Thuringia wants to reduce music offerings
The cultural restructuring of the new federal states in Germany does not yet appear to be complete: Thuringia wants to give up the opera division in Weimar and merge orchestras or even dissolve them completely. The German Orchestra Association (DOV) is outraged.
The DOV is threatening "massive resistance to the Thuringian State Chancellery's plans to cut orchestras and theaters in the Free State of Thuringia, which have become public". According to media reports, the German National Theatre in Weimar is to give up its opera division, the state orchestra in Eisenach is to be dissolved and the Thuringia Philharmonic Orchestra in Gotha is to be merged with the orchestra in Erfurt and downsized, writes the association in a press release.
The current downsizing and merger plans of Minister Benjamin-Immanuel Hoff are unacceptable, explains DOV Managing Director Gerald Mertens. The way in which Thuringian artists and their associations are being treated is unworthy.
According to the DOV, it had offered the Thuringian State Chancellery a dialog on the situation and future of orchestras and theaters. Now, as a professional association, it is being presented with a fait accompli. According to the DOV, in the past 25 years, more than 400 of the 1,000 musician positions in Thuringia have already been cut.
Located to the north of Bavaria, Thuringia is one of the smaller federal states in Germany and was formerly part of the GDR. It includes culturally rich cities such as Erfurt, Jena, Weimar, Gotha, Eisenach, Rudolstadt and Meiningen.
