Will culture be essential when the addition of the pandemic comes? The Musical Moment

One of the big questions this fall, when theaters have reopened and the specter of a new wave seems to be fading little by little, is the return of the economic boomerang that will affect the world of culture and civil society. Who is going to foot the pandemic bill and how are we going to pay it?

While the press underlined last week how difficult the finalization of the budget of the Walloon region had been, it will be necessary – in the coming days – to question the institutions on the measures that will be required of them. From the freezing of the index of endowments to the amputation of these, the "efforts" risk being intense and hitting cultural operators differently.

One of the deepest mysteries of this "announced economic backslash" resides first of all in the illegibility of the real ordeals experienced by the institutions. On the one hand, there are the institutions which, during the crisis, closed their doors, put their staff on technical unemployment and – as a result – saved on costs, ending the financial year in bonus. On the other hand, the others which, on the contrary – like certain opera houses – had made investments (orders, construction of sets) without being able to amortize them through the ticket office, since their rooms were closed. The realities are multiple and the post-crisis will not be the same for everyone, because the crisis itself has not been the same for everyone.

The greatest economists are also divided. Between the Draghi camp, which assumes the creation of an even more colossal debt as the only remedy for the planetary catastrophe, others – more skeptical – are already talking about a new phase of austerity. The reality on the ground being that from now on, a phase of austerity would follow a phase of austerity, and so on, until the world of culture roams in the Tartar desert.

It will now be necessary to scrutinize the signs and symptoms of the economic impact of the pandemic. The first and clearest of them has just started flashing in Paris, with a blinding light: the project for a multipurpose room at the Bastille opera house, started in the 1980s and whose finalization of work had been relaunched a few years ago, has just experienced a final setback.

The Paris Opera, hit by a long period of strikes, then by the pandemic, has just recognized that economically, it will not succeed. And neither do the public authorities. The tens of millions already spent are lost, a huge concrete crater will remain in the state of industrial wasteland in the heart of one of the largest opera houses in Europe. Should we cry out for mismanagement, vituperate against the negligence of these men of power who spend without counting the tax of the citizens? No, because the project made sense, met real societal needs, its economic model was strange but realistic in the pre-covid era. Simply, today, it is no longer.

To this is added that culture is also experiencing a form of COVID-long. The rooms have reopened, but are they filling up? There too, fairness is irrelevant. Some shows are full, others are empty. The predictors of the success of an evening concert are no longer the same, the institutions navigate by sight. There, the concert of a great tenor is deserted, here the concert of a symphony orchestra is full. At the Bordeaux Opera, a world premiere has just taken place in front of almost empty rooms, one of the tenors of the production worrying about singing in front of 150 people in a room that can accommodate a thousand.

One thing is certain, in France, women and men of culture repeat a word like a mantra: essential. Remember, culture had not figured among the essential activities of the pandemic space. Museums, concert halls had closed, like restaurants, hairdressers and fitness rooms. And if there is a major economic crisis tomorrow, will there be elected officials at budget meetings in Belgium and France to defend the truly essential nature of culture? We will begin to see this more clearly in the coming months, but it may be necessary to hammer home this word: essential. Totally essential.