Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0026/00262.txt

Text File | 1991-06-24 | 32KB | 512 lines

$Unique_ID{COW00262}
$Pretitle{376}
$Title{Austria
Austria As A Cultural Nation}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Federal Press Service}
$Affiliation{Embassy of Austria, Washington DC}
$Subject{festival
vienna
austrian
cultural
austria
building
der
years
opera
state}
$Date{1989}
$Log{}
Country:     Austria
Book:        Austria Culture and Society 1945-1955-2000
Author:      Federal Press Service
Affiliation: Embassy of Austria, Washington DC
Date:        1989

Austria As A Cultural Nation

     "I believe in Austria ... because culture naturally and unobtrusively
permeates and transforms all aspects of our life. That is why it is held in
such high esteem. Art and culture in Austria belong both to our past and to
our present ..."

     (Chancellor Franz Vranitzky in response to the question "Why I believe in
Austria", 1988.)

Greatness Past And Present

     If Austrian culture is known and loved throughout the world, it owes this
popularity to the combination of an illustrious past and a dynamic present-day
cultural scene, reverence for tradition and openness towards the
unconventional. In previous eras of its history Austria had been a major power
in the cultural world. During the Second Republic it has retained and enhanced
this status. Viennese politician and writer Jorg Mauthe observed in 1985 that
as the end of the current century approaches Vienna is once again witnessing
the onset of a cultural heyday: a large generation is coming to the fore with
an exceptional receptiveness for culture. Hugo von Hofmannsthal (1874-1929)
remarked: "The idea of Austria is inextricably bound up with the culture of
Austria" - a view which has lost nothing of its relevance in the intervening
decades.

     The immediate postwar era saw an extraordinary flourishing of the arts in
Austria. Vienna's cabarets experienced a heyday in the years after 1945 which
has since become legendary; and there was a huge demand for literature after
the wartime dearth of reading matter. As the Austrian economy began to pick up
in the early fifties, however, the country's intellectual needs tended to be
somewhat overlooked. With the onset of general prosperity and the widespread
belief in technical progress and man's unlimited powers, it looked at one
stage as though cultural creativity was about to be consigned to oblivion.

     On March 25th 1954 3,000 representatives of Austria's cultural life
marched round Vienna's "Ring" in a protest rally demanding higher state
funding for the arts. The demonstration brought the desired results: the 1955
budget earmarked an additional 150 million schillings for cultural
purposes - enough to satisfy most of the demonstrators' demands.

1955: Reopening Of The State Opera And The Burgtheater

     The mid-fifties witnessed two landmark events in the Second Republic's
cultural history: the reopening of the State Opera and the Burgtheater, both
of which had been destroyed in the last weeks of the war.

     The festivities which surrounded the rededication of the State Opera were
apostrophized as "the Austrian Coronation". The ensemble had been obliged to
perform in the historic Theater an der Wien until just over ten years after
the end of the war, on November 5th 1955, the day of the reopening finally
came. The festive programme began in the morning with a formal state ceremony.
Thousands of people thronged the streets around the opera house to witness the
historic occasion as onlookers. Karl Bohm, who had been appointed Director of
the State Opera, began his inaugural address with a quotation from Beethoven's
"Fidelio": "O God, what a moment!", aptly echoing what was in everyone's mind.
An invited audience from far and wide attended the evening gala performance of
"Fidelio" conducted by Karl Bohm. From the opening bars it was apparent that
the new building possessed exceptionally fine acoustics.

     It was only weeks before the end of the war, on March 12th 1945, that a
direct hit during an air raid and an ensuing fire had ravaged the original
opera house. Inaugurated on May 25th 1869, it had established itself as a
centre not only of Vienna's and Austria's but of Europe's musical life. The
last performance given at the old Vienna State Opera before the theatre doors
were closed throughout the Third Reich had taken place on June 30th 1944. By a
quirk of coincidence in which one might be tempted to perceive a sombre
significance, the work performed on that evening was Richard Wagner's
"Gotterdammerung". As Education Minister Herbert Moritz was to write in
1985, the destruction of the State Opera caused "many an Austrian as grievous
a sense of loss as if his own house had burnt down". By 1953 about half of the
reconstruction work had been completed, but the provision of additional funds
meant that, despite the adverse conditions prevailing at the time (Austria was
still occupied), the building was finished by 1955 and its reconstruction had
taken only two years longer than the construction of the original building in
the years 1861-1869.

     The Burgtheater, another of the grandiose structures that line the
"Ring", had also been destroyed in the latter stages of the war - in April
1945. The building itself had been burnt to the ground, but the spirit of the
Burgtheater lived on. Only three days after Karl Renner had formed his
Provisional Government the Burgtheater ensemble was performing in the Ronacher
in Vienna's Seilerstatte. During the first postwar decade the company set
itself two major artistic goals. The first was to make up for the absence of
American, British and French drama from the repertoire during the war
years - in the period 1938-1945 Vienna's theatrical life had been hermetically
cut off from the rest of the world. The second goal was to restore Austria's
true standing on the cultural map by undertaking foreign tours.

     The official opening of the rebuilt Burgtheater took place on October
16th 1955, with a gala performance of Franz Grillparzer's play "Konig
Ottokars Gluck und Ende". Burgtheater Director Adolf Rott delivered an
address during the inaugural cere-"Television: a Threat to the Press?". The
one-hour transmission ended with what was termed "A film promoting
international understanding, with Viennese atmosphere". One of the most
spectacular television broadcasts of the next few years followed that autumn
with the reopening of the State Opera.

     Regular television programmes began on January 1st 1957 - albeit on only
six evenings a week. In those days only very few people had their own
television set. Most watched these early transmissions in cafes or
restaurants. Nowadays the ranks of home television viewers have swollen to
2,743,000 (1988 figure).

Literature And Drama

     The diminutive state which emerged as Austria after the collapse of the
Habsburg Monarchy was thought by many to be incapable of surviving. If the
Austrian people have since acquired a new found sense of identity, they owe
this in great measure to such writers as Joseph Roth and Franz Theodor Csokor,
both of whom were born in the last century. As one Viennese politician
involved in cultural affairs put in 1988, "The creative artists of that era
were prophets of a new Austrian identity ..." Many of the authors who had been
active in the years between the wars went on writing after 1945, their work
significantly enriched, while some rose to prominence only in the postwar
period. They constitute just as much a part of contemporary Austrian
literature as the host of younger talents who have left their mark on the
German-language literary scene in recent years. Austria has contributed not
only very distinguished writers but also several landmark innovations. It was
H. C. Artmann who inspired the revival of vernacular poetry; the "Vienna
Group" lent vital impulses to the literary avant-garde; and Austrian authors
slowly but surely paved the way for the movement which now goes under the
heading "New Introspection". Peter Handke and Thomas Bernhard effected a
spectacular volteface away from the pol