The performing arts suffered a sharp decline in 2020 due to quarantine effect. Its incidence in the GDP of rich countries, such as the United States, fell more than one point. And on the return in 2021, there was a devaluation in tickets that exceeded 73% of those of 2019. At the same time, the opening of new theatrical spaces fell by 24.3%, and only state intervention saved the existing bankruptcy and closing.
There was a parallel cut of almost 40% of jobs in the world’s great theater squares, but the return in 2021 allowed an important rebound. However, when unemployment in the category is compared, it went from 7.2% in 2019 to 10.3% in 2021.
In this context, it is not surprising that a good part of the theaters and producers have privileged in the returns of the last semester, a traditionalist programming, betting on classics and consecrated figures.
“The performing arts, more than any other activity, and the opera houses even more so, because of the crowds they move, were the hardest hit by the closures. Later, text theaters started long before around the world, and opera houses only at the end of last year. In that sense, the decision to make a season with classics in 2022 has been very successful. It is not a conservative season, as many accuse, but a very responsible season. We still don’t know what the year will be like. Fortunately people are coming back. The plan was an indulgent meal. We are in Argentina, let’s have a great barbecue, then we will do the new”, agrees Jorge Telermannew director of the Teatro Colón.
“The 2022 season is ready, and we will accompany it with a lot of passion and enthusiasm, and we will respect it to the letter. But as far as possible, the imprint that this administration must have will be seen, ”adds the former Head of Government of Buenos Aires between 2006 and 2007.
NEWS: How do you imagine your management?
Jorge Telerman: I aspire to a more contemporary look, I already told. That the 20th century is present; that we can commission opera or Argentine sheet music; that other artists are promoted and that each era is present. I aspire to be one of those layers of the Columbus that future directions can look at, as I look at those who preceded me. And that it serves to bring new audiences closer, with things that happen in other theaters as well.
NEWS: Does the look on the Colón change?
Telerman: In the public institution there is an apothegm that one cannot give oneself personal tastes. And at the very least, he has to leave the institution a little better than he received it. The higher the bar is set, the higher the challenge. And in Colón the bar is always high.
NEWS: How much does tradition weigh in a theater like the Colón?
Telerman: There is history in each of the tiles. Unlike other institutions it has so many glorious layers. And that allows you to quickly dissolve any vanity of your own. The best I can do is honor those layers, and bring them into the contemporary, rescuing the best moments of many of my predecessors. The moment of (Enzo) Valenti Ferro, of (Sergio) Renán, and the best moments in the history of a country. The Colón travels not only the history of Argentine modernity, but also its best dreams.
NEWS: Give the Colón back its place as a cultural beacon?
Teleman: Caring for excellence is caring for the ability of the Colón to update itself, to continue talking with society. This theater has something that very few other places have: it is an inspiring icon. And it has to be more and more. It has to be that inspiring place, even for those who don’t come often to the Colon.
NEWS: An aspirational…
Teleman: Sure. For a society like ours, with the problems it has, with a lack of expectations, with that feeling that so many people have, that this is no longer enough. That we are doomed to failure as before we deludedly thought that we were doomed to success. The Colón was thought of in 1908 as an absurd aspiration, if we read the chronicles of those years. And mutatis mutandis, that discussion continues today. It was not an emergency at the time as it is not now. But it is wonderful to have a Columbus as it is also to have a Saint Martin. pushes us to dream higher.
NEWS: Where do those dreams go?
Telerman: Management Good management is not the one with the best ideas, but the one with the ability to adjust to circumstances to carry out its vision. You can make programming of excellence by hiring great casts from abroad, but that firework does not necessarily improve the quality of a theater. We all prefer to live in a more prosperous country, but let’s take advantage of this moment to see how we promote Argentine art.
NEWS: Is the economic crisis taking us into a cultural pothole?
Telerman: That gap between one generation and another is beginning to be seen. When we talk about young people, I am boys and girls in their forties. And there is a great challenge to see how we renew these artists, and how we bet from the Colón to pass the sieveso that new values arise between actors, dancers and conductors.
NEWS: Will there be less foreign talent then?
Telerman: If I don’t have many dollars I will look for others that are cheaper, and I will convince others to come like I did in 2002. Then I had a terminal crisis in the country, and I had to talk to (Daniel) Barenboim so that he would come, and tell him not only do we want you to come, we need you to come, the country needs you to come as a strengthening of our identity, of a country that is broken. The function that he did here with Beethoven’s Integral will be remembered for decades, and I am embarrassed to say for what negligible remuneration he did it. The budget is never the limitation for the excellence of the Colón. And look for things of excellence from abroad to bring here, it has to be not only for the enjoyment of the public. Also for the enrichment of the casts themselves. It is one thing to know what is happening in the world on screens, thanks to globalization, and another thing is to experience it.
NEWS: In the opposite direction, is there a dream of exporting the Colón?
Telerman: We did it in the past with the concert at Luna Park which was a sellout. Yesterday I had a conversation with some of the most important venues in the city to repeat those experiences, that the Colón go to other places to make it more massivein the city of Buenos Aires, but also throughout Argentina.
NEWS: A more blockbuster Colón?
Telerman: Cut tickets are just one measure of success. When I think of new audiences, I mean loyalty. If you do futsal in the Louvre, the futsal public will come, but not a new public to the museum. I mean expressions like Flemming Rasmussen’s crossover with Metallica, or Elvis Costello with the London Symphony, there are expressions of popular music with a classical perspective that can only be found at the Colón. I did a symphonic (Gustavo) Cerati as Secretary of Culture. Great popular musicians in chamber format… they are obviously not my invention. But you don’t see that anywhere else in Argentina. The Fito Páez thing last year, the Fito thing with Gerardo Gandini fifteen years ago. A Gandini to whom we will surely be paying tribute next year, ten years after his death.
NEWS: Is it also part of the experimentation?
Telerman: The Colón has to be open to experimentation, not only at the CETC (the Center for Experimentation of the Colon Theater), which I hope will have a great invigoration anyway. We are already beginning to think about next year, a season where the traditional is surely present, but in dialogue and tension with the twentieth century, and hopefully with the twenty-first as well. Have one that we all know, those arias that sound and you can sing them, but also what challenges us.
You may also like
Image gallery
