There is a reason why opera is thought to be the perfect art form and institution of monarchy. The monarch paid the piper and called the tune at once. The opera house displayed his splendor and entertained the court, sometimes even the people. The king, however, is dead – long live the opera! In the almost 100 years that opera houses and modern states have been institutionally connected there has been a constant need to negotiate the tensions between opera’s feudal heritage and the democratic demands for access, transparency and accountability.

What kinds of difficulties they have to struggle with was shown once again Monday night in Berlin. Experts, politicians and artists met at the “neutral territory” of the Radialsystem, Berlin’s stylish new off-theater space, to discuss the crisis and future of the operatic landscape of Berlin. Among them Gerard Mortier and Klaus Zehelein, both internationally renowned managers of opera houses; Kirsten Harms, Andreas Homoki and Jürgen Flimm, the current and future heads of the Berlin opera houses; Monika Grütters, Alice Ströver and Barabara Kisseler as representatives of cultural policy and the public administration. Today, this debate fills the German feuilletons again – as it has done for years.

The “crisis of opera” has become a standing phrase in the ongoing debate on Berlin’s cultural developement for almost twenty years. It served as analysis and apology; as rational for demand and decline. Yet, what it this crisis all about? On the one hand, so it was stated at the top level panel discussion, everything seems to work out very well: The “Staatsoper unter den Linden” is celebrating international success; under its star conductor Daniel Barenboim, the “Staatskapelle” became one of the most distinguished orchestras in Germany. The “Deutsche Oper”, located with some disadvantage in the former West, is expecting a gifted new musical director with Donald Runnicles, while its chorus was voted “chorus of the year” by Germany’s top opera critics. The Komische Oper even became “opera of the year” in the same contest. Numbers of attendance are increasing at all three houses. So: little to wail and much to acclaim? The whole debate no more than a case of typical German lamentation?

Not at all! Since on the other hand the “Deutsche Oper” just announced a huge financial deficit that might lead to incapability of further artistic action; since at the “Staatsoper” the so acclaimed orchestra is rarely seen to be playing at home and the house decreased its number of opera performances drastically; and since the “Komische Oper” shows a break even as low as 18% and an average attendance at around 60%. Further, the three opera’s umbrella organization, ”Stiftung Oper in Berlin” claims itself powerless at the mercy of the dominant “Intendanten” and the Mayor of Berlin, Klaus Wowereit. The latter set himself in charge of cultural policy four years ago acting mostly at his own arbitrary willpower. The organization was founded in 2004 to save the “Deutsche Oper” from closure and to reduce the operating costs of all three houses. Now, finding it without power, is the existence of three artistically autonomous opera houses put at risk again?

All this was brought up by the different participants of the panel. As it had been the years before. Thus, the evening in Berlin turned out to be quite frustrating not only for the prominent participants but also for the large and expectant audience, which lost its patience while the hodgepodge of artistic, financial, political, conceptual or whatever crisis became even more obscure every hour. Contrary to the general statement, the crisis did not seem to be something acute, but rather a matter of creeping conflicts. The debates, again, revolved around solutions to rather elementary questions.

So again: What is this crisis all about? It might be fruitful to see in the importance of this term a matter of debate rather than a statement of fact. This crisis is, then, to be seen as a semantic space to articulate or hide conflicts; where traditions or their need to change is proclaimed; where current events must be linked to core values. Opera has, since its beginning, been a showcase of political power and therefore provides a window to the neural points of the relationship between politics and culture, culture and society, society and politics. With its long political tradition and as such deeply embedded mental and technical structures opera provides a link between the questioning of established fundamental values to the idea of change: the term “crisis” marks the vanishing point of communication, which connects current problems to fundamental values, whether in approving or challenging them.

This is especially true for Berlin. Whether it was the artistic profile or a lack of finance, the appointment of a new conductor or a flopped premiere – in the operatic landscape of Berlin of recent years, nearly every issue and conflict arose in connection to the city’s new role as capital of a united Germany. It increased the determination to break new ground in many areas and restricted the options nurtured by this atmosphere of departure at the same time.

“The structure of the three operas in Berlin is a result of the history of the Prussian capital, respectively of the division of the city” the politicians in charge claimed once and again. The new capital had inherited the three opera houses – the “Staatsoper” and the “Komische Oper” in the former East, and the “Deutsche Oper” in the West of the city. As the houses had played an important symbolic role during the Cold War, when both parts of Berlin had to be the cultural flagships of the two separated German states, after 1989 they did not get rid of their symbolic function. The struggle about the opera houses always reflected the state of the city’s reunification. The closure of one of them, this was made clear again yesterday, would still necessarily be seen as a statement about “East” and “West”.
For years the major issue of this debate was the question of who was actually responsible for the Staatsoper unter den Linden. Since it was build by a Prussian King and remained the Prussian State Opera after the First World War, it was declared essential to decide who could be regarded as the successor of Prussia in the federal political system of a unified Germany: The State of Berlin (das Land) or the Federation (der Bund)? Although Prussia had not existed for more than 50 years by this time, this matter was considered crucial in the question of what to do with the opera.

Further, the opera houses played a vital role in the question of what type of capital Berlin should be: a splendiferous one as it had been previously in its history or a rather modest and functional one as the former capital Bonn had been.

Last but not least after decades of uncontested public subsidies, financial cut backs and increased need for justification demonstrate the state’s dwindling financial virility and demand new strategies. The financial deficit that Berlin is facing and fighting is but one tip of the iceberg that the whole cultural sphere of Germany is heading for.
All of these were – and still are – questions related to power, vested interests, money and prestige. Therefore everybody was persuading a majority to accept a certain definition of a situation as a crisis. Admitting this, it is no wonder that denying a crisis for some of the participants was as right and important as it was for others to state it. It allowed to claim competence or to simply pass the buck.

Opera in Berlin is still a place to experience high quality performances, new talents and unexpected views. The opera city par excellence, with an at least potentially unrivaled variety. At the same time opera in Berlin became a pessimistic image and cultural metaphor: for the disastrous financial deficit of the city, the problems on the way to a finally united capital and the historical heritage that is burdening the metropolis. Put in either one context of this double bind situation, any single performance, personal decision or political concept is easy to communicate, but difficult to solve.