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Orchestra performs open-air Requiem in protest against cuts

PR dla Zagranicy
Nick Hodge 30.05.2012 14:50
The Warsaw Chamber Opera staged an open-air performance of Mozart’s Requiem in front the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage on Tuesday, as cuts threatened to cripple the institution.

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The Warsaw Chamber Opera protests outside the Ministry of Culture: photo - PAP/Andrzej Hrechorowicz

The concert, which was given by the 70-strong orchestra, 60 members of the company’s choir and four of its soloists, attracted several hundred people and was another in a series of protests following major subsidy cuts from the Marshal of the Warsaw Province.

Friends of the ensemble fear that the very functioning of the Warsaw Chamber Opera is at risk.

Over 20, 000 signatures have been collected thus far in a petition which calls on the Ministry to give the Warsaw Chamber Opera the status of a national institution of culture and take over its financing.

The company has received letters of support from members of some of the world's most prestigious opera companies, including the Metropolitan, La Scala and the Covent Garden.

Founded in 1961, the Warsaw Chamber Opera is the world’s only company to include all of Mozart’s stage works in its repertoire.

They are performed during an annual six-week-long Mozart Festival, which was launched in 1991, the bicentenary of the composer’s death.

The 2012 Mozart Festival, which begins on 15 June, will be the 22nd, and as the Warsaw Chamber Opera fears, last edition of the event.

The company’s founder and director Stefan Sutkowski submitted his resignation several weeks ago. It is to take effect after the conclusion of the Mozart Festival, at the end of July. (mk)

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