There is a world outside Amsterdam. There is culture there too. High-quality even. And of course, Amsterdammers know that too. After all, that whole world comes to Amsterdam every year for the Holland Festival, and if it were up to the director of the Amsterdam Stadsschouwburg Melle Daamen, a lot more would come from abroad. Ballet, for example.
Our national pride, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, named the best orchestra in the world for a reason, knows it too. You get good conductors from abroad. Antony Hermus, for instance. He makes his debut with that institution in early October. And so he has to be introduced appropriately. That is why the Orchestra writes on its website:
"The first Family Concert of the season will be conducted by Antony Hermus. Chances are you do not know his name, but in Germany the young Brabander has built up a great reputation and a broad repertoire over the past decade. High time, therefore, for a debut with the Concertgebouw Orchestra."
Yes, it really is there. The unknown Antony Hermus. The conductor who less than a year ago was lavishly praised in all Dutch newspapers for the way he led the Noord Nederlands Orkest, choir and soloists in a production of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde at the Reisopera is a great unknown?
Does the Concertgebouw Orchestra think that visitors to the family concert do not follow news? Or that they do, but that they follow everything that is not about Amsterdam - the best Tristan und Isolde after all, in years was not to be seen in the capital - find it totally irrelevant?
Either way, it is a disgrace to describe the debutant conductor, who does have a frequent presence in the Netherlands as well, as 'someone you are highly unlikely to know' and then fail to even mention one of his greatest achievements in our country.
Cross that A10. There are viaducts. There is a world outside Amsterdam. Even in music.
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