The Prague Spring Festival

In its 59th year the Prague Spring Festival celebrates masterpieces of Leoš Janáček and Antonín Dvořák with national and international luminaries. Prague remembers its place as one of the true Central European capitals and honours the beginning of a new epoch.

This year the prestigious Prague Spring Festival celebrates not only the 150.th birthday of Leoš Janáček but also the 100.th anniversary of the death of Antonín Dvořák, whose visionary ideas at the turn of the last century gave the name to a symphony that once again seems to function perfectly as a motto for a new era: “From the New World”.
After the historical date of 1.st May 2004, Prague has become one of the knots of a Central European network, close to Vienna, Budapest and Dresden, amongst others. Consequently, Roman Belor, born in 1958 in Prague and since three years director of the festival, in this interview outlines a major chance for “Prague Spring” not only to break down bureaucratic boundaries but also to make an international audience understand that the Čzech Republic with its capital Prague used to be one of the Europe's richest countries in terms of composers and musicians. He stresses that Prague never was in “Eastern” Europe but at the continent's centre: “Prague lies to the west of Vienna”, he emphasizes.

The festival: classical, modern, contemporary, and even ice hockey

“The Čzech Republic is very strong in the classical arts”, states Belor. But with what else is it closely connected? Martin Smolka composed the Contemporary work “Tesknice”, directed by the prestigious young conductor Tomáš Netopil. “In this piece, Smolka unveils nationalistic tendencies and everyday-problems and shows what the Čzech Republic stands for nowadays: ice hockey. We are a superpower in that discipline”, laughs Belor.
As a definite highlight of the 62 events, the festival performs all nine symphonies of Dvořák. Nevertheless Mr. Belor takes into consideration: “We want to feature Janáček more. He still is quite underrepresented, although one of the most influential composers for contemporary Classical Music. That’s also why we have planned next year to focus more on that topic.”
The programme, as every year, is very varied: From Old and Classical Music and Italian Opera (Kammerensemble Hesperion, the viola-da-gamba player Jordi Savall, cembalist Trevor Pinnock, pianist Murray Perahia) to appearances of internationally acclaimed orchestras like The Chamber Ensemble of St. Martin in the Fields, The Gewandhausorchster Leipzig and The Nagoya Philharmonic Orchestra, to a competition of national composers and performers to strengthen the heritage of Čzech Contemporary Classical music and to events of Jazz and World music. The festival is held in some of the loveliest venues Prague can offer, such as the Rudolfinum, Prague Castle and the Jugendstil-townhall Obecni dum.
Economic considerations also exert their influence on Prague Spring. After the fall of Communism, the national official financing structures were cut back drastically. Nowadays only about 30 per cent (circa 70 – 80 Mill. Kc; equals 2.5 million €) of the overall budget is covered by the state, the ministry and the town, the rest comes from institutional and private supporters. Only about 20 per cent of the income is produced by ticket-sales. “It has to do with the fact that people don’t have so much money and the local buying market in the Čzech Republic is not so strong. It is growing, linked to the general growth of economy, but only slowly”, argues Roman Belor. To broaden the audience, two new programme-series, a “matinee” and a “nocturnal”, have been set up. “These late shows are aimed at young people”, says Prague Spring PR-Director Dr. Alena Svobodová. You won’t have to dress up. In fact, even the performers won’t be in black tie.
Considering this comfort, the international outstanding quality and the low ticket-prices (90 – 2,100 Kc; 3 – 65€), what reason could there be not to go to Prague Spring?

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