Mauthausen concert to go ahead despite controversy

More than 200,000 people were killed at Mauthausen, which during World War II grew to a complex of 49 camps in northern Austria.

Zelman, a journalist, first suggested the concert more than two years ago to then-Austrian Chancellor Viktor Klima, as a way of ushering in the new millennium with an event dedicated to the hope of the brotherhood of humankind.

After negotiations with the Vienna orchestra, which embraced the project enthusiastically, it was agreed that the concert would comprise Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, with Friedrich Schiller's "Ode to Joy."

The concert, which will be broadcast worldwide, is expected to draw an audience of 20,000.

Problems began when Klima's government fell and last fall's elections led to the formation of a ruling coalition with the conservative People's Party and the far-right Freedom Party.

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel, who was scheduled as the main speaker at a ceremony preceding the concert, then canceled his appearance. In addition, the committee organizing the concert did not want to get involved with the new government. And pressure was brought to bear on both the orchestra and Rattle not to appear.

Zelman was determined to see the concert through, believing that it would help young people face the shadows of the past and would encourage them to build a society that has no place for intolerance.

He decided to sidestep the Freedom Party issue by inviting Austrian President Thomas Klestil, a critic of the Freedom Party's Jorg Haider, to host the event, along with European Union Commissioner Frank Fischler.

Zelman purposely decided to exclude Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel of the People's Party.

Wiesel then agreed to send his address on videotape.

Meanwhile, orchestra officials, reaffirmed the orchestra's intention to appear as a way to honor victims of the Nazis and to make up for its own past.

Between July and September 1938, 11 Jewish musicians were dismissed.

Another nine known to be of "mixed blood" were retained only by special authorization.