially for Salzburg, not in the European Union — after the invasion.Currentzis, who made his debut in Salzburg in 2017 with Mozart’s Requiem and “La Clemenza di Tito,” has tried to shift the focus back to his art. Last week at the festival, he led a performance of Shostakovich’s “Babi Yar” Symphony, featuring members of the MusicAeterna choir and the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra.Alexander Meraviglia-Crivelli, the artistic and executive director of that orchestra, said he had asked his players after the invasion whether they wanted to go forward with the concert. Nearly all wanted to play, he recalled, though a Ukrainian musician expressed concerns about appearing alongside Russian artists.“We strongly believe that in the arts and education, exclusion and cancellation are the wrong thing,” he said.Currentzis’s defenders have pointed to his performance of the Shostakovich symphony, which was written to remember the 1941 massacre of Jews near Kyiv by Nazis, as a statement of his views on the current war. But the performance was planned long before, and Currentzis made no remarks at the concert.At the end of the final movement, he held the hall in prolonged silence. Then he smiled as the audience erupted into a standing ovation that lasted for more than seven minutes.Joshua Barone contributed reporting from Salzburg, Austria, and Milana Mazaeva from New York. More

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      Ukraine Benefit Featuring Russian Ensemble Is Canceled in Vienna

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      A planned benefit concert in support of Ukraine was canceled in Vienna on Monday amid concerns about the Russian-based ensemble it was to feature, MusicAeterna, which is led by the conductor Teodor Currentzis and is supported by a state-owned bank in Russia.The concert, organized by the Konzerthaus in Vienna, one of Austria’s premier halls, was to take place on Tuesday and feature MusicAeterna, which is based in St. Petersburg and is financed in part by VTB Bank, one of Russia’s largest financial institutions. The United States and other western countries have recently imposed sanctions on the bank because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.The Vienna Konzerthaus said it canceled the concert after the Ukrainian ambassador to Austria, Vasyl Khymynets, expressed concern about featuring Russian artists at an event meant to benefit Ukraine. The ensemble’s founder, Mr. Currentzis, who was born in Athens, is a charismatic conductor who has built a large following in Russia and abroad.“The Vienna Konzerthaus cannot ignore the political dimension of the performance of a St. Petersburg-based orchestra at a time of immense suffering caused by the Russian Federation’s war of aggression against Ukraine,” Matthias Naske, the hall’s chief executive and artistic director, said in a statement. “We understand and share the despair over the war crimes in Ukraine and condemn this aggression without reservation.”The Konzerthaus said that it would suspend ticket sales for future appearances by MusicAeterna until the group secured an independent source of financing. But it also said it would allow MusicAeterna to perform a separate concert planned for Monday night. (The ensemble already performed at the hall on Sunday.)Mr. Khymynets and the Ukrainian foreign ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment.The cancellation of the benefit concert comes as tensions between Russia and the west continue to reverberate in the performing arts. Several high-profile Russian artists have lost global engagements in recent weeks because of their ties to the government of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.MusicAeterna, renowned for its intense, electric performances, has come under scrutiny for its connections to VTB Bank, which has helped finance some of its tours and recording projects. Mr. Currentzis called for peace in Ukraine in a statement issued last month by the SWR Symphony Orchestra in Germany, where he is chief conductor, though he has not directly criticized the Russian government or Mr. Putin.“Teodor Currentzis and the members of the SWR Symphony Orchestra unequivocally support the common appeal for peace and reconciliation,” the statement said. The orchestra has said it was aware of MusicAeterna’s association with VTB Bank, but it has continued to defend Mr. Currentzis. “From today’s perspective, this is certainly problematic, but it has existed for a longer period of time,” the statement said, referring to the bank’s support for MusicAeterna.The benefit concert in Vienna was to feature works by Mozart, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich and others.MusicAeterna is set to perform in Germany, Austria and France in the coming weeks. Mr. Currentzis is scheduled to lead the ensemble in a production of Bartok’s “Bluebeard’s Castle” at the Salzburg Festival this summer, paired with “De temporum fine comoedia” by the German composer Carl Orff. The Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, Germany, another major concert hall, said on Monday it had no plans to cancel a series of engagements this week by MusicAeterna. More