{"id":4103,"date":"2019-05-29T14:55:55","date_gmt":"2019-05-29T07:55:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thaicritic.com\/?p=4103"},"modified":"2019-05-30T09:21:48","modified_gmt":"2019-05-30T02:21:48","slug":"an-opera-company-going-back-to-ones-roots-in-an-innovative-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thaicritic.com\/?p=4103","title":{"rendered":"An Opera Company: Going back to one\u2019s roots in an innovative way"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

An Opera Company: Going back to one\u2019s roots in an innovative way<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Chetana Nagavajara<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 When I interviewed the British music critic, Norman Lebrecht, in London as far back as 2002, he was criticizing the Royal Opera House Covent Garden for having abandoned the idea of an opera company<\/em> in favour of flying in international stars for specific performances. In my own humble way, I supported him by referring to my first exposure to Western opera in Manchester during the two-week visit of the Royal Opera House in 1956, when it was still operating as a company, with first-rate singers of its own, who later attained international acclaim, like the Australian soprano, Dame Joan Sutherland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Travelling to Stuttgart yesterday, 19 May 2019, to attend\na special session organized by the Stuttgart Opera, called \u201cKonzert Exklusiv.\nEine musikalische Reise durch die Konzertsaison 2019\/20\u201d (Concert exclusive. A\nmusical journey through the concert season 2019\/20), was well worth the effort.\nThe title makes it explicit that they would not<\/em> be introducing their new\nannual programme of operas, but would concentrate on other forms of music, (which\ninclude chamber music, symphony concerts, song recitals and special programmes\nfor children.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            The panel that assembled on stage consisted of the Chief\nDramaturg, the General Music Director, the Concert Organizer, the Director of\nthe Hugo Wolf Academy (engaged in the promotion of singing and poetry), the\nCasting Director and the Artistic Director of the Opera for the Young. The\npanel discussion was interspersed with short musical excerpts prefiguring what\nis to be presented during the new season of 2019\/20 in the way of symphony\nconcerts, chamber concerts, song recitals and children\u2019s programmes. The performers\nwere drawn from the company, both musicians and singers, with the General Music\nDirector acting as accompanist and solo pianist, and who, to conclude the\nprogramme, stunned the public with an excerpt from the original piano version\nof Mussorgsky\u2019s \u201cPictures at an Exhibition\u201d. (I later found out that this young\nGDM (Generalmusikdirektor), aged 39, won several prizes for the piano and also\nplayed the cello, which rather confirms my dogmatic belief that most of the\ngreat conductors are originally instrumentalists, who are privileged to have played\nfor good, great [and bad] conductors from their respective desks in the orchestra\nor in the orchestra pit.)  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The purpose of this session was more than just introducing the programme for the coming season. It also took the opportunity to make a kind of policy statement<\/em> in a casual, unassuming way. One short remark from the Music Director drew a big applause: \u201cThis is the house in which singers can grow.\u201d Looking onto the stage at the panel sitting around a small table and sipping their mineral water (yes, mineral water, and not beer!), I realized that the administrators of this Opera House must be in their thirties and forties. No wonder they put a special emphasis on the process of \u201cgrowing\u201d musically and professionally. The speakers maintained that they are an ensemble, a company<\/em> working closely together and their prime commitment is to this \u201chouse\u201d. The 35 operatic singers have to work hard to build up their repertoire, each singer having to perform 7 roles during each season. This is their responsibility they have to fulfill, and along the way, if they discover their special preferences, well and good. Several of the singers have attained international status, being invited to perform at other great opera houses around the globe. They are free to do so, while maintaining the basic commitment of singing those 7 roles in Stuttgart. So serious work keeps them together, and a broad base is regarded as a breeding ground for specializations. I congratulated myself for having made the train journey from Marbach to Stuttgart on this sunny Sunday. I now know why the Stuttgart Opera has several times already received the award of \u201cthe Opera House of the Year\u201d. And I now understand what Norman Lebrecht was talking about. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

            As for the orchestra, what I heard last week in the\nperformance of Christoph Willibald Gluck\u2019s Iphig\u00e9nie en Aulide<\/em> was an\norchestral playing of the finest order. How did they achieve that? Was it\nbecause of the guest conductor from Italy, Stefano Montanari, who specializes\nin Baroque and 18th<\/sup> century music? That certainly would be part of\nthe answer. But the answer I got from the panel discussion was that the\norchestral musicians are always encouraged to play chamber music<\/em>,\ngrouping themselves in various forms. On this occasion, they performed the\nsecond movement of the String Quartet No. 3<\/em> by the Polish Composer,\nSzymon Laks (1901-1983), rearranged for a chamber ensemble consisting of a\nclarinet, a violin , a viola, a double bass, and last but not least, an\naccordion. What an ingenious combination, and it worked very well! The Music\nDirector was quite convinced that playing chamber music induces\nmusicians to listen to each other and to strive for a cohesive ensemble, which\nnaturally benefits orchestral playing. Well, this is what Lord Yehudi Menuhin\nwas propagating all his life, in the belief that training in chamber music would\nprepare musicians for every type of musical career, and the International\nMenuhin Music Academy (IMMA) in Switzerland was created in such a way as to\nconstitute a chamber orchestra that gives public concerts regularly and goes on\ntour around the world. The Stuttgart Opera House has proved that Lord Yehudi Menuhin\nwas right. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Finally, the programming of the concerts was discussed.\nWe learned that the musicians and the singers themselves are asked to propose\nthe compositions they would like to perform; so the democratic spirit is there\nto make everyone feel that the \u201chouse\u201d is his or hers. (I am sorry that I have\nhad to force myself to utter the word \u201cdemocratic\u201d, because being a Thai in the\n21st<\/sup> century, that has already become a dirty word.) As for the\norchestral concerts, the Music Director was really adept in explaining why this\nor that composition had been chosen. It looks like a very exciting, well\nthought-out annual programme, including the known, the less known and the\nunknown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Let us not forget, those one and a half hours of\npresentation had to do with their non-operatic<\/em> activities. We would be\nmistaken if we were to interpret these as their sidelines. Traditional German\nopera houses did engage in such multifaceted musical offerings, and this \u201cgreat\ntradition\u201d has survived into the 21st<\/sup> century. We must not forget\nthat the world renowned \u201cVienna Philharmonic Orchestra\u201d draws its musicians\nfrom the larger pool of the orchestra of the \u201cVienne State Opera\u201d. (They have\nto have this larger pool because they operate seven days a week!) On the one\nhand, the Stuttgart Opera falls back on the venerated age-old tradition, but on\nthe other hand, these young pioneers know how to innovate all the time, as I\nhave already tried to point out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They can do it,\nbecause they know how to put their forces together. They are in company with\neach other. They are a company<\/em>, in the noblest sense of the word. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An Opera Company: Going back to one\u2019s roots in an innovative way Chetana Nagavajara \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 When I interviewed the British music critic, Norman Lebrecht, in London as far back as 2002, he was criticizing the Royal Opera House Covent Garden for ha […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7026,"featured_media":4105,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[153],"tags":[61],"class_list":["post-4103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-153","tag-chetana-nagavajara"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thaicritic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thaicritic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thaicritic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thaicritic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7026"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thaicritic.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4103"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.thaicritic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4103\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4107,"href":"https:\/\/www.thaicritic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4103\/revisions\/4107"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thaicritic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thaicritic.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thaicritic.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thaicritic.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}