It was a blessedly quiet day today, a welcome pause before the excitement of the last performance of the season tomorrow and then a hard week of travelling. I will leave for 5 days in London on Thursday evening.
That said we are scrambling to get the late contributions in from our generous donors. We really need the money before we complete the season it is paying for. However alas it really never quite works out that way. So all arts organisations have these end of fiscal year appeals to make up the shortfall.
We have managed our expenditure extremely well this year. But that is not so difficult to do since we control that completely. The problem in these difficult times is income, be it earned at the box office or contributed by our benefactors. There is only so much we can do about that - the wider economic environment is having a negative impact on and making life extremely difficult for the majority of arts organisations in this country.
And we observe the same in Europe, notably in Germany where it seems that five full time orchestras are threatened with closure. It is indeed very tough.
I received an email yesterday from one of my colleagues in Germany, Christoph Meyer who is Intendant of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein Düsseldorf/Duisburg. He is generous host also to our Neue Stimmen auditions in Düsseldorf, and his Duisburg orchestra has been playing for the Neue Stimmen finals in recent years.
A campaign is being organised to save opera and ballet in Duisburg whose theater is pictured here. Click this link and read all about it. All who value the place of the arts in the life of a civilised community must be extremely concerned.
It has been a damp and quite warm May Day. It is not a holiday here in the US as it is in many European countries, though not in the UK. Given its modern associations this is not altogether surprising!
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