Women
Will Audition
The protest against the
Vienna Philharmonic seemed to reach a turning point on January 16, 1997. Ioan Holender, the Director of the Vienna
State Opera, announced that women would be allowed to audition for the Philharmonic's
parent organization, the Vienna State Opera orchestra, effective
immediately:
"From this moment on I want to see
the applications for the auditions, and to know how many qualified women
applicants will be invited. And I have also explained my standpoint, that from
this moment on women must be employed if they win an audition."
Even though the Vienna
Philharmonic is nominally a private and self-governing organization, its
charter requires it to draw its members exclusively from the State Opera
orchestra. Unfortunately it has now bee
three years since Holender’s announced and the State Opera orchestra has hired
no women except harpists.
William Osborne