Salzburg Festival was opened by Maria Kalesnikawa – a flutist, performer, and civil rights activist who spent five years in Belarusian detention, including months in solitary confinement. In her column ‘Lost and Found’, Katja Petrowskaja describes how Kalesnikawa radiates joy and courage despite this. She is now an honorary professor at the Mozarteum and views democracy like a musician, Petrowskaja writes.
Community as an Antidote
Petrowskaja recounts her travels through summer crowds and the longing to say the word ‘we’. She sees in tourists a ‘congregation of like-minded people’ that forms offline and only briefly. This idea, she writes, gives her something comforting – especially in a time when her homeland Ukraine is marked by Russia’s war of aggression and Southern Europe is burning.
The columnist connects personal impressions with cultural references: she visits ‘her’ Bruegel, who drew crowds, and reflects on the grave of Paracelsus in Salzburg. The physician, who saw the human being as a unity of body, soul, and spirit, distributed his wealth to the sick and poor – an example of resistance against the gloomy.
Francis and Joy in Trial
A central reference point is Olivier Messiaen’s opera ‘Saint François d’Assise’, which is being shown this year at the festival in a production by Romeo Castellucci. Petrowskaja sees in Francis a figure that has always attracted artists: his radicalism, gentleness, and love for the poor. Saint Francis praises joy precisely in moments of need – an attitude that seems timely given the state of the world.
The author links this to a personal story: a friend named Francis, called Franja for short, was born in Kyiv shortly before the war began. With his brothers Hector and Josef, he forms a ‘magical group’. The family has left Ukraine for a few weeks to recover from the intense attacks – and has even traveled to Assisi. Petrowskaja wishes that the family will no longer be subjected to such trials.
The column ends with a look at the curated exhibition calendar of the F.A.Z. feuilleton for August 2026 – with stops in Zurich, Vienna, and Bonn. Petrowskaja collects impressions and sounds to create a ‘mosaic of belonging’.
Source: www.faz.net
