Thursday, June 16, 2016

Thuringian Theater Reform: Engaged in Erfurt – Tagesspiegel

Italy and Thuringia do not have much in common. One thing one both: History has it considered overabundant with a cultural heritage to maintain that they are actually not able to afford. 173 castles there are in Thuringia, to around 300 manors. Because it was common there during noble family Ernestiner to divide their possessions respectively among male heir, emerged more and more residences – and of course any princeling established its own cultural infrastructure in order to adequately represent can

Although since. turning several merger waves are passed over the state, there are in Thuringia still nine government-funded multi-line theater and three pure concert orchestra. And with a population of just 2.2 million, with a downward trend. Judging by its general budget is Thüringen in the nationwide comparison of per-capita spending on culture with 136.58 euros in third place. Only Berlin and Saxony spend more

With “reform” the politicians my mostly:. Savings Program

In addition, since the expiry of the solidarity pact in 2020 is already being factored in all medium-term financial planning of the eastern states , a foreboding sigh went through the cultural scene, as Benjamin-Immanuel Hoff, Minister of Culture in the files kept by the left Bodo Ramelow red-red-green coalition in Erfurt, announced a structural reform of the stage and orchestra Thuringian countryside.

Behind the euphemistic term structural reform usually hides in the political language that is a savings program. In Mecklenburg-Vorpommern was last so where the competent minister could cobble together by a consulting firm, a paper which made the already on financial limit active institutions completely incapacitated. In Saxony-Anhalt the policy acted more brutal and explained further ado, the subsidies per theater chair, with the Magdeburg manages future also apply to the locations Halle and Dessau -. Without considering the context in which these houses work

born in Berlin in 1976 Hoff, who had worked from 2006 to 2011 as Secretary of State in the Berlin health and environmental management and then passed a strategy consulting firm, wanted to do things differently. With the verve of the lateral hire and the class consciousness of a Left politician he made to the hard slog, led hundreds of discussions with stakeholders, the director as local carriers of the theater, the orchestra board members and trade unionists, even with the concerned citizens of the support associations the institutions.

Minister Hoff has hundreds of calls out

so he went to the theater Nordhausen, which is allied with the LOH-Orchester Sondershausen, he attended the double stage Rudolstadt / Saalfeld and the orchestra in Greiz, thanks to a single, country-wide mixed financing also the Saxon Reichenbach mitbespielt. He pulled himself to the pearl necklace of mittelthüringischen cities of Eisenach via Gotha, Erfurt, Weimar and Jena up to the single 1995 from a merger between Altenburg and Gera emerged five divisional home country. And in Meiningen, the 21,000-inhabitant town, whose stage has been famous since the glory days of the theater duke Georg II., Hoff was.

Throughout the long history of the institutions it was under his nose grated. In the year 1491, the Weimar Staatskapelle dated their foundation, since 1635 there Rudolstädter court orchestra – and so on and so forth. With rational arguments, even with business management cost-benefit analysis, you will not get far in a proud region that once Thomas Mann as “described ventricle of the German cultural nation.



The Art Nouveau theater in Gera Photo: Stephan Walzl / TTP

on Wednesday now presented Benjamin-Immanuel Hoff, the result of his marathon negotiations before – and lo and behold, apart from a merger of the anyway already shrunk to 24 points Landeskapelle Eisenach with the orchestra in Gotha 40 kilometers away can all locations reassured look to the future , And with funding agreements that promise predictability over five years, in some cases even to 2024. The country continues its share of funding of the stages and orchestras from the current 66.6 million euros up to 2012 high at almost 77 million euros. And additionally provides for investments in the infrastructure of the platforms as well as for artistic projects by 2025 more 21.93 million euros.

What Hoff demanded in return from the theater, is only enhanced cooperation. To show solidarity, help each other, is the maxim of the left. The also Weimar and Erfurt to connect the previously rather cultivated their enmity to grotesquely Stammtisch exemplary manner. The ballet from Gera to be more present in the state capital, cooperate Philharmonic from Jena for large ensembles, operas with Altenburg-Gera.



Two dreams were Hoff not satisfied

Only his two dreams could not realizing the Minister. The dissolution of the house-collective agreements which abfordern the theater employees currently up to 30 percent wage cuts, failed – because the often economizing in budget emergency municipalities a return to Flächentarifvertrag currently can not afford. And Hoffs second objective can not initially prevail. That in fact all counties that are adjacent to a city with theater and thus benefit from the local cultural activities, also participate in its funding

“The theater beings is a business that wants to be treated with excellent greatness; precisely because it is almost out of sheer small issues “, a man said, of Italy as Thuringia was equally devoted, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe namely:” Those pettiness, entanglements and matting to eliminate and durchzuhauen, certainly is an unpleasant business. However, it is not ungrateful, because last springs is good and right by itself. “

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