Just as the classical music world was struggling back to its feet after a devastating spring and summer, the news of a second lockdown has dealt a hammer blow to organisers and artists alike, who could easily have thrown in the towel, abandoning the fight in this unspeakably harsh year. But let’s not be too quick to declare a knock-out: live performance has shown an extraordinary ability to respond to repeated blows dealt by fate.
Let’s consider some notable accomplishments of recent months in France. Singers have joined forces and created a new association (UNiSSON), bringing to reality a first benefit concert whose takings will go to those singers in the most precarious economic situation. Composers have set aside their long-standing aesthetic quarrels to join under the banner of new union (the SMC). New media have been brought to life to stimulate and give visibility to new music (Artchipel TV and its excellent programme A contrario). Classique sur canapé and RecitHall are examples of independent paid-for web streaming platforms which have appeared to keep concerts going remotely. A festival which was cancelled in the spring lockdown, redirected its energies to the creation of a database entitled Demandez à Clara (“ask Clara”) which is richly populated with thousands of works by women composers. Whole festivals were created out of nothing (Rosa Bonheur, Pulsations, Les Concerts au Potager du Roi). To cap it all, there’s even been the appearance, in the very heart of Paris, of a brand new concert hall dedicated to young artists: La Piccola Scala, in the basement of La Scala Paris, just in time to present its first concert before second lockdown struck.
For sure, even in the most dire circumstances, it is not in the nature of these indomitable artistic Gauls to allow themselves to be trodden down. The 2020 Così fan tutte at the Capitole de Toulouse will be remembered for a long time: faced with contact cases that consigned orchestral players to self-isolation (first the whole orchestra, subsequently just the wind players), conductor Speranza Scappucci went through umpteen rewrites and transcriptions, so that Mozart’s opera reached the orchestra pit in several unpublished editions. And this highly imaginative salvage operation isn’t the only example: in Finland, the same Mozart opera found itself transformed into an original and spiritual Covid fan tutte, as a replacement for a Walküre that could not be staged.
There’s a whole assembly of personnel who deserve praise, going far beyond the artists whose exploits and misadventures are regularly chronicled on these pages. The first lockdown brought to the light of day the indispensable talents of sound engineers, who demonstrated genuine prowess during the time when the fashion was for orchestral “puzzle videos” assembled from musicians playing on their own. When musicians were able to come together once more, issues of social distancing shone the spotlight on ticketing services, forced to operate outside the shelter of their software, and the ingenuity of stage managers, compelled to deal with the appalling headache of orchestral layouts in compliance with new regulations and new tools such as plexiglass screens. When the 9pm curfew was imposed, the whole production chain for concerts demonstrated the flexibility of a contortionist: directors, community managers, production managers, broadcasters and other press attachés: all the “caring professions” for a sickly culture strained their every muscle to avoid cancellations, keep as many events as possible and inform both audiences and journalists in record time. Thank you and bravo to all these miracle-makers – many of whom are living in a state of extreme precarity as to their professional futures.