NEW YORK鈥擩ust about everybody in a principal role in Strauss鈥檚 Salome was singing it for the first time at the Metropolitan Opera last month. The other debutant was in the pit.
Yes, before conducting the Canadian Opera Company鈥檚 revival of its Tim Albery production of Gotterdammerung, the last instalment of Wagner鈥檚 Ring of the Nibelung Cycle, which opens Thursday at the Four Seasons Centre, the maestro from Speyer, Germany, led arguably the most prestigious performances of his career.
鈥淚 don鈥檛 think I would have been invited to conduct at the Met if it hadn鈥檛 been for my work with the Canadian Opera Company,鈥 Johannes Debus acknowledged in a post-rehearsal interview.
He had come to the 海角社区官网company from his homeland initially in 2008 as conductor of its first production of Prokofiev鈥檚 monumental War and Peace. Such was the orchestra鈥檚 enthusiasm for working with him that he was soon invited to become music director.
Since then he has led performances of 20 operas in Toronto, ranging from Mozart鈥檚 The Magic Flute and Offenbach鈥檚 The Tales of Hoffmann to Britten鈥檚 Peter Pears and the world premiere of Barbara Monk Feldman鈥檚 Pyramus and Thisbe.
鈥淓ach opera has its challenges,鈥 Debus said. 鈥淔or me, conducting Strauss is even more difficult than conducting Wagner. It is more complex. He never seems to get home harmonically.
鈥Salome is a beast. I studied it at the conservatory in Hamburg; I played it on the piano as a rehearsal pianist in Frankfurt and conducted it in Munich as well as Toronto. So I knew it quite well when I came to New York, but when you get into the pit you don鈥檛 stop for the next 100 minutes. You have to pace yourself. It is so full of details. It is always a challenge.鈥
A challenge made even greater as the vehicle for a Metropolitan Opera debut, no?
鈥淭丑别 pit in 海角社区官网is deeper, but here it is wider. With an orchestra of the size Strauss uses in Salome you sometimes think you are miles away from some of the players. I felt a little shy at first. It takes awhile to warm up and feel the joy of driving this Ferrari.
鈥淒uring 40 years of working with (James) Levine, this has become one of the best, maybe the best pit orchestra on the planet. It is amazing how they can switch from opera to opera.
鈥淵ou feel in working with all the people here a great sense of ownership and a real sense of commitment. This place is their home. Levine created a DNA, a genetic code, for this company, something (Simon) Rattle did in Birmingham and (Evgeny) Mravinsky in Saint Petersburg. Richard Bradshaw (the Canadian Opera Company鈥檚 late general director) did that in Toronto.鈥
Debus believes Bradshaw was wise in choosing to open the Four Seasons Centre not with Salome or one of the other Strauss operas but with Wagner鈥檚 four-part Ring Cycle.
鈥淭丑别 Ring is one of those summits, not only for the performers but for anyone who is involved,鈥 he says. 鈥淔or me, it helps create the DNA for a company. It is identity-building for an orchestra, too.
鈥淲agner, after Berlioz, really discovered and explored fully the possibilities of the modern orchestra. You can only work with Wagner if you have a sense of the architecture, the big arch. That is a challenge for a conductor. Wagner divides the orchestra in groups, background, middle ground and foreground, almost like a pastry. Some parts are just filling, but you need that filling.
鈥淭丑别 Wagner performances I鈥檝e done in 海角社区官网鈥 Die Walkure, Siegfried, Tristan 鈥 I鈥檒l never forget, not just because it was my first time doing them but being music director and feeling the entire company coming together, focusing on that moment. And one shouldn鈥檛 forget that the audience is an important factor for success. The extra energy an audience can give you is tremendous and we have that in Toronto.
鈥淭丑别re is a negative aspect to this and Wagner knew it. When he finished Tristan he wrote to Mathilde Wesendonck, 鈥業 will be put in jail if the performances are good.鈥 He knew he had manipulative abilities. He demands of people to be his followers.
鈥淢y mother can鈥檛 stand his music. Leonard Bernstein said, 鈥業 hate Wagner on my knees.鈥 Honestly, I think as a person he must have been terrible, constantly full of himself. But he left us an opus, a body of work, unlike any other.鈥
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