Nor is the bold Mortier course driving off private sponsors, as many pessimists predicted.

ECONOMIST: What to wear for Salzburg

Besides, bit by bit the relentless Mr Mortier really has wrought a change of taste in Salzburg.

ECONOMIST: What to wear for Salzburg

What was good enough for Mozart, Mr Mortier implies, ought to suit Salzburg.

ECONOMIST: What to wear for Salzburg

No doubt Mr Mortier's festival could do with a spot of judicious pruning.

ECONOMIST: What to wear for Salzburg

Mr Mortier, as usual, seemed not to notice the dirty looks as he flitted about the inelegant lobby in the interval.

ECONOMIST: What to wear for Salzburg

Next year Mr Mortier will take over as head of the New York City Opera, next door to the mighty Met.

ECONOMIST: New York��s Metropolitan Opera has pioneered a new model

In 2009, Gerard Mortier, the director of the Paris National Opera, will leave France to run the New York City Opera.

NEWYORKER: Man Behind the Curtain

Mr Mortier is only one person with strong doubts.

ECONOMIST: What to wear for Salzburg

On the whole Mr Mortier has managed to build in a lot of modern, even contemporary, work as part of Salzburg's staple fare without wholly alienating Karajan fans (grumble though they still do).

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Add environmentalists and hunters, as well as the crew of a helicopter called in to rescue one poorly Lopez-fan from the vertiginous amphitheatre, to the long list of locals who bristle at the name of Mortier.

ECONOMIST: What to wear for Salzburg

Mortier, whom I visited in Paris this summer, said that the smaller size and budget of the City Opera, relative to that of the Met, would permit him to be more experimental, and that his artistic approach would be quite different from that adopted by Gelb.

NEWYORKER: Man Behind the Curtain