The maestro has given the first of his pre-New Year’s Day Vienna concert interviews.
Sample quote on woke and cancel culture:
‘This is something I absolutely reject. Nothing must be erased, on the contrary, all the mistakes of the past must be made clear to young people.
‘History is not just about St. Francis of Assisi, but also about tyrants, dictators and bloodthirsty people. We must not build an imaginary heavenly past, but we must know it in order to correct it.
,In ‘Il Ballo in maschera’ Verdi has the judge say that the sorceress Ulrica has the ‘impure blood of the Negro’. Various theatres, including La Scala, have changed this formulation.
‘When I performed ‘Il Ballo in Maschera’ in Chicago, a city where the black presence is very strong and which was then governed by a black Democratic mayor, I did not change a single word. I explained to the singer (who was black, by the way) that Verdi was not racist; he had put that terrible phrase into the mouth of the white judge, but Verdi’s accusation was not directed against blacks, but against racist whites. And the singer agreed.’
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