Testimonials

Iván Fischer studied with Nikolaus Harnoncourt at the Mozarteum in the 1970s and became his assistant. In July 1978, he stood in for Nikolaus, who was ill, as conductor of Handel’s Jephtha at the Carinthian Summer. As chief conductor of the Konzerthaus Berlin, he organised a tribute to Nikolaus Harnoncourt in November 2014.

‘Nikolaus Harnoncourt changed the understanding of music in our time like no other and showed us the new way: Namely, that music is much more than beauty of sound; it is a means of communication, a language. Harnoncourt understands and speaks the language of music and teaches us all to understand it again.’

Alexander Pereira: ‘The quality of a performance is decided at the conductor’s podium.’

This interview took place in Mr Pereira’s office on 16 January 2009, at the time when he was artistic director of the Zurich Opera House. Like all of Anna Mika’s interviews about Nikolaus Harnoncourt, it served as research for the book “Oper, sinnlich. Die Opernwelten des Nikolaus Harnoncourt”, which was written by Johanna Fürstauer and Anna Mika and published in 2009.

Alexander Pereira is now the head of La Scala in Milan and has also managed the Salzburg Festival in the meantime.

Mr Pereira, you must have known Nikolaus Harnoncourt long before your directorship in Zurich, for example from the Konzerthaus in Vienna?

Yes, of course, we already knew each other well from Vienna, and the fact is that when Zurich was looking for a successor to Artistic Director Christoph Groszer, it was obviously difficult to find someone. And it was Nikolaus who said: ‘There’s someone at the Konzerthaus in Vienna who would be great to work with’ (smiling). That’s how they became aware of me, and that’s how I ended up here in Zurich.

You have a close connection to both Mozart’s ‘Abduction from the Seraglio’ and Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy through your line of ancestors.

Yes, these are both about my great-great-great-grandmother (?) Fanny von Arnstein (1758-1818, note). She was Mendelssohn’s aunt and lived in the house where Mozart composed The Abduction. You can read all about it: Hilde Spiel wrote a book about Fanny von Arnstein, it’s all in there.

When you took up the directorship in Zurich in 1990/91, you found a well-established Harnoncourt tradition, and you have repeatedly said that the quality of an opera performance is decided at the conductor’s podium.

 It was precisely with Harnoncourt that we experienced some really great performances during my directorship: Fidelio, Freischütz, then the Schubert operas – especially the Da Ponte cycle with Flimm and then the reinterpretation of Monteverdi. The Ponnelle cycles by Monteverdi and Mozart had such a legendary reputation that there was already a danger of becoming paralysed with awe and no longer daring to reinterpret these operas. Our new approaches to these works were important!

As far as the quality of conductors is concerned, I learnt as director of the Wiener Konzerthaus how much a conductor shapes a performance. In the case of a concert, this is obvious – of course! So why should I push this good and true experience into the background again as soon as I become the director of an opera house? It’s the same in opera: ‘The quality of an evening is decided at the conductor’s podium’!

When there are revivals in Zurich, they are rehearsed for days and performed en suite, and the ensemble is then as consistent as possible. The plays are also restaged again and again.

Yes of course, should I still be performing productions from the 1950s or 60s? That goes without saying!

Your directorship and Harnoncourt have also launched some wonderful international singing careers, such as those of Cecilia Bartoli or Eva Mei, Jonas Kaufmann, Christoph Strehl…

Yes, and Harnoncourt has also initiated singers’ careers outside the house, for example Michael Schade.

Or Dorothea Röschmann or Anna Netrebko….

As one of the most sought-after artistic directors in the world, I would like to ask you what you think about the future of opera as an art form.

The Zurich Opera House takes the task of promoting living opera composers seriously. The three one-act operas that we selected in the teatro minimo project will be performed shortly. There was a competition in which the three composers of these operas were chosen. In the course of the performance, one of the three will be selected by a jury and will then be commissioned by us to write another full-length work.

Is opera elitist?

It is not elitist! 70% of our audience is the normal population. The rest are of course the very rich, but they are also our patrons. There are regular statistics on the social composition of our audience.

With the kind permission of Anna Mika

At the time of the interview, in October 2008, Jürgen Flimm was Artistic Director of the Salzburg Festival.

The following conversation is a tight walk through Flimm’s fifteen opera productions with Harnoncourt, as the artistic director had a little less than an hour for the interview.

Flimm: The first work with Nikolaus was Cosί fan tutte in Amsterdam in 1992

Mika: It was a huge success, as I read in the reviews. It was also a personal success for Charlotte Margiono. You did Cosi again with Nikolaus Harnoncourt (subsequently NH for short) in Zurich

That was also with him, but both were very different. Amsterdam was so poetic, the emphasis was on Alfonso as the director of the whole thing, with lots of assistants. We had them leap out of a Tiepolo painting and they were all fiddling around with him. All on an island in the water. There were acoustic reasons for this, but it looked very nice. A large wooden room that was painted, very poetic, very beautiful!

Was that already in the current Nederlandse Opera?

Yes, they were already there. In Zurich, we focussed on ‘La scuola degli amanti’, the subtitle of the opera. It was set in an auditorium, an academy, and we kept returning to this auditorium for the reflections between the women and between the men, but we also went out. In the end, everyone ended up in this strange biotope, they were exhibited, they were scrutinised.

In Zurich, you cast Agnes Baltsa as Despina, an older woman, which NH had already done before

That works too! A great opportunity for this wonderful singer. But then she ran away, left with the suitcase after the big sextet, left Alfonso.

When you do several productions of the same work, what is going on in your mind?

I’m starting from scratch. What you’ve done before is incorporated, you have the experience. It would be strange to simply copy yourself again, life is too short for that.

All sorts of things happen to you in 10 years…

That’s right!

The next one was Fidelio in Zurich?

Yes, it was initially supposed to be with Rudolf Noelte, but they cancelled because he wanted a 14-year-old singer as Leonore. That’s not possible, as we know, and then he cancelled. And then I stepped in, at short notice, and it was a very nice performance.

You also did it in New York and London.

Well, I did it in New York. In Zurich it was with historical costumes, in NY with contemporary costumes. Karitta Mattila, she’s travelling the world, she sang it in Chicago, then in London, and I did it a little differently again for there. It was basically the same performance.

In Zurich, Leonore and Florestan were clearly – in terms of the costumes – from the Ancien Régime.

Well, Harnoncourt has the right objection here, that Fidelio is not a revolutionary drama, but this incredible, utopian love story. (see my own interview with NH about Fidelio)

Then Figaro in Amsterdam…

… it was also as poetic as Cosi, in the same style, in a poetic space

Why didn’t you stage Don Giovanni there as well, it would have been nice as a cycle?

I don’t know, probably because it was earlier.

Susanna was already Isabel Rey back then.

Yes, it was originally supposed to be Barbara Bonney, but then she didn’t do it, so we were in dire straits. So we asked Pereira, who said: why don’t you take Rey? I went to see her and was very disappointed, in some opera in Zurich, I can’t remember what it was. But we didn’t stand a chance. And in the end it was an extreme love story between her and me – I mean artistically – since then, whenever I’ve done something, I’ve always tried to do it with her.

Isabel Rey’s Susanna in Zurich was incredibly good, and this Figaro in Zurich was a huge success.

Yes, for the theatre too, people were standing around the block to get tickets

In the third act, the set was such a reddish colour. Was that autumn or burnt? Was it something to do with fire?

I don’t really remember, it was an idea of the set designer Erich Wonder. The third and fourth acts were in one picture, the park, they went into each other.

It was great to travel back in time at the very end!

That was great! That means it’s still going on. I’m very proud of this last act. I didn’t really manage it in Amsterdam, because it was in the forest: and in Zurich we made extreme use of the revolving stage. It’s written in a very complicated way, you have to ask who sees whom and is not seen? The revolving stage was very effective there. And in ‘Corriam tutti’ they walked on the revolving stage and back again, so in reality they didn’t move, they didn’t get any further. I thought that was very nice!

The Countess was played by a very young Eva Mei…

That’s how it should be, yes!

And all the arias were sung.

It was Nikolaus’ great wish, he had this special theory that the piece would then dissolve into the arias. I did it well and I’m still not convinced that it’s a good idea, but he wanted it. It’s not easy for a director to stage.

But it was convincing.

Well, I was happy to do it too, but I didn’t accept it.

And then Bartoli was once cast as Susanna, but then cancelled.

She then put it up herself, saying there were too many ‘movements’. The rehearsal time was also far too short. Then Isabel did it again.

The next one was Poppea in Salzburg

That was with Mortier, although I’m not sure if he wanted the project, he had inherited it (from whom, note:???). The challenge was that the piece is very delicate, and the stage is big. But it succeeded, people are still talking about it today.

This large stage was one of the features, and then I also thought that the luxuriousness of the Salzburg Festival was taken so nicely for a ride. The two ladies at the beginning,….

Yes, that was funny, people fell for it, one even offered her a seat. It totally worked!

At this point, I would like to ask you something that I think is very important. There is musical rhetoric, from Monteverdi up to and including Beethoven. NH attaches great importance to it….

So you mean the recitatives?

No, not really! (explain: the fixed musical phrases that mean something very specific, fixed, note). And there was one passage, a strong note repeated several times, a kind of concitato, where the Nero, it was Philip Langridge, really jumped exactly to the music.

Yes, of course St Nikolaus told me that beforehand. He always does that. You get instructions, every preparation is a lesson in the history of music. I’m sure he told me that and I put it into practice. We always worked very intensively and precisely, especially in Figaro, in a scene where they transform Cherubino into a girl. He was sitting next to me – he used to be there much more than he is today, which was also very nice – and he said: that’s no good. And I said, what’s not good? He said: I’m not a director, you have to do it. And he was right. And then I re-staged it and said: what do you think of it now? And he said: you can do better than that! And then I put my brain to work and reorganised the whole thing again, putting more of the action into the recitatives. Then it worked and he was satisfied. A nice example, funny!

In Poppea in Salzburg, the two main roles were sung by English singers. Did that change the aesthetic, as England has its very own baroque culture?

No, not at all.

I liked this refraction into the present day, which happened every now and then, so much in the Salzburg production.

Yes, that was funny!

And then Poppea came back in Zurich…

That was an unfortunate production! Neither NH nor I were satisfied. The singers were constantly ill (Kasarova also at the premiere, note)

Kasarova was late for rehearsals once, then she was ill, then there, then ill… Originally it was a project with Bartoli, then she cancelled it, and I cancelled it too. Then Vesselina came into the picture, with whom I’d already done some very nice things, and I said I’d do it after all, and then she was late for rehearsals and then she fell ill. One of my most unfortunate times. And the other singers were tired or hadn’t really studied, it always went back and forth like that. And in the end we both said: what are we going to do with this production? It was quite successful, but the work was very arduous.

Conceptually, I wanted to see if the material could be carried over into today, but that wasn’t right: there are certain iconographic qualities in this work, and if you’ve lost them and the terms for them, then it doesn’t work.

I thought the Salzburg performance was much better,

…me too, to be honest!

It would have been better if we had been able to work well, but we couldn’t do that. There were people there who were inexperienced. And at my advanced age, I can’t and don’t want to make any more concessions, I don’t want to have to explain how to move on stage. I also told them that they should have learnt it somewhere else.

Then came Alcina, a wonderful production!

Yes, there was a debate about doing a Handel, and Nikolaus said I should look around and see what was available, and then I said Alcina would be beautiful…

And we did it and it was a really beautiful performance. And the best thing about it was that it was like a rediscovery of this opera by us, because afterwards Alcina was done everywhere, every director, every conductor pounced on Alcina afterwards. People forgot that we had actually rediscovered it. (Note: this is perhaps not entirely true, as there was an Alcina in Graz in the mid-1980s)

Your concept was very special, this completely empty stage.

Yes, those lies and deception stories with the Trompe D’oeuill stuff. Then there was something really funny. When these people who were conjured back left the magic island, we put them in these shaker costumes, these Amish people. They went through the stage door onto the street, you could see the street outside. And then the special thing was that I only found out afterwards that the Amish were a sect from Zurich, they still speak Schwyzerdütsch today. That was (laughs) really clairvoyant of us, so they left the theatre and moved to Virginia or wherever they live now. Rodney Gilfry told me that. He was once there with his children with the Amish, and his children grew up in Zurich, and they heard that they spoke Alemannic and they could talk to them, because the children could speak Schwyzerdütsch. We didn’t know that before.

For me, this opera was a play with emotions, the feelings were completely uncovered. Especially in the first year when this Austrian soprano sang…

…Arno Raunig, later Ann Murray did it. This production was a huge success in Zurich, and then we went to the Wiener Festwochen and it wasn’t a success at all. They didn’t know what it was about, there were even boos.

Yes, the Viennese are a people of their own! The next one was L’amina del filosofo by Haydn

The idea was born here during Poppea. It was Bartoli’s idea to do it, if I remember correctly. It came first in Vienna and was a huge success. The stage design by George Tsypin was marvellous.

This picture from hell!

Boaaah, unbelievable! How they stood there in the water! And how Nikolaus conducted it!!! It also went to London, where a so-called English baroque specialist conducted it, and it was nothing at all, completely empty!

Do you know what his name was?

Yes, of course, it was Hogwood. With Nikolaus it was pure panic, with him nothing at all. And then I thought, you see, Nikolaus has a different relationship to Haydn than his mates up there on the island. With Nikolaus, it had a power, a force, unbelievable!

It doesn’t end well for Orpheus, the Erynnians kill him.

Yes, that’s not nice for him. The way it became more and more enclosed, yes, that was successful!

And the idea of depicting the snake bite with a bright flash of light!

You couldn’t do it any other way,

Exactly, great idea! This play was the personal breakthrough for Roberto Saccà, he was Orpheus.

Yes, someone else should do that first, a famous German tenor who no longer sings, I can’t remember his name. But there were these great women, Cecilia Bartoli and Eva Mei, both really super women, and he was afraid of them. Literally. He’s now married to a Japanese woman…

….ach, Uwe Heilmann! He had cancer, throat cancer, and was able to cure it, he’s singing again now, he was at the Schubertiade in Hohenems. He told me his story himself.

…so instead of him came Saccà, he did a great job and has had a great career to this day.

He recently sang Florestan in ZH, it was good!

Next on my list is Schubert’s ‘Alfonso and Estrella’

That was also first in Vienna and then in Zurich, with moderate success in Vienna. I initially had difficulties with the piece and then realised that there is a permanent war in this piece. And I found that quite an exciting thing for a romantic composer like Schubert. When I told Nikolaus this, he was a little dismayed. But it’s true, and we did it that way, and it worked. People are constantly on the run and the one sitting there in his little room – of course that’s not possible, this romantic retreat.

Then this really beautiful stage design by Erich Wonder! This production was one of my really successful ones.

What do you say to the common criticism of Schubert as an opera composer?

That’s complete rubbish of course, he wrote some really great operas that have real power.

Perhaps it is more an inner drama, less an outer one?

No, Alfonso and Estrella is a real opera with everything that goes with it. When you play this war cipher, it gets really intense!

Then there was the Offenbach cycle. Belle Hélène was with Lohner.

(mumbling) oh, I don’t like Lohner that much…

… then came the Périchole, with Vesselina. And I had a great time with it, because Offenbach is a close relative of mine. We are both from Cologne…

…but you’re not really related to him?

Well, we’re both from Cologne. He’s more Cologne than Paris. And I know this music, he has incorporated a lot of Cologne songs into his music. It’s often Cologne folk music. And I was really looking forward to doing that, it was great fun, a very enjoyable evening.

And I was really looking forward to the Geroldstein

I confess that I haven’t seen this one, I’m not too fond of Offenbach.

Oh, but the Geroldstein, that would have made up for it! It’s a pity you didn’t see it, it was a great event!

What was it that was so great?

The cast was great, but above all this anti-militaristic nonsense, an anti-military piece, it was marvellous how he made a fool of it.

Harnoncourt was in uniform?

Yes, and the whole orchestra, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, was dressed in French military uniforms. It was an incredibly funny performance, great fun. And then we had this writing above the stage, this stupid overtitling, we bastardised it. There’s a song (sings) lalalalalalala, so 94 times ‘la’, we counted it out and wrote it up there. And then there’s a plot in the play, someone was supposed to be killed, don’t ask me who. And at the end of the scene, where there is usually applause, we wrote: ‘Dear people of Graz, we are outraged. This is about murder and manslaughter, and you are applauding’. Things like that. Or ‘Please call the following number’ or during the interval we wrote ‘Applause, applause for St Nicholas’.

Do you know what attracts NH to Offenbach?

He says Offenbach is in heaven in the front row. And he doesn’t conduct him in the usual way. It’s somehow like an organ grinder, really refreshing. At some point we were offered the opportunity to do ‘The Tales of Hoffmann’, which has at most 10% to do with Offenbach, it’s by God knows who. He would never have written things like this barcarole!

Then Don Giovanni in Zurich?

I wasn’t so happy with that, it also had to do with the stage design, which I didn’t really like.

This rebuilt statue?

That was quite a good idea, to say it’s being built now. The fact that Ottavio is such a strange artist, an architect, that was also quite good. But I didn’t get the piece right in the end.

In the second part, when there’s only Leporello left, and the thing with the Commendatore…

But the ending is really successful!

Well, this burning table, a good trick. But I was really reassured when Claus Guth did it in Salzburg this year, the first Don Giovanni performance where I can say it was a success. All the directors who were there said the same. The stage design alone, coming out of the veristic stuff, and the idea that he is shot.

I’ve always wondered why he’s still running after the girls even though there are none left on his list, and there aren’t any left. But my Don Giovanni in Zurich was not good!

Is that perhaps also due to certain singer constellations?

No, no, my concept wasn’t good. The piece is massively difficult, I’ll never do it again!

The Fledermaus?

Yes, that one was a bit over-conceptualised. The fact that Dr Falcon is the director of the whole thing, to the extent that everything turns back into the living room at the end……

I liked the second act, but I totally underestimated the third. It’s not inherently good. And I thought the frog would come and everything would be fine, so I relied on that too much. And in the end, the overconcept.

Yes, that was very nice, with Agnes Baltsa, wonderful! She did a great job.

And Isabel Rey was there!

Oh, fantastic! And Dussmann too, everyone was fantastic! Only my idea with the dismantling in the third act wasn’t good.

Oh, fantastic! And the Dussmanns too, they were all fantastic! Only my idea with the dismantling in the third act wasn’t good.

But the idea that everyone came from a social welfare background was great,

Yes, that was good! The guys were totally weird. And a lady asked me about it at the premiere party and I said: ‘Look in the mirror in the morning and you look exactly like that!’

 King Arthur?

It was a fabulous success, even if the critics criticised it. I was the artistic director at the time, so she was extra grumpy. We wanted to do Fairy Queen first, but the Midsummer Night’s Dream thing in there isn’t really conclusive, the play isn’t really good. And then we decided to do Arthur. It’s not the Arthurian legend that we know, it’s with air spirits. Ginevra ect. doesn’t appear.

That was a disappointment for a few people, they thought Round Table and all that, but it’s completely different.

That was one of the best jobs I’ve ever done. I worked with the actors first, tried to get all my old family from the Thaliatheater together, they all came and said, let’s give Jürgen a nice (mumbled) performance?

I started rehearsing early and at some point the singers came. And then I said to the actors, let’s show them what we’ve already worked on. And the singers sat there, white as chalk, and applauded. And Michael Schade said: Now we have to make an effort. And then they really got into it, Bonney, Schade and Isabel, really great!

To bring actors and singers together…

Yes, that’s how it went together – it was as if they were one piece. You can see that on the video. And it went even further. Later, the choir, the Vienna State Opera Choir Association, who are much better than the Arnold Schönberg Choir, joined in. And I said: sit down and watch what we’ve done. And then they got… you know. There was a unique situation. The choir director came and said: ‘Jürgen, we have to talk about the dance rehearsals.’ And I thought, what again, for God’s sake! I thought they couldn’t, they didn’t want to.

And then he said: ‘We need more rehearsals’. That’s a really unique situation, it will go down in theatre history!

And then the orchestra came and it was immediately in a good mood, and everyone said: we’re going to bang this thing out now. It was really great!

There were jokes, Barbara conducted the audience and they actually sang. And Michael Schade was a rock singer. Nikolaus said: this is the first rock song, and by the way, he told me before the rehearsals: This is the first musical in history. And then I said: You didn’t say that for nothing, my dear, and we really went for it.

The audience went crazy at the dress rehearsal, and then came the premiere and it was a huge flop. The white dinner jackets were sitting there, they were completely unfamiliar with it, they wanted the dignified Mozart: a stand-up, playful leg or a nice little concert, and suddenly it started!

And then I came on stage and got boos, actually! I thought this is a cute thing, I didn’t scare them. But I probably did scare them. And – out of that moment – I grabbed my heart and fell over. Pahhh! And the person who shouted boo stopped immediately. You can only do something like that once in a lifetime.

And in the end it was a huge success, people were fighting over the tickets. One lady wrote to me that she felt like she was part of the whole thing in the audience. That was one of the nicest letters I’ve ever received.

It’s also in the book “Theaterbilder”.

Yes, thank you very much, Mr Intendant, those were all the pieces, all my questions!

As for Nikolaus in general, I would like to say that each of these many performances was a musical journey, and I learnt so much each time.

For example, I once asked him at a Cosi rehearsal what the trumpets in Mozart were all about. And then he told me about the signalling trumpeters, that they were borrowed from the military band, that they were so expensive and that their tongues were cut off if they had more than one pupil. He knows all that, he just knows! He’s not only a great musician, but also a great scientist, doesn’t do anything without a reason. He’s not someone who arrives, throws up his arms and that’s it. With him, it’s an existential event every time.

And finally I said to him: on your long journey through music, you have to get to Alban Berg, there’s still the Viennese school in there. I would have preferred to do Wozzeck, but he said he didn’t know it that well, he couldn’t do it anymore. He knows Lulu better.

You must be doing the original version?

Yes, no Cerha!

And who is Lulu?

The Petibon.

NH is 81 years old in 2010!

Yes, but he’s in such good shape, people half his age are exhausted more quickly. A wonderful person, we are all lucky to have him!

Courtesy of Anna Mika

The idea was to discover Monteverdi’s original language

Dr Claus Helmut Drese (1922-2011), director of the opera houses in Cologne (1968-1975 as General Director of the Bühnen der Stadt Köln), Zurich (1975-86) and the Vienna State Opera (1986-1991).

Drese established the contact between Nikolaus Harnoncourt (NH) and Jean-Pierre Ponnelle (JPP) and thus wrote performance history.

Drese: Did you know that exactly twenty years ago today, Jean Pierre Ponnelle fell backwards into the orchestra during the dress rehearsal of ‘Carmen’ in Tel Aviv and sustained the fatal injury from which he died on 10 August 1988?

The name Ponnelle is very important, he was an opener of the scene for NH, Federik Mirdita in honour.

And about Werner Hollweg as Idomeneo: three months before his death, I received a letter from him that he dictated, and then I was sent his last interview. That’s also a topic, he died in Freiburg, of paralysis, one thing after another is falling out, increasing physical paralysis.

How did you decide to team up with NH and JPP? You had already worked with JPP in Cologne before, the Mozart cycle in Cologne…

…not only Mozart, but also other operas!

Yes, JPP was well established in the scene at the time, and NH was something of an insider tip, something completely new. How did you come up with the idea that these two could go together?

It was about Monteverdi, he had been on my mind for many years. I was aware of these preliminary stages of Monteverdi arrangements by Orff and Hindemith, and I was aware of the choreographed performances of Monteverdi in Wuppertal. I had already thought about Monteverdi in Cologne, but the theatre was too big. And JPP was always interested in Monteverdi. When he was sixteen or seventeen, he made the stage sets for Monteverdi operas in Schwetzingen! I saw that back then, and it was the beginning of my own enthusiasm for Monteverdi, these Orff adaptations of the three Monteverdi operas at the Schwetzingen Festival in 1957 or 1958. JPP was a set designer first. There is a church in Baden-Baden that he painted. It is a garrison church, his father was a general or major general, the creator of Südwestfunk at the time. JPP spent his youth in Baden-Baden, where his relationship with the theatre, his love of painting and the idea of making stage sets developed. He studied painting in Paris for a while. And then he made stage designs, and this stage design impressed me sooo much, and Monteverdi was in my head, but I soon realised that these arrangements, whether by Orff or Hindemith, were not the core of this music. My idea was to rediscover this original musical language of Monteverdi. And then I went on a pilgrimage to Stockholm to the festival and looked at what they were doing, there was also Monteverdi, but that wasn’t enough. Then I went to London and heard Monteverdi in a conventional orchestral arrangement, which wasn’t the real thing either. And then came the discovery: playing with original instruments, the historical style! And then I heard that NH had done this Monteverdi with original instruments in Vienna, and that he had made a guest appearance with it in Amsterdam. Then I travelled to Amsterdam and saw an Orfeo there. It didn’t tell me very much about the production, but I heard what was happening. So I went to NH and asked if he could imagine doing it in ZH with JPP. And his eyes widened and he was immediately open to it. But I said that I would first have to convert Jean Pierre to want to do it too. Because at first he wasn’t a fan of original instruments. I then gave JPP the Bach recordings from NH, and he said that it all sounded like ‘church music’ and that he didn’t like these organists that much. That was a prejudice, which soon changed…

Then I brought the two of them together in my room in Cologne, they talked to each other for an hour and I walked around the house and thought, I hope it goes well!

You left them alone?

Yes, and when I came back they were one heart and one soul. It went wonderfully. Then they set conditions. They would do it together if, firstly, only musicians with old instruments played, not the usual Zurich opera orchestra, but a special orchestra. What a problem, ohhh! What a problem!

Today that wouldn’t be an issue!

Secondly, we had to find a line-up that wasn’t put together somewhere, but was specific. We needed an Orpheus to carry it! That was the next job. Dozens of people auditioned, and then Philippe Huttenlocher came along, and he was the one and he was the right one. And then I found one or two people in the orchestra who were already involved with old instruments at the time and said: ‘I’d like to…’ Then we took people from our own ranks who were on the way with these instruments, and we hired the others from all over.

Even musicians from the Concentus?

Less, of course, Mrs Harnoncourt as concertmaster, and Elisabeth Harnoncourt (daughter of NH and Mrs Alice) played the recorder in ‘L’incoronazione di Poppea’. Ivan Fischer, the conductor, sat at the harpsichord. He was immediately followed by Johann Sonnleitner, one of the most important people at all the performances.

Our dear board of directors in Zurich, when I told them we were opening the season with Monteverdi, they said, that’s not possible, we don’t know him! What are you doing, and then original, no!

There was resistance to overcome, but I had credit, a starting credit.

They trusted you!

Yes, you had to start with a bang. The first production was Fidelio under my direction in 1975, with Hildegard Behrens as Leonore and Swoboda (?) as the set designer. The music director at the time was Ferdinand Leitner. Monteverdi’s ‘Orfeo’ came in December. I had found Leitner, it wasn’t always easy with him, he was someone who was completely ‘Orffian’, totally committed to Carl Orff. There is a book with all the letters between him and Orff, and he was, so to speak, the godfather of all the late Orff works in Stuttgart. When he heard that it wasn’t going to be Orff’s Monteverdi, Mammamia!!!!

Harnoncourt worked it all out from the manuscripts himself, it was his own instrumentation.

Yes, I had it in my hand. He gave me his original, and then he took it back from me. He said: he needs it so badly, he can’t give it away. In return, I got the original edition of all of Beethoven’s dialogues from him, the conversation booklets.

So this beginning with Monteverdi had the long lead time from the Schwetzingen performances and my acquaintance with Ponnelle.

Do you know who wanted to do it? István Kertész. I’ve had three great musical geniuses in my time, Kertész, I appreciated him immensely, a sparkling spirit, always with new ideas, one of which was Monteverdi. But never with him with old instruments. He did exciting things, the original version of Boris Godunov, Khovanshchina….

He wanted to do Schubert operas and Haydn. We were already talking about all that, we played a Haydn opera.

And Istvan said he needed a scenic partner and that could only be Ponnelle. And then I went to JPP and tried to get him. He was head of theatre in Düsseldorf at the time, he had done his first operas shortly before, so he hadn’t done much opera yet.

JPP took the bait, and that was the first partnership, Istvan and him.

The second was JPP and the great Nikolaus, Nikolaus the Great! (smiles)

and number three is Claudio Abbado. I had a lot of dialogue with him, also with Luigi Nono, we planned what could be done in terms of modern music. I was at the première of Nono’s opera ‘Ulisse’.

And the big centrepiece of my creative period was the one that outshone everything else that was being conducted, namely Nikolaus Harnoncourt with Monteverdi and then Mozart.

Katia Mann was at Orfeo, where one epoch reaches out to another.

Not at the premiere, but in a performance. She lived below us in Kilchberg.

Orfeo really marks the beginning of an important era in the history of interpretation, and the rediscovery of the beginnings of opera. NH has clearly recognised this. Opera began in 1607, almost exactly 400 years ago!

NH also lives in Kilchberg!

Yes, above, I gave him the tip for his house.

Orfeo and how speaking, the word, became important through the rhetoric of sound…

Yes, and how the abundant polyphony turned into the simplicity of the monody…..

…and the versatility of the orchestral accompaniment, the instruments, how it was first with the fanfares and trumpets, because the prince only had military music, and then later the harpsichords and theorbos…..

And you immediately wanted to play all three of Monteverdi’s operas that are still extant?

Yes, ‘Ulisse’ followed, and then ‘Poppea’, and then as number four the ‘Eighth Madrigal Book’.

Orfeo in December 1975, Poppea on 8 January 1977, Ulisse on 12 November 1977, Madrigalbuch with ‘Ballo delle ingrate’ and Combattimento in June 1979, both as the centrepiece, and then the Marienvesper in the Frauenmünster during the renovation of the Zurich Opera. He later did it in Salzburg Cathedral, and the responsorial arrangement was marvellous. That’s how it started with Nikolaus….

And then came all those international invitations?

I’ll tell you in order; (reads from his notes): Hamburg, Vienna, Edinburgh, Berlin, La Scala di Milano, that’s where my first contact with Abbado was. He saw Monteverdi in Edinburgh and was so enthusiastic that he invited him there as the maestro of La Scala at the time. That’s how my contact with Abbado came about.

How one thing leads to another!

Yes, and then came Munich, Wiesbaden, then there were specific invitations to New York and Japan, but we said: That’s it. The last guest performance was in ‘81.

And then the film adaptations…

They were in 1980, they’re on sale.

Karajan withheld them for a long time, do you know about that?

Not specifically, but NH and Karajan are such strangers, Karajan has nothing to do with early music, no interest whatsoever. They are two different worlds.

The Zurich Opera became an international house during this time, didn’t it?

It had also had remarkable things there before, Lulu, Hindemith, Martinu. The house had two sides, on the one hand, they were tied to the local tradition of the repertoire and operetta, two to three operetta premieres a year! Lehar was in Zurich during the Third Reich! However, they were also receptive to the new, they very soon played the new things, whether it was Orff, Eck, Hindemith, Reimann…. Everything was played immediately. Today that no longer exists, what a pity!

‘Curiosity’ and “greed”, the discussion has to be lively.

Let’s talk about the Mozart cycle, please!

I’ve done three Mozart cycles in my life, and the one in Cologne was still in my head, so I wasn’t very enthusiastic about the idea of a new Mozart cycle in Zurich.

I wanted Vivaldi and then Handel, those were my suggestions, Vivaldi was very important for all his contemporaries, right up to Bach. And he wrote a dozen operas. We had a special committee that studied Vivaldi, but nothing came of it. Handel was also under discussion, but JPP didn’t want that so much. Nikolaus said; we won’t get old forever, so let’s do Mozart.

Although we had new productions of Mozart in the programme. Then we started with the youth operas.

But you didn’t play all the youth operas?

No, not all of them. First there was ‘Lucio Silla’, 1981, then ‘Mitridate’, in between ‘Idomeneo’ – Nikolaus’ body and stomach piece. Now it was in Graz, I advised him very strongly to see Spoerrli for the ballet.

It was like this: JPP hated ballet, that’s because of his beginnings. He had done two ballets with Henze in Wiesbaden, which went wrong. That’s why he had an aversion to ballet. At the time, Nikolaus already insisted on the ballet for the final scene of ‘Idomeneo’, but JPP said: ‘No ballet for me. They then agreed to do the epilogue, the chaconne, but JPP didn’t want to stage it. He had all the participants come to the ramp, as if for the final applause, and everyone applauded Harnoncourt.

Because the music dominates here, the music alone has to carry it, and this is Nikolaus, ‘Nikolaus Mozart’ (!!!). That was an unsatisfactory result! JPP still remembered his Cologne ‘Idomeneo’. It was planned with Kertesz, but Kertesz had just died, three months before the Idomeneo premiere he had drowned – in the Mediterranean. And ‘Idomeneo’ is a sea play!!!

JPP did ‘Idomeneo’ in Zurich in a very similar way to Cologne.

And then came the rebuilding period, the Zurich Opera was being remodelled. It was a wonderful time for me, because I turned the whole city into an opera house. Churches, stadiums, squares…

Also with Nikolaus, we performed ‘Saul’ in a factory hall, a staged oratorio by Handel. We used one side of the hall in a rectangle and set up the choir like this, played in front of it in a triangle and placed the orchestra in front of it. Behind it in wide rows was the audience: 500-600 people. A huge success. It was my idea to do ‘Saul’, why? Because I remembered a Saul production from Mannheim, from way back when, with Mary Wigman as choreographer, I was an assistant at the time, that was in 1955. We were so impressed by the fact that you can stage a Handel oratorio in pantomime. I have it in my head that if you don’t have a theatre available, you can reinvent it in this way. Nikolaus really got involved and conducted it.

And then the Mozart continued with ‘Die Entführung aus dem Serail’ and ‘Cosi fan tutte’. And then after my directorship came ‘The Magic Flute’, then ‘Don Giovanni’, Ponnelle’s last production, exciting, because Don Giovanni ended with a stroke. That was also the case in Salzburg. He overreached himself with all the women. It wasn’t the devil who took him from outside, but the devil, the demon, is inside you. There’s something about that, and it was as if JPP had foreseen his own death, that was the year he died.

Harnoncourt said the following sentence in his speech at this memorial performance on 25 January 89:

Ponnelle said: with Monteverdi I walked in your street, with Mozart you have to walk in my street. Can you say something about that?

It is certainly the case that Ponnelle brought a great deal of Mozart experience with him, as you can see from the ‘Idomeneo’, which he brought from Cologne, and also the ‘Entführung’, with the idea of the Bassa as Joseph II, magical. Also his ‘Giovanni’. The Cologne Mozart cycle was on the programme for twenty years, as a festival in June, every year. With changing casts and conductors.

Ponnelle had also done Mozart in San Francisco, and after Harnoncourt with Barenboim in Berlin, and also this wonderful ‘Magic Flute’ in Salzburg, enchanting. So Ponnelle was right to say: I have a lot of experience and you are a novice. While Nikolaus had already done Monteverdi, JPP hadn’t yet. I completely agree with Nikolaus.

JPP was a hidden musician, could have easily conducted with a little introduction, not all music of course. The great thing about Ponnelle was that he was a trained painter, a trained stage person through directing, and a highly musical one at that, and also perfect in three languages, born in Germany, fluent in French, Italian and English. He spoke to everyone in their own language. You have to look very hard for a theatre personality like Ponnelle.

Were you already in Vienna when Ponnelle died?

I went to Vienna in 1986, where Ponnelle was still doing Rossini’s ‘Italiana in Algiers’

Christoph Groszer came to Zurich after you,

Yes, and he continued the Mozart cycle. Then came ‘The Magic Flute’. Handel’s ‘Julius Caesar’ was also performed in Zurich with Nikolaus, a guest performance from Vienna.

Did you probably continue with the Zurich Mozart cycle?

Yes, I did, but then unfortunately…

‘Figaro’ then came from Salzburg, this festival performance from Ponnelle’s hand…

…yes, and then they added this ‘Titus’, which was done by John Dew. I thought it was terrible, it was nothing! And that got us talking and we said that we wanted to do it better at some point.

Was NH not happy with this Titus either?

No, he didn’t like it at all!

That’s what I thought, because I was at the last rehearsals and I’ve never seen him so grumpy before or since.

That’s exactly what didn’t suit him, this updating and this intimate conception. That’s why it came about, that was my time in Vienna, I wanted it in Vienna, originally with Ponnelle and him. That didn’t happen….. ( Drese says all this quite lamentingly). Oh!

But I have more to say about Vienna. First came ‘Idomeneo’. We wanted to go back to a Mozart cycle. My third Mozart cycle, this time with different directors, although Ponnelle was still alive at the time.

Were all the Mozart operas planned?

Eight at least, ‘Lucio Silla’, ‘Idomeneo’ ….

In my Viennese era, there was a wonderful ‘Figaro’, but without him, and a wonderful ‘Giovanni’, but without him. Because there was another Claudio Abbado and he said: I also want to do Mozart. But he limited himself to these two operas.

Was ‘Figaro’ staged by Jonathan Miller?

Exactly! It was very good, this realism! At the Theater an der Wien. A few small flaws.

Even better was ‘Giovanni’, with Luc Bondy, a difficult, difficult, but brilliant in the end! And some of Abbado’s best, he was on top form.

Claudio had reserved these two operas for himself, Nikolaus was allowed to do everything else.

Abbado has a much broader repertoire!

Yes, ‘Wozzeck’ as a success in Vienna, hard to believe! ‘Pelleas and Melisande’ by Debussy, Verdi, Mussorgsky’s “Khovanshchina”… And then Rossini, that’s something Nikolaus doesn’t like, not at all.

Yes, and he doesn’t like Gluck either!

He’s doing Gluck an injustice, he should read him more carefully. I did ‘Iphigenia in Aulis’, there’s so much psychology in it, and incredible drama, very much so! He sees one step too short.

And Schubert’s ‘Fierrabras’, that was Abbado’s discovery, and he wanted that. It wasn’t easy at all to find a director for it. Then it was Ruth Berghaus, crazy but exciting!

Nikolaus did an outstanding ‘Idomeneo’ in Vienna, with a very remarkable final ballet.

So really with dance!

Yes, and it was psychologically motivated. We played the young couple’s crowning glory. First they dream about it, then it becomes reality. The whole final music without cuts.

(Drese has already said in a telephone conversation that he is somewhat offended by NH’s statement that this has never been done properly before, because in his opinion it was already ‘right’ in Vienna, note).

Now in Graz it was interpreted differently. He said in the final speech of Idomeneo that he had so many dissonances, and there was a leap in time for him. 1,000 years are in between and it tips over into a utopian time. It became a timeless vision, a celebration in a utopian time, a joyful vision.

Aha! Yes, in Vienna we didn’t have a leap in time, but it was realised in a dream, so to speak. The two of them sat on the ramp, had their hands in front of their eyes and dreamed. And then the dream was over, the whole ballet was there and it became reality: the enthronement of the new royal couple was shown. And then this Viennese performance had this grandiose stage set, this monster that broke in, a huge monster grew out of the stage, and it grew and grew and in the end was something like a mask. The whole stage was a mountain in the light, an improbable vision. And what was even more exciting: the famous death chorus was sung from the third tier, at the top back. Not on the stage. ‘O voto tremendo’ sounded marvellous throughout the house. And at the end, Elektra sat in the final box and watched the whole thing cynically. This production was full of great ideas and intense solutions.

It was Harnoncourt’s first appearance at the State Opera and he was a huge success. The orchestra also did a great job.

You must know that NH was notorious and, according to some, had no business at the State Opera.

That’s what I wanted to ask! I know from Philharmonic members that there was open resistance. The problem with the rehearsals…

…. and the change of services. There are 40 musicians in the performance and thirty of them haven’t had a rehearsal.

How did you deal with that?

Well, diplomatically. And with money, I paid for the rehearsals, extra, so I was constantly having money problems, they were blackmailing me. For the ‘Magic Flute’ revival, the orchestra refused to do a rehearsal. Nikolaus insisted on two rehearsals. What a fight that was, I made enemies of all the Philharmoniker! In the end, I paid for the two rehearsals. And when the performance came, there were people in the orchestra who hadn’t done these rehearsals. And in the second, third, fourth… half of them hadn’t rehearsed. According to the Viennese motto: ‘We don’t know what he’s conducting, we’re playing Mozart’s Magic Flute’.

‘The Magic Flute’ was the next opera, I was looking for a director, NH also had suggestions, I can’t remember who. And then I heard from all sides: it’s a Viennese piece, you have to have a Viennese director do it. And then I had the unfortunate idea of asking Otti Schenk. And he took the bait, and Nikolaus accepted him. All well and good, but he needed a set designer. I had seen the performances in New York with Chagall’s stage sets and I thought it would be an idea to ask a Viennese painter, Hundertwasser was the shortlist. But Schenk just said no. After all, we had someone from abroad: Yannis Kokos, that was relatively good, but the whole performance was wishy-washy.

However, Ponnelle’s Zurich ‘Magic Flute’ was not the yellow of the egg either. The strongest ‘Magic Flute’ that JPP has ever done was the one in Salzburg, at the Felsenreitschule. But when he has to create the space himself, he starts to go crazy. Things came out that are not so good. For example, that the choir walks around the orchestra.

The production is now in China (Shanghai, as far as I know)

Even the Zurich ‘Magic Flute’ was slated by the press, NH didn’t come off well either.

So the Vienna Zauberflöte was not good. It was a depressive phase for NH…

… you describe this in your book ‘Palast der Gefühle’.

And then came the matter of the Herrmanns. I went to Berlin with Nikolaus at the time and tried to bring him and the Herrmanns together so that they could agree on a concept for the kidnapping. At first it looked good, NH always sat in the corner and listened to what the Herrmanns were saying, they had the idea of doing the whole text. That then takes three or four hours, it never stopped. And that annoyed Santa, but the two said: ‘But please, that’s the original “Abduction” by Mozart. That’s how it is with him, and it’s a singspiel, and the play was very important back then.’ And that’s what NH had to watch and listen to. Six times! In December 1989, the ‘Cosi’ came, with Johannes Schaaf, the same one who did ‘Idomeneo’…

…and in Zurich with NH the ‘Aida’.

The two of them got along well. The ‘Cosi’ was then exported to London.

And then ‘Titus’ was on the programme, and then Nikolaus said he wanted to have an in-depth conversation with me, there were problems, the orchestra, that was changing, and so on. And so we went to the Julier Pass, met there for a tour, three hours up, two down, and he poured his heart out to me (Drese describes this in detail in his book ‘Der Palast der Gefühle’, note), and at the end he said: ‘I won’t do it’.

He cancelled ‘Titus’, so I had to find another conductor, and the same for ‘Lucio Silla’. These were the planned Mozarte during my time in Vienna, and he backed out of the last two. He referred to the fact that the circumstances are not right.

Why all this? I understand that he also has his problems with the Viennese mentality. But Mrs Alice is Viennese, and he is there with the Concentus. It really sounds like a psychosomatic insult.

I quote: ‘The Viennese are like swamp plants that need the smell of decay to develop their creativity. Do you know this sentence?

No, is it from Karl Kraus?

No, from Nicholas, it’s from the book! He said it in an interview. He often commented on Vienna, the smell of death, this layer of haze, everyone talks about dying. He sees the sloppiness, the unreliability, this yesyesyes and then no. Then animosity, prejudices, this terrible Viennese press that always annoyed him, which he always complains about. He didn’t read anything after that, but when something like that is written, it forms opinions.

And then you have to understand that in Vienna there is a majority and a minority. The majority are very conventional, steeped in tradition and prejudice for decades. And even today, Karl Böhm is the greatest, and they mourn the loss of Karajan, even though they both got thrown out of the country. And they yell boo and whistle when something is different from convention. One of the most popular productions in Vienna is Tosca, which is fifty years old – something like that.

But there is this minority, the young, the students, and it is with these people that Nikolaus has built up his Concentus. But the fact that he has a subscription cycle at the Musikverein was not yet the case in my time, that is not long ago, he had to work hard for it.

When NH first appeared in the ultra-conservative atmosphere of the State Opera, he was a foreign body, suspicious.

When Ioan Hollender was there, there was no NH.

Now, thanks to my suggestion, the Theater an der Wien finally exists, and I played Mozart there. I went to the minister at the Federal Ministry to get the Theater an der Wien for Mozart and baroque operas. They said: Why do we need baroque opera, at best we want a Gluck! Handel has no place in the opera!

And now the Theater an der Wien has its own management, and now it’s happening. I can only say: Bravo! NH belongs there, unless he does Wozzeck…

What do you think of his current work, Kušej and all that?

I don’t understand him. He says that for him, only what is in the text and in the notes from the composer applies. And then things happen on stage that cannot be justified by anything. And I ask myself: what is wrong there? Has he fallen victim to the director? Are you jumping over your shadow? Do you want to present yourself in a new way? There are real question marks for me.

Whereby I take his views very seriously and listen very carefully when he says, for example, that E major is the most negative key in Mozart’s Magic Flute, and that is the key of Sarastro. There is no E major in the whole of Mozart, only Sarastro has it with the second aria (‘In diesen heilgen Hallen…’) he interprets this negatively, or as a lust for power…

…or as a euphemism

… or a cliché. But he is the powerful one who gets his way. But Mozart was also a convinced freemason, he composed six great pieces for them, and that was still the case until two weeks before his death, you can’t talk me out of that. I also read the book by Jan Assmann, the Egyptologist, a great expert… Freud is also on this path.

I see problems there. Music theatre has become pure director’s theatre and director’s theatre is a novelty show. When a director today is commissioned to stage ‘Figaro’, he says to his dramaturge: who staged it last? And where was that, and how was it? Pictures and press please. And then he has to do something new, that’s what I mean by the novelty problem. And Nikolaus must not go along with that.

The amazing thing about the Graz ‘Idomeneo’ was that it was quite conventional. There was nothing provocative at all. And I thought to myself, aha, that’s how you really want it!

That’s his nature!!! And that’s why I’m telling you, sometimes he just looks at the music and doesn’t look at what’s happening on stage at all. That’s his world, he sees the music and doesn’t understand what they’re doing up there.

He m u s t live in his world!

He has to do that, he is a giant in his field, tremendous. And his great interpretative talent, plus his wit and humour, his linguistic fantasy, everything that comes out of his mouth during rehearsals….

He is constantly interpreting, reading music…

When I ask him about his view of the world, and from occasional comments I conclude, then it is deeply pessimistic. He writes and says this over and over again: if it goes on like this with art, music and literature, we will go to the abyss. Such sentences as ‘The human world is at an end’ can be said.

And when that is the case (in a strong, almost exuberant voice): then he must not do it!!! Then he must defend himself, must stick to what has grown in him, is alive. And whatever he says, it must not be revoked on stage just because there are modernisms in it that some director has wrapped around his finger.

He would have to refuse certain things here as well, which he does loudly with other conductors.

If you read his books carefully, you won’t find anything about directing. In his last book (‘Töne’), there is almost nothing. Background, his understanding, everything, but no directing!

Maybe he’s just not interested in the end?

You are right (insistently)! Only one person got him interested in it, and he was on stage with him like a director. Jean Pierre always asked, how can I do this, they directed together,

I was told that it was the same with Flimm.

Yes, that may be true. Flimm is so musically insecure. As for Flimm, I have to say, this new ‘Poppea’ was terrible!!!!! That bedroom, those stairs, those cleaning ladies, the whole nonsense! It was impossible, I stand by it.

Klaus Michael Grüber’s Ulisse had some good moments, and it was good in the end.

I loved that, I saw the Greek light in it, these gods as colours, the feeling of Greece!

I could identify with that, yes, but Poppea was the last straw.

But did you see Flimm’s Salzburg Poppea?

I saw that! That was better, that was quite good. But you see, Mr Flimm said I couldn’t do it again like I did in Salzburg. For me, there is a real law that we have to take very seriously in our time:

We must not lose our historical consciousness. The culture that has emerged and continued to grow within us cannot be sold, betrayed, given away for novelties for the sake of money and growth. Everything today is for sale, for consumption. And so opera is also consumed and sold and thrown away. Everyone asks: what can be sold. And they don’t ask about the growing awareness of what was and what allows us to continue living.

Not that I am being historicist, but I have to respect what has grown. And take the word and the note literally, as Nikolaus Harnoncourt says.

I have the feeling that this curiosity about news in opera comes from the fact that we don’t do any new operas, or not enough, that we have to keep reworking the old ones. And in the end we only take the old works as a template for our own ideas.

Absolutely right! And you know what else I would wish for St. Nicholas: he should be invited to Bayreuth to conduct Tristan.

Is something like that planned?

I don’t know. I know the new director in Bayreuth, Eva Wagner-Pasquier, quite well; we just recently talked in Zurich. You could tell her that and she would listen.

And do you think he would do it?

In this book, there are a few places where it says: Tristan excites me!

He has already conducted excerpts of it in Graz in a concert performance.

Well then!

I recently met a musician in Graz who is a good friend of Erich Höbarth, and she firmly claimed that he would soon be doing Tristan in Bayreuth.

You see, it’s in the air! If I were with Eva Wagner in Bayreuth, I would say: go for it. Nikolaus needs this experience.

I do think it would work, especially the phrasing…

I have staged Tristan three times, always with great passion. The first time, I was completely abstract; then I linked Goethe’s Theory of Colours to the music in a production with Swoboda. I identified the themes of the music with colours – exciting, a great success. First in Wiesbaden in 1965/66 and then improved in Cologne in 1970/71.

And then I did it in Zurich and was gripped by the Zurich Wagner spirit and historicised it. I did eight Wagner operas in Zurich. The ‘Ring’ with Ul de Rico, in four epochs, primeval times, early prehistory, Germanic times, present. Unfortunately, it was not performed that often. Every new artistic director wants to do their own ‘Ring’.

As a final word: it is clear from everything that I am very close friends with Nikolaus, despite some differences of opinion, that doesn’t matter at all. And when he is in Zurich, we invite each other. And when it’s someone’s birthday, we come. And I was also aware of the tragedy with his son.

He conducted eleven or twelve works during my time as director, but what came afterwards: Schubert Haydn, Offenbach (!!!), I find that so appealing, I love it, I love Offenbach!

I can’t keep up with that, and that was the first thing I couldn’t keep up with with Harnoncourt.

Do you know what he says: Offenbach was the Mozart of the 19th century.

The incredible causticity…

Criticism of society, of capitalism, that’s how it should be!

I came to Offenbach through Cologne, because Offenbach comes from Cologne.

With kind permission of Anna Mika

Singing and acting are one

Ms Kasarova, you have been working with Nikolaus Harnoncourt since the very beginning. I remember John Dew’s production of Mozart’s ‘Titus’ in 1990, in which you played Annio.

That’s right, yes!

You were still very young then!

Let me do the maths, now I’m 43…

That production was special. What was it like working with Dew and Harnoncourt?

I wasn’t put off by the modern production; it was very well directed, and I’ve never been the kind of singer to be put off by a particular direction.

Not even by Martin Kušej? We’ll come back to that later!

No, not at all! I love theatre. I sing because I can act; I’m more of an actress than a singer. It’s no trouble at all for me. There are few singers who like it that way; most sing because they want to sing. For me, the two belong together.

Harnoncourt, yes, you can say a lot about him. What is very important to me: I have worked with all the conductors in the world, only with one or two not, but with the most important. But it’s not about the importance, we know how it works. There are reserved artists, serious artists, and Nikolaus Harnoncourt is one of them. He has never presented himself to the press like others. What makes him different from other conductors is that he likes the singers, not just in words, but genuinely. In 2009, I will celebrate my 20th stage anniversary, but never – or almost never – has a conductor told an orchestra to listen to the singers. Almost never, except for Harnoncourt.

Fantastic!

Not just once, and regardless of the orchestra, the Vienna Philharmonic, Chamber Orchestra of Europe or Concentus Musikus Wien. I feel the need to tell the truth, not just nice words. Harnoncourt is someone who knows an incredible amount. What I have learned from him…. yes, I am also an instrumentalist…..

…..a pianist, right?

Yes, and that’s why I also think instrumentally. The pauses that there are mean something: take your time! Harnoncourt taught me that, and that every note has a meaning. And it’s very important to find the right expression and the right colour in your voice. Actually, I’ve always thought in this direction, and he confirmed it for me. I’ve always thought that way purely intuitively. As a young singer, you need a good environment, and if you have the chance… With Harnoncourt, it’s never about shouting, about a brutal, unaesthetic way of doing things – aesthetics are relative, but if the aesthetics are right, the expression is right!

What was it like working with the other singers back then? Ann Murray was Sesto, wasn’t she?

Ann is and remains a wonderful singer for me, she is a real personality, as a person and as an artist. Unforgettable, you don’t meet someone like that every day.

I was able to develop a great many wonderful roles with Harnoncourt.

Exactly! The book will be structured according to operas, and I would very much like to go through the individual roles that you sang with him. So, Annio and Sesto, then.

They are both wonderful roles! Vocally demanding, full of feeling! In general, I would like to say about Mozart: for me, ‘La Clemenza di Tito’ and ‘Idomeneo’ are very intimate pieces, subtle, with the focus on human relationships. Of course, the same is true of ‘Cosi fan tutte’, but not in this deep, serious sense. I love ‘The Clemenza’ more than anything, because it is written very honestly. Mozart differs from other composers in his honesty and his profound expression. I can’t describe it at all. And every time, no matter how tired you are – I travel so much – you feel this human way hidden inside. And despite the sadness, the bitterness that is often there, there is also an ideal world inside.

I am so disappointed by our present world, authentic people are disappearing more and more, and so you feel this music all the more, it becomes all the stronger.

I feel the same way, I am turning more and more to music.

What is happening today is terrible, I have no idea why. Through these personalities – we are talking about Harnoncourt: he is a man who has done so much, learned so much, and has so many experiences. He confirmed what I feel myself. We make music through our experiences. That is our soul, our thoughts, what we bring to the stage. As a conductor, as a singer…

Did you sing your first Sesto in Salzburg?”

Yes, I sang it for the first time in Salzburg, under Gustav Kuhn and in the production by Karl-Ernst and Ursel Herrmann. In Salzburg, I also sang it with Harnoncourt and Martin Kušej. Kušej is also extraordinary! He can read music…

…which is not always the case with directors.

I don’t want to say anything negative, but it’s not always the case. Harnoncourt and Kušej get along very well. Martin Kušej is very intelligent, extremely well prepared. Harnoncourt doesn’t like people who just turn up without preparation.

Maybe that’s why he enjoys working with him so much?

I can well imagine it. Kušej’s attitude, the same opinion, the same direction…

He knew Harnoncourt’s son, Eberhard, who died in an accident, very well, which was certainly another reason.

What about Sesto? He was particularly special in Salzburg. He makes this attack on Titus…

…nevertheless, for me Sesto is a saint. I feel the same way Mozart is portrayed in films today, so crazy. He was certainly a highly sensitive person and therefore manipulable because he was a good person. I think Mozart related to this character himself, you can feel it in the way he wrote it. Idamante in Idomeneo is quite similar. That’s my humble opinion (Vesselina Kasarova really does seem extremely modest, note)

You say that very nicely! You are currently the Sesto par excellence!

Yes, I am asked to do it very often. Maybe it’s also because I certainly don’t copy anyone, I do it the way I imagine it. If they like it, great; if not, well… I have to be convinced by what I do. That’s why I have such respect for artists like Harnoncourt, because he is also unique. Young artists should learn that: the more authentic, the stronger. Don’t copy what others do! That’s the only way to achieve, develop and think outside the box.

What is the state of opera at the moment, and how will it develop in the future?

I haven’t got a clue! Top singers and top conductors are always in demand, and it would be a shame if it weren’t for them. Those at risk are the good ones who are on the next rung down, but not at the top. It’s a bit of a taboo subject. Without naming names, I can put it correctly. They are in danger of being overtaken by the third row, by those who say: we sing for a few years because we are young and look good. There are always people who look good, I’m amazed. For some time now, they have been relying on their good looks, but today they are losing their appeal. People are now saying: she’s so uncomplicated…

Because some of the people who work with the singers today have no idea.

There is always an audience, you can easily lure people with popular music. The problem is those who work with the music and have no idea, record companies, agencies. My agency, however, is professional, I’m lucky. The people who work with artists should not only think about today. But about tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, and what I do with this artist in 10 years. That’s a career!

That you build something!

Yes! It saddens me to say that it happens that singers disappear after four years, or that after four years they have already had two voice operations. Can you imagine! How can you talk about a career of 30/40 years? You have to respect the singers, especially those who work with them. And the singers should develop more of a personality and also be able to say no sometimes.

You started very young yourself…

Yes, and often said no. But it’s all a matter of technique, I worked on my voice every day for five years. Today you work a little for one or two years and then you go on stage.

Really, is that how it is?

Yes, it is! There are many charlatans as teachers. They promise the singer everything, and suddenly he doesn’t get any work, is confused…

But that has always been the case and always will be, but thank God there are great personalities coming through in the new generation, too. That means they have good intuition, a good sense of what is needed, bolstered by 100% technique and a personality that provides stability. No one can throw me off balance. And there is something else that is important to me: never stepping out of my shadow. It is easy to overestimate yourself, it is an illness for which there is no cure. A few compliments and there you go! I have managed, thank God, never to be superficial, and no one can persuade me to do anything. Maybe because I am a bit suspicious.

You did Offenbach with Harnoncourt… You radiate… you must have enjoyed doing that!

It was just fun! But there was a lot of work behind it. But Harnoncourt has a tremendous sense of humour, even though he is such a philosopher.

And a pessimist!

I’m a pessimist too! But his sense of humour: he simply brings everything he has to every rehearsal, every performance. I often feel that much younger conductors are just putting on an act at the following performances. Harnoncourt is always there with body and soul, that’s professionalism, that’s love of music! He’s not one to show the audience what a good conductor he is.

He’s not one to rehearse in front of the mirror!

(laughs) No, no, no! He doesn’t need to and he finds it awful.

So let’s talk about Belle Hélène!

That was also a wonderful combination with Lohner. He could have played any role if he had wanted to.

Exactly. Working with an actor is certainly very different from working with a director. Lohner certainly worked with you very precisely from an acting point of view.

Sometimes he would just give you an idea or a word, and you would have the vision. It’s not about talking a lot; people who know a lot often say very little.

Offenbach’s wit is very sarcastic, and Harnoncourt does it in a very particular way, not superficially funny, more as a satire. Right?

Yes, but in a very fine and intelligent way. It’s not cheap or over the top. It’s ingenious, and people understand that it’s ingenious. But it’s subtle. The balance is right. That’s not easy. It’s the same as with kitsch.

And those beautiful costumes by Castelbajac!

Yes, that was fun. And then there’s Périchole…

A special character, she really lived, and there is also a novel by Thorton Wilder in which she plays a role. I remember you as a very young Périchole.

Yes, she is young, very young. Hélène is a mature woman. But whether the character is young or not, you can’t really sing the parts young, Offenbach is not to be underestimated. Operettas are some of the most difficult things I have experienced. I thought, oh yes, we sing and dance, but it’s not so easy to show the lightness, and Harnoncourt found this freedom in Offenbach, with the tempi, the expression.

His Offenbach sounds quite different from others.

I think it’s phenomenal! And he helped me find the colour in every aria, and that’s something that helps me with every composer.

That’s what I wanted to ask you: when you sing the Sesto with other conductors, for example Franz Welser-Möst, does Harnoncourt’s image of Mozart still come into it?

Oh yes!!! Every conductor leaves something behind – Welser-Möst is a great personality, too. There are conductors who say absolutely nothing, and then I can use the experience I have gained with Harnoncourt or Welser-Möst. Unfortunately, it’s sad, but I have to say it honestly…

Even at the level at which you work?

Yes, there are proportionately more good singers than conductors today. The good conductors, including Franz Welser-Möst, have a clarity, they want something and follow it through. Not just once in a rehearsal in a closet, but in all the performances. Again: personalities!

The parts of Hélène and Péricheole were written for Hortense Schneider, who supposedly had a very high, almost squeaky voice, and you have a mezzo-soprano.

Yes, possibly, but the parts suit me very well. When you see the text and the notes of these parts, you realise that you have to have warmth in your voice. So a mezzo can interpret it well, because a mezzo has that warmth. I’m not saying that a soprano can’t interpret it, but it will be different. And the melancholy that lies within… Offenbach is ingenious. He was forced to write these operettas because of the times he lived in. And yet he still managed to express what he wanted. Imagine if he had had the opportunity to write something serious!

The boundaries between genres! You also sang Poppea and Penelope by Monteverdi with Harnoncourt.

Ah yes! I had scarlet fever for the premiere of Poppea. The doctor didn’t recognise it straight away. I was 39 at the time, I wouldn’t wish it on anyone! It’s a crazy story. But it shows that we singers are dependent on our bodies.

Poppea is actually a soprano part, with Ponnelle it was Rachel Yakar, then Silvia MacNear

Yes, but the tessitura is right. I’m someone who is very careful, but with Monteverdi there is no danger. It depends on the expression you have. Monteverdi needs colourful voices, the range is not the dangerous thing. I would never sing Fiordiligi or Elvira, I am often asked to do the latter.

It would be possible, Ann Murray did it.

I wouldn’t want to sing that, maybe just once with Harnoncourt.

Karl Heinz Grüber directed Ulisse, didn’t he?

Fantastic! Very strong in expression.

How did Grüber work with you, coming from the film business as he did?

The greatest directors don’t talk so much, they let things develop, they have ideas, but… they don’t do this nonsense…

Can you say they give the form within which you can develop the role yourself?

Yes, yes! I was shocked when he died.

Poppea with Flimm was difficult, wasn’t it? Flimm told me that he had problems himself.

Oh, why? It was excellent!

To transpose it into the modern age would not have been a good idea, he said.

Really? I thought it was exciting! Flimm is an extremely self-critical person; others would praise themselves constantly.

One final question: as a singer in today’s opera, with director’s theatre, is it still possible to express yourself enough?

I always try to find a way. Today we have no other choice! And I feel that when the audience sees a conventional production today, they are unhappy again. What do they want now? You can’t please everyone!

With kind permission from Anna Mika

Mr Hampson, was your first role with Nikolaus Harnoncourt Don Giovanni in Zurich?

No, it was Dido and Aeneas. Staged with Nikolaus Lenhoff. Roberta Alexander was Dido, and that was my first encounter with Harnoncourt in Graz at the styriarte festival.

And then… no, Dido was the second production.

In 1985, that is, before that there was Achilles in Julius Caesar, and then in Zurich, when I was engaged there, one of my first productions was Julius Caesar itself. Federik Mirdita directed, a nice guy. That was the scenic one. Otherwise I had many concerts with NH. Dido had previously been performed in concert form in Vienna. And then in Graz I met my present wife, Andrea Herberstein, who was then the director of the styriarte festival.

Then came the Ponnelle cycle in Zurich, the first was Cosi, with Lucia Popp, Ann Murray, Gösta Winbergh, Claudio Nicolai and…? (Julia Hamari, editor’s note:), a legendary production. In this production, the two deceased tenors, Winbergh and Deon van der Walt, were my partners one after the other.

And then Figaro came for me at the Met, and then in 1987 the 200th anniversary of the premiere of Don Giovanni in concert, but my first Don Giovanni was staged in Zurich with NH and JPP. And when JPP died, we brought the old Figaro from Salzburg.

And then there was the Don Giovanni with Kušej in Salzburg?

Yes, in 2002. It was a spectacular opening for the new Rusizka era.

How was working with Harnoncourt, after all your experiences with other conductors?

It should be said that adaptability is part of our job as singers and performing artists. That doesn’t mean that we don’t have our own opinions, our abilities, our fervour and whatever, but it is up to a strong conductor to transfer his imagination, his ideas, etc. to us. When Levine or Abbado or Muti or Harnoncourt demand something, we have to be able to do it, and we have to be able to understand it. Even when Harnoncourt asked us to do something seemingly strange, it was always logical and reasonable and explained. I often had a different opinion in Harnoncourt’s world, because he is thorough, logical and reasonable, and he likes to argue. He likes people who say, ‘I don’t understand that, for this and that reason.’ On top of that, I got to know Harnoncourt very early in my career, and because of that, he shaped my attitude in a lot of ways. I am very grateful to him. He is one of the greatest musicians I have ever met in my life. Later, when I had gained more experience with other great conductors, Harnoncourt simply added a very special class to my understanding, very exciting. But the truth, the truthfulness, the thorough, uncompromising search for roots and connections, nobody can escape that with him. He has been a great teacher for me.

If you perhaps want to compare him more closely with the other conductors…?

There are incredible personalities among the musicians, the conductors: an Bernstein, Abbado, Muti. There is a reason why they are so great, but they are very different. I like to compare it to mountaineering, one goes the way from the south, the other from the north, but it is always the same mountain.

Isn’t it true that NH conveys a great deal during rehearsals, while other conductors, for example Abbado, provide inspiration at the moment of performance?

Yes, the two of them have very different approaches to rehearsals. Abbado is one of the giants of the old school: he can achieve something with his baton, he listens, and there is an interplay with the singers. He is not necessarily a vocal coach, a music teacher, but he is a great musician in his own right. You have to have a certain level of ability yourself before you can really satisfy Abbado. That’s right, he doesn’t have much to say in rehearsals.

But NH is almost a chamber musician in the sense that he wants to swear everyone involved to the principle of how to sing or play music. There are always very thorough, essential discussions. There are conductors who don’t do that, who think it should be taken for granted or that everyone has to find it for themselves.

Let’s talk about the roles! Aeneas first?

That was 22 years ago, and I only sang it then, so I have to think. A wonderful production, also in terms of Lenhoff’s direction! At the time, I was fascinated by the sound of the Concentus and its very different way of phrasing, and the spontaneity of NH! Äneas is simply this fresh, young, naive, radiant man who is about to become a hero. And that suited the young baritone that I was back then, who simply took to the stage and sang his radiant notes. A very beautiful time, NH was very satisfied.

We also did the St. Mary’s Vespers.

The Handel then, Giulio Cesare?

Achilles and Julius Caesar were great too! I give NH credit as the father of original instruments and original sound practice for casting real men in these heroic roles. Because today that’s unthinkable, the baroque mafia comes along and says: this has to be sung by a mezzo-soprano or a countertenor. I still think it’s better when these heroes are baritones. A huge change happened during my career. The whole original sound movement is attributed to NH, but ultimately his practice was very flexible. In Vienna, Caesar Benjamin Luxon and I were then in Zurich. Nevertheless, it was NH who reintroduced a countertenor to Monteverdi. Esswood had an enormous career with him, as did Deller, which is fascinating. Achillas is a general, a player in the whole thing. I really liked singing JC, the role. I watched it again the other day, I think I could still sing it.

It’s a very extensive part!

Yes, very much so. Later, in 1990, I sang Ulisse. These mythological figures appeal to me, they stimulate my thoughts a lot.

What is it that appeals to you?

Although they are of course normal men, their existence is very laden with metaphors. They represent an ideal world of ideas and feelings, instead of, aha, such trousers, such shoes. Just the normal thing. That fits very well with the singing. A more modern version of the hero is William Tell, but he is first and foremost an ordinary man who is then called upon to be heroic, and in doing so he becomes very much associated with the iconic, the mythological. That is why it has become a folk myth. These are exciting worlds of thought, larger than what we live in everyday life, and I believe that theatre should support and present this world. I do not think that every opera in the name of comprehensibility has to be dragged down into the present context. I don’t think the audience needs that, they are often smarter than the directors assume (laughs).

Don Giovanni is a special case. I can’t emphasise enough how grateful I am that my first encounter with Cosi, with Le nozze di Figaro and especially with Don Giovanni was in Jean-Pierre Ponnelle’s hands. And then with either NH or Levine. That is such a powerful foundation that even 15 or 20 years later, when I sing one of these roles and offer something to the director, who is thrilled, I say: no, please, that’s not from me, that’s from Ponnelle.

In general, working with Harnoncourt on a Mozart piece or a piece with recitatives in general, and one where the dramaturgy unfolds in this harmonic and rhythmic development of language and song, is simply indescribable. So thoroughly, so naturally, so purely in the search for the meaning of why exactly this character now says exactly this… And then he says that the harmony in time would be like that, and this scale aims for it, it’s phenomenal. That is a cornerstone for all my work,

for example in Simone Boccanegra, definitely not a piece for Harnoncourt…

,,,,ah, Verdi, why not?

Yes, he can do whatever he wants!!! But when Daniele Gatti explains this recitative in the third act with the suspended harmony that is only resolved two pages later, then it is exactly the same idea. And I can go along with that and offer something myself. This kind of thorough work is the way of great conductors, and of them, Harnoncourt is something very special.

This book of his sayings is great. There isn’t a page I can’t underline.

Sabine Gruber is an author, she also writes fiction, and she sings in the Arnold Schoenberg Choir.

Yes, that Arnold Schoenberg Choir! When I sang in the B Minor Mass for the first time – even though I had done St John Passion before – it was like a new world opening up. You only wanted to talk about the scenic works, but these passions do have a scenic nature, this tension and vibrancy. And so I have to say something about the religious works in relation to NH. It is well known that I am not such a fan of John Elliot Gardiner – but the big difference between Gardiner and NH, and I don’t want to impute anything to Gardiner in terms of religion, but the big difference is that for NH, a performance of the passions is a path of faith, it is a work that he dedicates to his God. NH is very religious, something I didn’t realise at first. When he plays the St John Passion, he reads from the Bible,

For him it is like a church service…

The cantatas are church services too, of course in a certain style, Bach and so on.

Metaphorically speaking, you were in church. That is very rare.

Not enough is said about Harnoncourt: the man is deeply religious. Deeply devoted to the origin of the works, this is not a concert piece, it is touching.

When I was a student in Washington, we had a crazy baroque group. They collected these first Telefunken recordings by the Harnoncourts, and when I sang with them, I was 20 years old, we listened to them. And the fact that I was able to make music with NH: it still gives me goosebumps, it’s incredible!

My very first recording in front of a microphone was with the Concentus and NH, I was quite nervous, and then also depressed when I heard the result. I thought at the time that they would re-record it with another singer and that was that. That NH was satisfied after all and invited me again… I listened to a lot of records back then and thought my own voice was quite uninteresting. I thought – no heart feelings, he should invite whoever he wants after me. And that he kept inviting me after all, and Alice! I remember exactly the day in Graz in 1989 when NH offered me the du word.

A great gift!

It came out of the blue. Andrea was still the director of the styriarte festival back then, and I had time off and drove him around. I drove instruments for the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, took him to the airport, etc., and fetched things from Vienna. We talked a lot about music in the car back then, really from musician to musician. Andrea received the offer to be on a first-name basis much later. I was almost embarrassed about it, and I asked him if I could also be on a first-name basis with him in rehearsals or whether I should be Professor. He then said (in a grumpy voice): ‘You is you’.

NH has been a constant companion since I was aware of music.

For many people. It is so touching to hear the statements I get in my interviews in this regard.

Now the directorial views, first Cosi:

The scenic work with Ponnelle was equally thorough, and when NH and he disagreed, there was a fascinating tension in the room. But JPP was a theatre person, even if he came from a musical background. NH is also a stage person, but he explores the dramaturgy through the musical notation of Mozart: what an Andante does, what an Andantino does… He is firmly convinced that if he gets the music right, the right dramatic energy will follow, but that is not always true. Me, actually walking on stage…

But when these two masters worked together… even Ponnelle was sometimes surprised by NH’s tempi, but he could implement them immediately.

So he followed NH?

Not always, but mostly. He had to, of course, because NH made music, but there were compromises when the tempo couldn’t be implemented on stage.

We could talk for hours about Don Giovanni. But one thing is for sure: the key word is neither ‘good’ nor ‘evil’, but ‘irony’, and this irony is Mozart’s stroke of genius. What Giovanni says, in which music he does it and what effect he wants to achieve, all this is a permanent contradiction. Except in certain places, and these are almost the most banal, like the serenade. It is not ironic, and that is the tragedy of it. Because this great mythological figure has an inferiority complex. He humiliates everyone else just to prove that he is the greatest. And then in this D major serenade, he lets all his toys out of the bag for a chambermaid who is not seen. And with supposed success. Supposed! Because we see no success at all that evening, there is talk of success, but only talk. But what we see is an obsessed, broken man who does not believe in God, who goes against all nature, who pulls down men as a whole and wears down women. Not even in a sophisticated, fascinating way. Don Giovanni has no musical language of his own; he takes on the musical language of each of the other characters.

He doesn’t even have an aria!

‘Fin ch’han dal vino’ is not an aria, it’s a self-suggestion, a binge, a binge, like a drug addict…

So Don Giovanni is a drug addict after all, like in Salzburg this year?

No, no, he’s not an addict, that’s bullshit. Everything is being made so small, it’s getting smaller and smaller. It’s been a long time since there was a worthy Don Giovanni production. I was never thrilled by our set for Giovanni in Salzburg, but Kušej did have the greater dignity of the characters in mind. And in the second summer we had a very good performance. The film version, well, it had to be done, the circumstances were wrong, the cast too, the conductor was not NH. In the first summer we were still groping our way around, it was new, not quite sure. The 2003 series of performances was outstanding. It was the most controversial production I have ever done. It was rejected, but also the opposite. Afterwards, I met people with tears in their eyes who told me they had never understood the work until they saw it staged this way. At the same table, someone was seething with anger, ranting that it was the most unworthy piece of rubbish he had ever seen. The two then discussed. But that is not what art should be. It does represent something that we should all deal with. It is completely irrelevant whether Thomas Hampson agrees with this production. If the philosophy, the universality of this work is preserved, then I have a responsibility to respect that, even if I do not agree with every detail. That’s why I remained loyal. Because it was known that I was not satisfied, I was not happy. But it wasn’t that bad. Kušej and I are very good friends and we became even better friends through this struggle, and we discussed individual scenes for hours. It was very exciting work!

Are there fundamental differences between the two Giovannis?

Well, I have done Don Giovanni quite a few times. My fundamental conviction is that he is a difficult character. He has much more in common with a Dracula or a vampire than with Casanova – although the dark side of Casanova is dark enough. If you go back to Tirso de Molina, to the puppet show, it has always been a metaphorical piece, the content of insatiable sensuality, of an unbending will. The epitome of the unforgivable sin that any human being can commit by saying ‘I can save myself,’ ‘I am unique in nature,’ ‘I am my own god.’ Regardless of what religion you follow, you are not respectfully subordinate to nature. God is also included in nature. I don’t mean the church’s God, but the All-God. And Don Giovanni destroys that, in that sense he is the epitome of evil. He has to kill to feed his own life, he walks around like a big rooster just to prove to himself what he wants to be, because if he succeeds, sensuality comes back to him. He likes to drink, have women and other things. To present him as a contemporary drug addict is sooo small. He is much uglier than that. I feel sorry for a drug addict, but not for Don Giovanni. After a Don Giovanni performance, I have an upset stomach and irritable nerves, as if I had done something wrong. I take this character very seriously, he has a tremendous consequence for women as well as for men, for people who are willing to experience and think the darkest of our lives. The fact that there is gallows humour, a perversity, the dramma giocoso, is also this irony. This genre designation means that there are parody-like figures in the piece, buffo. Through these, the human shines through.

Leporello, for example?

For example. In any case, he is no wannabe Don Giovanni; the two are not interchangeable, and that is the comedy. When Leporello tries to be DG, it’s not funny, because it immediately becomes clear with what depraved fervour Don Giovanni acts. Nobody can imitate him, he can’t even imitate himself. When a singer plays this role really well, even if he has a beautiful voice, the audience should dislike him. He is not the hero.

How was the end of DG interpreted in the two productions? In Zurich, they even left out the Ultima scena?

Yes, I will never forget that, the ‘Tagesanzeiger’ or… (maybe another newspaper in Zurich) had the headline: ‘And at the end, an ordinary corpse’. A scathing review! The critic accused Ponnelle of dragging the whole thing down. But that was the crux of the matter: in the end, we are all corpses, because Don Giovanni is in each and every one of us.

After NH and JPP, I had a DG at the Met with Zefirelli, which shaped my image of the role. He is a murderer, a rapist, a sophisticated driving force. It was the same with Kušej. He says: this is a man who does all this in broad daylight, that’s why it was so bright on stage, this recklessness. This audacity. He looks at Anna’s face with a huge smile, caresses her cheek and says, yes, that’s right, unfortunately I had to kill your father. It excites you, right? And it really does excite her!!! It’s a complex thing, she’s not just a victim. Giovanni awakens the woman in this young lady, and she is completely oblivious to Ottavio. This has nothing to do with him, Ottavio represents society. And then there’s Masetto and Zerlina, they are the epitome of society. The other characters are either out of touch with society or are outside of it altogether, and they have to constantly practice social graces. They are mythological figures. Donna Elvira is an image of womanhood, a symbol, but she ultimately fails as well. Entering the convent is not a positive sign; she is hiding, unable to cope. We are more open to seeing this today than we were 200 years ago. Giovanni is the unfinished masterpiece of Mozart; it will never be finished. There are always contradictions; you can never play it only one way or the other.

Le nozze di Figaro, which I have also done many times with NH, on the other hand, is the most perfect opera, the perfection of dramaturgy.

Cosi is perfect in the musical sense. It is also very metaphorical, a ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’, a model arrangement.

Figaro is an incredible accomplishment, classic, from the characters, from the text. I am glad that NH does not cut the arias in the fourth act, they are valuable. Of course, they also had the function of entertainment back then.

The character of the Conte: if you modernise it today, if you don’t somehow perceive the social order from which it comes, you quickly have an unpleasant story in which the employer wants to sleep with the employee’s wife. But the matter is much more profound than that. I also believe that not everyone should walk around in Spanish court robes, but it’s not a Strindberg play either.

Like in Salzburg in 2006?

Claus Guth is a good director and a deep thinker, but I had other problems with this Figaro than just the Strindberg. I found the idea with this added Cherubino, the cherub… well… The idea is basically good, that something goes crazy on this great day, but it should have been a young person, a rosy-cheeked boy or a girl, and much more sparingly. The idea was good. But the execution… a 70-kilogram man on the shoulders of the count during the aria!!!!. My assessment: I am ready for modern interpretations, ready to work in all directions, but – and this is something I have learned from NH: opera is a musical art form, it has a theatrical component, a need for a stage, a performing quality. But every breath I take on stage is determined by the music, by the musical language. I can perhaps work against it, but not against it.

I also said this to Kušej, because he doesn’t have much experience with opera. ‘Look Martin, a lot of our work is not to create, but to decipher.’ And a trio is a trio. In theatre, you can also turn it into a sextet, and it’s incredible what you can do in theatre, and Kušej is a master at it. But Mozart has it all written down, and the finale of the Figaro second act is an eighth wonder of the world!

Secondly: I can’t and shouldn’t do anything on stage that has more impact than what I sing. The quintessence of the character must come from the music. Of course we can add to it, help, support, show connections, expand on it. But it has to be rooted in the origin: why this key, this rhythm, why this word as a metaphor of the soul through the world of thought, through music. A great many directors today don’t understand that. I don’t criticise them, but I feel sorry for them. They are not able to perceive these things. That is very problematic. Then the music becomes an accompaniment to the stage.

And this style mafia! A style is always a description of the music in retrospect. Schubert never said, I write in the Schubert style, but it was him. Style is always retrospective. Arranging. But the origin of a work is the spontaneity of human life. That is the epitome of Harnoncourt. You can argue about his tempi ect, but they do not see him with the same eyes.

Harnoncourt says: critics see me from behind, musicians from the front.

He is choosy about his directors?

He has to be! I would have liked to see Idomeneo.

Were you in it? Did you like it…

Yes, great. (My execution)

The Count is impossible in a modern context. That doesn’t mean that the Count needs to be excused. But it is difficult to imagine a successful Figaro without the social conditions, rules and relationships of the late 18th century. It’s not about the vulgarity of the piece, about ridiculing, it’s about the emancipation of women and democratic trends. The Conte is neither stupid nor malicious, but he is the epitome of someone whose time is past. He is not particularly talented, perhaps not like his father or uncle in the old days, and everything goes wrong for him all day long, and he looks around with indignant arrogance and asks why? My uncle, my father, had a handle on everything, why don’t I?

And he really has loving feelings for Susanna, it’s not primarily about sex for him. You have to know how marriages were contracted back then, how everyone had mistresses. It wasn’t as outrageously brazen as it was later. It’s just that Beaumarchais was thoroughly modern, the epitome of the modern at the time, you have to understand it that way.

As in all such works, it is about what is unthinkable: he should never come into this room, he should never grab her shoulders, etc.,

then we can tackle the character’s dilemma.

Then we can see Figaro in all the richness of his human dimension.

I have not seen a single modern production of ‘The Marriage of Figaro’ that touched me. The people fall by the wayside. In Guth’s production, there was a consistent narrative, but it was not nearly enough to experience what is going on inside these people.

On top of that, Cherubino was a bit of a Dennis Demenis (who is that, by the way?) with a high voice! But he is much more of an alpha male in the making. He goes from one chalice to the next like a crazed bee, and this natural sexual connection between a young man and an older woman, the theme of maturation.

The greatest thing Mozart wanted to say: Figaro and Susanne are good people who sincerely love each other. Why can’t they live the life they want?

I stopped playing the count because in modern productions he was shallow, ultimately boring. With Ponnelle it was quite different. In his production, the count was also portrayed with humour, always a bit late, yet he believes he is the great controller. But with Ponnelle, this and all the characters had dignity, all his relationships had this dignity.

For a modern person, it is difficult to imagine that the countess, his family relationship, remains intact, but the emotional world migrates to Susanna and her world. Perhaps it is because of her youthful freshness, or it is his unexpressed yearning for normality, because not every count is happy to have been born a count. But something has to remain with the count, and that is very important, namely these manners, the bearing of a count. He doesn’t just sit there, doesn’t pat anyone on the back, doesn’t grab Susanna’s lower abdomen. The question should always be asked: What is not possible under any circumstances? And you can build on that.

I hope you understand this: this taboo world in an opera is often underestimated, even in Weber, in Wagner.

The question should always be asked: what is not possible under any circumstances? And you can build on that.

I sometimes wonder what would have become of me if I had met NH ten years later. At the beginning of my career, Bernstein was still around, then Levine and NH, those were the giants. Schwarzkopf on the other hand, but they all gave something fundamental: that I was able to develop healthy instincts and should be an enquiring mind. At the time, I was not mature at all, far too little read, but my instincts said yes. I sensed: go further, and dig deeper, always ask. And they allowed me to cavort in my youthful errors, and yet they shaped me through their mastery. I have been very lucky.

In this pantheon of greats, I give a special place to my fatherly friend, the inviolable musician, Nikolaus Harnoncourt.

With kind permission from Anna Mika

Harnoncourt has completely rehabilitated Haydn’s operas.

Anna Mika: Professor Höbarth, how long have you been a member of Concentus?

Erich Höbarth: Since 1981. The first few years I wasn’t concertmaster yet, but I sat right next to Alice Harnoncourt. From about 1984 I was concertmaster. Alice could have easily continued in this role, but that’s how she chose to do things.

She fulfils so many other tasks, for example, she is his musical assistant.

Absolutely! It’s incredible what she does. She takes care of all the connections to the outside world. Then there is the transfer of the content from his score into all the parts, which is an immense amount of work to do manually! If you want to transcribe an entire opera, you sit for several hours for each part.

So many of NH’s performance markings are written into the sheet music from the outset!

Yes, the articulation, how long or short a note is, whether it is tied or not, the dynamics! All of that.

And the meaning too. I was eavesdropping in Zurich once, and the double basses of all sections had the word ‘erotic’ in their part

It’s not important, is it? Nobody could do it like Alice, even in the atmosphere of rehearsals. Well, I play the solos, but she is still the best at mediating between him and the orchestra. They are so well-rehearsed and it is so reassuring for him. It would be very different if she no longer played in the Concentus, it would be inconceivable.

It would also be inconceivable for anyone other than NH to conduct.

Unthinkable for me!

(When this interview was published on this blog in December 2019, we knew differently. After the death of Nikolaus Harnoncourt in March 2016, Stefan Gottfried took over the direction of the Concentus, with the assistance of Erich Höbarth)

He’s not thinking of stopping either, is he?

No, not at all. On the contrary, it’s getting more and more, it’s incredible!

So the book is about the operas. Concertante was Theodora, Jephta,…

Both works can actually be performed as oratorios.

But occasionally there is also semi-staging, and in terms of content, it often becomes really dramatic…

Because he does it so suggestively. The recitatives, for example, he totally avoids just making the notes, the content is completely in the foreground, so the stage is often not that important! Although it’s nice when it’s there.

And when we do opera, there are very special problems, for example with coordination when the singers are at the back of the stage or lying on the floor, for example, that creates completely new problems. You need a long rehearsal period for that.

The theatre director or Zaide was semi-staged…

…without scenery, but with action.

Jephta with the Concentus was staged in 1979, did you know about that?

No, I was still in nappies for music (laughing)

Then Dido in Graz in 1985, with the young Hampson.

Exactly, and Combattimento by Monteverdi, that was all in one evening, at the Graz Landestheater. At that time, Ms Herberstein was the artistic director of the styriarte, she tackled it with great enthusiasm, but there were only two performances, and that resulted in a huge deficit, so she was gone immediately.

Oh, that’s why!

Opera productions need to be well thought out! If there are only two performances! Because the entire preproduction costs are immense. It was a shame, because it was a beautiful performance. Hollweg had done the narrator in the Combattimento, very expressively!

Were Combattimento and Dido connected scenically?

No, the combattimento was completely separate. There were just the two combatants in heavy armour, which was very impressive. They approached each other very slowly, which was very simple but very good, and then the fight was in slow motion. It was the first Monteverdi I did. It was very impressive, because there were also many things for the strings to do for the first time, for example this tremolo effect, (sings it)

The Concitato?

Exactly: stile concitato

Then I want to ask: was there also a Saul in Vienna who had been in Zurich?

I wasn’t present for everything during those years, because I was also a member of the symphony orchestra from 1980-87, and it didn’t always work out. We did the Saul concertante, I remember that.

Paul Esswood was David in Zurich.

There was a lot with Esswood, who was very close to the NH for a while.

Then there was Giulio Cesare.

I wasn’t there either!

Everyone raves about the production, but I wasn’t there. Was that in Frankfurt?

As far as I know, it was ‘Castor and Pollux’ in Frankfurt. Was the Concentus the orchestra, but not, or?

I don’t know. And the Concentus wasn’t there for the first Monteverdi stories in Zurich either, with Ponnelle.

I know that and I have already had a conversation with the musician of the Monteverdi Ensemble of that time (Erich Zimmermann, see there!)

My first staged Monteverdi was Il coronazione di Poppea in Salzburg.

Yes, I saw that and it was so wonderful, the Concentus was in the same orchestra pit as the Philharmonic Orchestra used to be. Super, with the beautiful women of the Concentus, something completely new and amazing!

Wasn’t that great! (laughs)

What else is different about operas where the CM is in the pit?

Staged productions require a completely new lead time. This gives you time to grow into the work, to become completely familiar with it. It was the same with the recent performance of Idomeneo (Graz 2007): by the premiere, everyone in the orchestra had really got to grips with the opera. With concerts, it’s a different story: after a few days, you have to present a result. And with an opera… yes, I like that.

However, I wouldn’t want to do it all the time, as a member of the Vienna Philharmonic (the orchestra of the Vienna State Opera, editor’s note) I wouldn’t be ideal. The way it is with Concentus, about once a year, is fine with me.

Meanwhile, opera once a year, so often?

Yes, if you take the Theater an der Wien!

Let’s return to Poppea! The stage was built around the orchestra, the action was also in front of the orchestra and to the side of it.

Yes! I thought the duet at the end was sooo beautiful. Sylvia McNair and Philipp Langridge were such a wonderful couple. McNair played a courtesan of such sophistication. That’s the joke of it all, she has to be sophisticated to seduce even the emperor. And this singer had that sophistication, an eroticism that goes far beyond cheap effects. The staging was also very well done.

The next production in Salzburg with Flimm was King Arthur by Henry Purcell. And I was a bit disappointed by that one. Eleven years passed between the two productions. It’s not that easy for us to get into Salzburg, the Vienna Philharmonic takes good care of that. I thought that this King Arthur was too much focused on slapstick…

…Flimm told me he loved it.

Yes, that’s right, and in its own way it is very successful. But just as an example: there was a very, very intimate aria in there where Michael Schade wore such exaggerated lederhosen with a heart pattern. It was all a bit, sorry, in German, a bit of a joke. But there is also so much intimacy in Purcell, and you have to be able to switch between the two. There is a lot of fun in it, but also deep seriousness. His gamba fantasies, the way he wrote, when he was just over twenty… you have to know that this person had such depth, and you should be allowed to hear that! I think that Nikolaus also felt that way.

And he didn’t get involved?

No, when Nikolaus is involved, he is loyal to the whole thing. He knows very well that this has to be done in collaboration, and he gives his best to it. Personally, I believe that he didn’t think this production was optimal either, but he never said so. That’s one of my hypotheses! There were, of course, touching moments: the actors were very good! From the Thalia Theater, for example, Silvie Rohrer: there is a scene where she is blind and then regains her sight, which was very moving. Actually, there was more that was touching in the acting than in the musical, but it was already present in the music itself.

It was a kind of revue, not quite my thing.

Flimm just told me that NH said that this was the first musical in music history, and Flimm then said: you don’t tell me that twice.

Oh yeah? Maybe that’s really what they both wanted. Of course there is something to it, there are scenes inside that you can’t do seriously. The way they look for a way, it’s so bizarre… In England at the time, it was all interwoven, you only have to think of Shakespeare.

Yes, I know Purcell’s Masque, which is also like a show.

Sometimes very serious and then fun again! You could really interweave these things because obviously the financial factor was not an issue in England at that time. So they did a play with interludes, for example. Take Shakespeare’s The Tempest, with music by Matthew Locke or Purcell, among others, which was endlessly long, then they ate…

Of course, people weren’t as focused on what was going on as they are today.

It was natural, but it was unbelievably opulent, a celebration! Reading such sources is incredibly enlightening.

But as you say, something like that would no longer be financially viable today!

The current Idomeneo was already on the verge of a financial fiasco. But because all the performances were sold out, it worked out in the end. Mathis Huber knows what he is doing. You had to hire a first-class ballet, and a super choir, orchestra, soloists…

And yet it was scenically simple.

Yes, you just can’t be that lavish financially anymore today.

Between Idomeneo and Poppea, there was also Haydn: L’anima del filosofo. That was a real discovery; no one could have imagined that an opera by Haydn could be so great.

I believe that one of the most important things the NH has done for humanity in recent times is the complete rehabilitation of Haydn’s operas. As for the symphonies, there are other people who have done a great job, and the same goes for the chamber music, of course. But when it comes to opera, people have always thought that, unlike Mozart, it’s not that interesting. But Nikolaus, with his gift for opera, he brings expression to every little detail, every recitative. And that’s when you realised the potential that these works hold.

Apropos recitative: it doesn’t follow the bar.

Not at all, because the bar lines are orthography, the composers wrote it that way, you couldn’t write a 5/4 bar. There are sources that state exactly that the linguistic gesture must dominate, everything else must be subordinate. So if a recitative doesn’t sound convincing, you can forget it, regardless of whether it’s in Italian or German.

So the flow of the language is the deciding factor, but the pitch remains the same.

It remains the same, of course, but even there, singing must not take over. Even if it is difficult to sing, the language must remain in the foreground, he says.

And the accompagnato recitatives?

Exactly, and that requires a lot of flexibility from the orchestra. They can’t just say: we’ll play what’s written in the score. In Idomeneo, there is already something that directly points to Wagner, namely that the accompagnato recitatives flow seamlessly into the arias. The end of the overture already leads into the first recitative. Nikolaus then made it so that the last bars of the overture were already recitative, so that you can’t really tell when the recitative begins. That is the future of opera into the 19th century – Wagner then executed it in a particularly ‘German’ way (laughs) – that the number opera disappears.

While we are on the subject of Wagner, it is interesting which composers NH does not conduct.

I am not so sure that he will not do Wagner again in his life, because there is something about it that interests him, but also something that repels him.

C.H. Dreese dreams that N.H. would conduct Tristan in Bayreuth one more time…

…the fact is, at the moment he has total energy, but now he can no longer plan the whole year. He has to consistently leave things out, even if they appeal to him. He can’t negate his years completely.

Nevertheless, some singers say that he has almost unbelievable energy during rehearsals.

It’s almost embarrassing sometimes. But it has to be said that the leader of a cause, the one who announces, is in a kind of intoxicated state, with increased energy and extreme creativity, while a performer is different. You start something and are interrupted again and again. That takes strength. They are simply different roles. You have to bear that in mind.

Back to Haydn: I also find the drama of the choruses and arias incredible.

Yes, and you have to be careful not to make it too straightforward, the gestures…

In later centuries, the notes tell you exactly what to do. In Haydn’s music, the notation is only an approximation; there must always be life, a direction, a sense of where the music is going. Then there are the dynamics. He has always been made a little too well-behaved, a bit like Papa Haydn.

He was a dad at the end of his life, but a gigantic one. He never did the well-behaved bit.

The Seasons, a late work, what power is in it!

Yes, it is actually young.

In L’Anima, Roberto Saccà experienced his breakthrough.

Yes, Saccà! And the Bartoli was also great and the Eva Mei! But I think it’s a shame that the relationship between NH and the Bartoli ended so abruptly. I would like to know why. Do you know?

I know about a dispute between one of the styriarte staff and Ms Bartoli. It was about a fee in Stainz (I’ll tell you about it)

I thought it was something like that, although I don’t think that was the only reason. Bartoli is actually a lovely person! But there are two sides to everything, and both are big stars. There was something else. A concert was recorded on video, and she thought she looked unfavourable in it. He didn’t understand that at the time; he thought I did my best, and that’s ridiculous, just because of how she looks…

But you understand both sides… the video was produced after all, and was also shown on TV.

Orlando paladino was also Haydn, and it was supposed to have been quite brilliant?

Yes, and also the symphonies (we digress…)

NH sees Mozart’s instrumental music as operas in disguise.

That is always present with him.

Then there was Lucio Silla!

There was the following story: it was first performed in concert form with an amazing cast: Gruberova, Bartoli, Schreier… each better than the last.

This was then truly surpassed by this wonderful production by Claus Guth. As concertmaster, I am lucky enough to sit so that I can look at the stage.

Not all of the orchestra are so lucky!

Not all! At first there was an acoustic problem, because there was a tunnel to the back, and the singers were always musically late, and NH can’t divide himself, when he attracts the singer, everyone goes with him. But in the end it went well.

(I’m talking about Ponnelle’s Silla in Zurich)

This Roman look is no longer possible today, that time is over, Guth’s modern interpretation was so close, so credible.

It’s not a half-baked youth opera!

It’s insanely strong, some of the best of young Mozart. And also abysmal, not at all harmless. It’s hard to believe how he could write something like that at that age.

Il re pastore was also one of the concert operas.

I wasn’t there.

Let’s talk about Idomeneo again!

For us in the orchestra, it was particularly interesting to play a later Mozart opera, and the fact that Nikolaus himself was directing, together with his son, was of course also exciting. Everything was in one hand and the harmony was great to feel! The harmony between father and son and between music and scene. It was clear that the scene was developed out of the music and that the music was always given its due. In this way, I got to know this opera very well. Even if you have heard it once or twice before, you don’t really know it, because it is very complex, multi-layered, unlike The Magic Flute or Don Giovanni. It was an important point in my life to experience this opera from start to finish, to rehearse it.

It’s just wonderful for an orchestra to work through a piece thoroughly, even if one or the other grumbles about the long rehearsal time, but you can get to the bottom of it. Then nothing remains half-finished. And the standard for Mozart is very, very high.

A fundamental question: does NH explain the meaning of the subtext to you as an orchestra?

Yes, if there’s time. He also explains it to us when he wants a certain expression. He also tells us sources where it is dealt with, Mattheson or similar… Of course he doesn’t give lectures in the rehearsals.

With Idomeneo, the matter is complicated by the fact that the Munich version is the actual version. The Vienna version was a concert version and was made at the request of the singers, who also wanted a violin solo to appear. So he had to fulfil expectations. There is also the later Elektra aria, which is fantastic, but it disturbs the dramaturgy. At the end. You have to do it in concert form. NH did that too, half a year before in the Musikverein, all these arias in concert form. There was also this violin solo with Michael Schade as Idomeneo.

There were musicians on stage for the Ilia aria, a little bit copied from Ponnelle’s ‘Abduction’, but beautiful!

They were very happy to do it, had no inhibitions about being on stage.

The subtext is probably also the reason why the end of Idomeneo floats in a visionary sphere of time and space. I was at the last rehearsals, and NH once explained that there are as many dissonances in this farewell speech of Idomeneo as there are in the whole opera put together…

Yes, it’s incredible, this recitative…

…and that prompted NH to assume a time leap there.

That’s how it was! It has made the old philosophy of Idomeneo obsolete. Idomeneo gives another huge sermon, but nobody listens to him, they are all somewhere else. That is this timeless factor. You notice it much earlier in the piece, that Idomeneo clings to the old and everyone else is somewhere else. That was also the case in Mozart’s time, that the whole monarchical way of thinking had become obsolete, and he expresses that in this way, also in The Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni.

Mozart was very political in his thinking…

As was Shostakovich. These people subliminally expressed their political opinions. The rulers often didn’t realise what explosive material it was.

It’s great that we now have someone like NH to point this out! And you found this ballet convincing?

I thought it was wonderful. The only problem is that as an orchestra you rarely work together with a ballet in the same room. You rehearse with some random recording, and then you have a choreography that is already relatively fixed, and then comes NH with his special musical ideas. They would then say, for example: we rehearsed this tempo more slowly, then NH had to do something he didn’t want to do. Although the music was good and the dancers were good. They should have worked together more closely and for longer, so that they could have been involved earlier. Or the choreographer should have informed himself better. The meeting took place at a point where the rehearsals on both sides were already too far advanced.

But now I have to go to rehearsal.

With kind permission of Anna Mika

a purple haze and a tiger who makes a sandwich

Anna Mika: How did you come to work with Nikolaus Harnoncourt? I assume it was in the context of your engagement in Zurich?

Jonas Kaufmann: That’s right! Mr Harnoncourt has chosen Zurich as one of the few houses, except for the styriarte Graz, where he regularly does opera – a special feature! What’s more, he plays with his own ‘band’, so to speak, with a selection of orchestral musicians. It’s a very special thing that an opera orchestra should feel able and obliged to play on both old and modern instruments. And not just any old way, but they handle them properly.

Right, in Zurich we met for the first time!

I remember a premiere with you, it was Monteverdi’s Ulisse, where you played Telemach. What was it like working with Nikolaus Harnoncourt and the director Karl-Heinz Grüber?

Oh, that was quite a few years ago! (Thinks) I do remember that they both studied the piece intensively in advance. I don’t think that Mr Harnoncourt would just blindly go along with a director and not get involved in the creative process. That also makes sense. There’s no point in closing your eyes and then pulling the emergency brake at the last moment. Which of course wasn’t necessary in the case of Grüber, because he’s an old hand at theatre, and despite his age he has a childlike imagination with which he approached the piece. And I think it’s turned out to be an extremely beautiful production, with wonderfully simple images, very colourfully drawn. Yes, a very beautiful production!

And of course musically a great experience!

Were Harnoncourt’s musical views a surprise or a challenge for you?

Of course it’s surprising at first! Harnoncourt is well known for not doing things conventionally, so you have to assume that. After all, his fame stems from the fact that he has broken new ground and that no effort is too great for him to find out what the so-called tradition, some of which is centuries old, has done to obscure the true essence of the piece of music. Harnoncourt is and was the great pioneer who has reintroduced listening habits to us – and has also convinced me extremely. We did many other pieces together – Fidelio, for example, was extremely different from how Beethoven has been heard before. Details that you could never have heard before suddenly came to the fore. If you let yourself in for it, it’s a real adventure in which you rediscover things.

What is your view on the role of Telemachus (in Ulisse)?

He is a rather weak character. He doesn’t appear much, is more passive as a son, tries to comfort his mother and support her in her suffering, but not much more is to be expected. Not comparable to a character like Ulisse or Poppea.

What was the challenge of the role for you personally?

It is more of a supporting role, the aim is to create a memorable character. You don’t take on a small or medium-sized part just to be a ‘also-ran’, on the contrary, you take it on to make something individual out of it, something with a personal touch. And I hope I have succeeded in doing that in this case.

Another of your parts in a Monteverdi opera was Nerone in Poppea. That was a rather controversial production. What was your experience of it?

I experienced this production very closely and didn’t experience any controversy at all, I have to say that right away. On the contrary, I was very enthusiastic about the production and so was the audience; there were no boos. You can’t even call the production ‘modern’, because it was neither provocative nor repulsive nor discriminatory, not offensive in any way. It brought the piece into the modern age, but it did not distort the character, the idea or even the content of the work in any way. On the contrary, I believe that it made many things very clear that would have been obscured by more pomp. Perhaps one could imagine that this is what goes on in the household of a Roman emperor. An extremely beautiful production! Of course there were some moments where the one or other purist felt that their sensibilities were being offended, but I don’t see it that way. For example, there was a scene where my colleague Rudolf Schasching and I sang a duet, and this scene was quite clearly about a homoerotic relationship. But at that time it was completely taken for granted, in today’s society these things are so taboo that you would think it was something disreputable.

And besides, the duet that the two gentlemen sing is quite clearly composed in the direction of a love duet. So Jürgen Flimm’s interpretation is entirely justified, and even Harnoncourt, who was a bit irritated at first and said ‘what on earth are you doing, what is it?’ then came to enjoy it. It wasn’t really serious, nobody took their clothes off or anything.

From a singer’s point of view, how did the sound of the original period instrument orchestra sound to you in Ulisse and Poppea?

It’s fantastically different from a conventional orchestra! I had people who had never seen an opera before. I sent them to this production, to Ulisse, and I did it with mixed feelings because I knew that it was something special, not a mainstream story. And that as a lover of great pomp, you can have a few withdrawal symptoms. But these people were so enthusiastic and moved! If you don’t go into these Harnoncourt interpretations with any preconceived notions, it becomes so much clearer and more apparent what power these interpretations unlock. But if you’re a creature of habit and like the fortissimo sounds of a large orchestra, you might need a few minutes to get used to the dynamics of a baroque orchestra. But once you have got used to it, it is so touching, there is an incredible musical intensity and feelings are expressed so clearly and distinctly with such simple means that you ask yourself: why do I need the orchestral apparatus of a Mahler or a Puccini when it also works with so few means? Of course, it takes excellent musicians and a gifted interpreter like Nikolaus Harnoncourt.

How did you find recitar cantando, which is particularly close to Harnoncourt’s heart?

It’s absolutely the right direction! If you have the very delicate, fragile, even thin framework of this orchestral sound, you also have a decisive advantage. The more slender you sing, the more flexible you are. And you have to use this flexibility. If you rely on a rigid, cemented singing style to accompany the orchestra, it can’t be very effective. So take the chance and use the recitar cantando that Harnoncourt advocates! This means that the text has one hundred per cent priority at all times. Harnoncourt has these principles that make a lot of sense to me, for example, when a word is repeated, you can’t think it’s just a repetition – in the sense that maybe the sentence was too short to fit the melody, so you just take it again – but there has to be a new quality, it has to add something, it has to open up another dimension when you repeat it. Not saying, well then I’ll just say it twice!

The second thing, and I owe him a great deal, is that, through his guidance, for me music, real music, only comes into being when not everyone works through their notes in complete synchronisation, as if driven by a computer. Music can only come to life and touch people when it expresses its vitality by not being even, by not being the same, but by being individual. This means that every tone, every note varies from perfect precision by a tiny degree. This tiny degree is what makes the music come alive, and it creates an incredibly dynamic structure. I remember we did concerts with the Vienna Philharmonic, and he gave a lecture and said: ‘You will all say again: Harnoncourt doesn’t rehearse, he just talks. And despite that, it is important that I tell you this.’ I am convinced that the Philharmonic musicians knew after this speech that it was not in vain. He explained to them why the up and down bow is so important in the violin stroke, that Vale and Male. Teachers have been trying for centuries to train their students to make the up and down strokes sound completely identical. The idea is to have two different ones: a very full and rich stroke and a rather thin, even shaky one, and to use them accordingly to avoid making the repetition of a note sound the same, but to bring it in a certain direction. It makes a huge difference whether an up or down stroke is played. And if it’s three-four time, then the three quarters shouldn’t sound the same, ba ba ba, but each note should get its individual place and its individual time, bringing a liveliness to the music together. It is quite clear that with a baroque instrumentation, i.e. the instrumentation that Harnoncourt chose for Monteverdi, the conditions are ideal for achieving this recitar cantando and this one hundred percent devotion to the interpretation of the text.

There was a revival of Fidelio with you as Florestan, which can also be seen on DVD. How did you find working with Nikolaus Harnoncourt’s very particular tempi?

I have to admit that I initially had my difficulties with the tempi in the Fidelio, no question about it! Almost everything was far outside the usual measure.

As I mentioned at the beginning, I found so many new details in it, I actually found new music in this piece that I had never heard before. And it has to be said that Harnoncourt never does anything without justifying it. He would never force anyone to perform a tempo, an articulation, a dynamic, whether it’s singing or playing, without sufficient justification. Which I often lack! I often sit in a concert rehearsal and would like to explain to the orchestra what the piece is actually about and what – not just dynamically or something – but in terms of emotional expression one wants to achieve, because the conductor doesn’t do it or doesn’t want to do it. And I think that if everyone is clear about that, then it works. During the rehearsals for Fidelio, in a dress rehearsal, the aria of Leonore with the wonderful horn parts, which are notoriously dreaded, he rehearsed the recitative. The soprano sings ‘… nothing stirs your tiger spirit anymore’. After that comes an orchestral chord, and it sounded rather weak. Harnoncourt interrupts and asks: ‘Have you ever seen a tiger making a sandwich?’ The orchestra laughs, of course says ‘no’ and ‘why?’ He says: ‘Because that’s what you just played. I want the tiger’s claws and not the tiger having breakfast.’ And of course that sound immediately changed. He doesn’t say: play more staccato or tear the strings, just a technical explanation. He needed an image, and the advantage of that is that this image will always be in their heads as long as the musicians play this piece. It works immediately. In the same aria, the horns had a gentle entry, and he tried to explain to them to play even softer, even more breathy, but it just didn’t work. And then he says, ‘actually, it’s quite simple, you just play a purple haze.’ And as far-fetched as this example may seem, it worked immediately. It had to sound diffuse, nebulous, shimmering – in other words, violet. The result was incredible! That’s Harnoncourt. He doesn’t just say: you have to play it this way, but rather he explains it and underpins it with emotions and background knowledge, on the basis of which it is so much easier to play.

The role of Florestan in particular? Is he the good guy or are we unaware of his backstory? A paean to conjugal love or a drama of freedom?

Well, you know that the story being told is a real one, even if it seems very unlikely. As Florestan, I always ask myself: ‘Is there another dimension to this?’ If there weren’t, I might have a problem with this role. It would just be a bit boring. He languishes and suffers and fantasises to himself and is almost dying, ready to die. He is then saved by his wife, but at first he can’t believe it’s his wife. Then he believes it and is happy. With Harnoncourt, he wasn’t terribly happy. And he is right, because if you have been sitting in a dungeon for years and are suddenly rescued, you don’t jump up and say, ‘Great, amazing,’ but it takes a long time for such a thought to sink in, for you to grasp it. Accordingly, this wonderful duet is very solemn and, at least in the first part, very piano, because the joy that is being described cannot yet be grasped. That made sense to me, and so I followed this idea. But of course the question is always: what was Florestan? There are two interesting things. In one of his arias, Florestan says, and repeats several times: ‘I have done my duty’. That means, well, maybe he wants to wash his hands of it. Like: I did my duty, which seems a bit suspicious.

The other thing: ‘Pizarro sings in his aria: “To murder the murderer himself”, that means. Florestan is a murderer whom Pizarro now wants to kill. This raises the question: did Florestan kill another political opponent? Or did he act on behalf of someone and got caught up in the wheels of intrigue? My idea is a bit: it could be that Florestan was Pizarro’s predecessor. That is, he was the last police chief, the previous executor of the law, who then fell from favour because the people had obviously risen up. It had to happen to someone, and so Florestan then bore the so-called political responsibility, and that’s how he ended up in prison. Then the next question arises: does the minister – so this is meant seriously – know that he will find the man believed dead in prison? So you see, it’s a tricky, complicated story. I don’t think that Florestan ended up in prison without some moral entanglement, some difficulty. If it were so, I would have to say: very boring!

You jumped in at very short notice in Zurich for the Magic Flute – the premiere of the Kušej production; what was your impression of this particular take on the work?

I found out in the morning that I would be on stage that evening, so I had no idea about the production. I was lucky enough to have worked with Kušej before, who does have a certain pattern to his productions. It always comes down to certain ideas. That’s not meant as a criticism, it was an advantage for me in this case. And the same goes for Harnoncourt. It was clear to me – I also stood in for the role of Titus once in Salzburg, so I was already familiar with his Mozart interpretations – that he is not a big fan of singing through, that he does not cultivate beautiful singing without punctuation. He likes to break up the structures, and to be more spontaneous, more individual – that’s where we come back to recitar cantando – a bit more erratic, more surprising. With this knowledge, I was very well off. Someone who hadn’t worked with him would have been amazed that, for example, there is an interruption in the middle of one of the pieces, and you wait until it continues. Or the tempi change during the piece. I enjoyed it very much, I had a lot of fun singing and acting in this performance, it all went very smoothly. Thank God I also knew all my colleagues, it makes a big difference when you know each other well. All in all, it was an interesting experience, but for me, I have to say, a predictable interpretation.

I had never sung the role of Tamino with Harnoncourt before and had never seen or heard him conduct the Magic Flute. It was the premiere of a new interpretation and was, of course, a surprise. There were also some surprises that I had to process in a very short time. This happened with the arias and the ensembles. Even when others are singing, you are not just standing there uninvolved. For example, I was very surprised by the tempo of the Pamina aria, and for God’s sake I wasn’t allowed to show it. Afterwards, I was able to talk about what the deeper meaning was – as I said, Harnoncourt doesn’t do anything without carefully examining the facts – but for me it was a big surprise because the tempo was very fast and you get caught on the wrong foot on stage.

Have I forgotten a part that you did with Harnoncourt?

In Salzburg I stepped in for Titus, I did concerts with the Philharmonic Orchestra, and unfortunately some things didn’t work out for various reasons.

Further plans?

Nothing specific. But I am convinced that these were not the last things I did. There will surely be another opportunity to make music together.

With kind permission from Anna Mika

‘Double basses should sound like vacuum cleaners’

Erich Zimmermann was a bassoonist, including in baroque, of the Zurich Opera Orchestra until his retirement. He played the dulcian in the Monteverdi Ensemble. Erich Zimmermann was there from the first performances conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt at the Zurich Opera House.

Mr Zimmermann, how did you come to join the Monteverdi Ensemble?

It was rumoured before the 1975 season that Monteverdi was coming. That was something completely out of the ordinary at the time, and on original instruments to boot. Anyone who picked up a baroque instrument back then was laughed at by the regular musicians as a weirdo, that was the general opinion.

And there was a list hanging in the opera house in the orchestra pit that you could sign up for if you wanted to be part of this Monteverdi ensemble. I signed up immediately because I already had experience with the baroque bassoon. You see, I once had a neighbour who was quite fanatical about the baroque oboe, and later I was introduced to the baroque bassoon by a Dr Johannes Schoop. At the time, some musicians in Zurich were already in contact with the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, where early music had been taught for some time.

So, as I said, I put my name down on the list, and then, imagine, my name was the only one on it for half a year. And I was ridiculed: ‘Do you want to be part of a failure?’ When I became part of the great success of this Monteverdi cycle, the envious ones appeared on the scene, and I was bullied so much that I was already looking for another orchestra. I finally stayed. I had planned to go to Venice to La Fenice, but the pay there was incredibly bad. I love Venice and have often played Vivaldi there as a soloist.

Later, some string players also signed up for this list.

Show programme booklets where there is a picture of him with the dulcian.

I studied the dulcian for Monteverdi, because that was the given instrument.

The musicians were also on stage, and you were all wearing costumes…

Yes, I was also on the stage. In Poppea I had a scene with Arnalta, a kind of silent dialogue, a back and forth.

I was fascinated by the person of Nikolaus Harnoncourt from the very beginning. He was so nice as a person, very different from the other conductors, one among equals, not the big boss. And Ponnelle was like that too. He once came up to me and asked whether the collar of this Renaissance costume was comfortable enough for blowing. And when I said it could be a little wider, it was immediately altered.

Did any musicians from Concentus also join the Monteverdi Ensemble?

Only a few, of course Alice. She’s a wonderful woman and such a good violinist!

Making music with Harnoncourt was such an incredible joy, it was really refreshing. It wasn’t a chore, you just enjoyed it. I was always aware that I was part of something very special, from the very beginning.

When the Monteverdi cycle with all the guest performances was over, Nikolaus Harnoncourt sent a letter to the entire orchestra thanking them. And imagine, when I came into the orchestra room one day, this letter was lying on the floor with a footprint on it! I thought to myself, if it’s being treated with such disrespect, I’ll take it. And the letter is still my great treasure today. (He shows it, but the footprint has disappeared, probably crumbled away due to the dryness.)

Yes, and then Mozart’s Idomeneo came along. He had a modern instrumentarium then, but I played the baroque bassoon. (see later)

At the time, I asked Harnoncourt for support with the reed, and he arranged for the advice of the Concentus bassoonist.

Apropos Mozart: at the Finta Giardiniera in 2006, I took the liberty of running a small recording device during the rehearsal. And then Harnoncourt said during the overture: ‘The double basses have to sound like vacuum cleaners!’ And really, they sounded quite different afterwards, really like vacuum cleaners.

After working with Harnoncourt, it was very difficult for me to play Mozart with other conductors. Ultimately, Welser-Möst didn’t have any access to Mozart either.

And then Fidelio! The duet in the prison is a funeral scene, and the bassoons play a very distinctive passage with the double basses. And I always thought that the bassoon should be with the double basses and not with the wind instruments. When I suggested this to Ferdinand Leitner for my first Fidelio, he didn’t want to hear about it. So I suggested it to Harnoncourt, and he agreed immediately. So in the whole production of Fidelio I sat with the double basses, even when it wasn’t me playing, but a colleague. (Harnoncourt once told me this himself; he obviously thought it was remarkable too).

Yes, and then there were also these productions that I call attempts:

Gypsy Baron was an attempt, it was extended, it was something like the original version.

The director didn’t finish the production, do you know any details?

No, what happened?

The audience was told that the production was not finished, that director Jean-Louis Martinoty had not been given enough rehearsal time and that there was discord because of this. There were scenes where all the actors just stood there. What was staged was great.

We were a little surprised, but you don’t really notice that from the pit.

Another attempt was Aida. I have the recording with the Viennese at home, which is really great (I, the blogger, contributed a booklet text to this recording, a small proud note). Harnoncourt’s concept is that this is not an arena opera, but something very intimate. That’s true. But here in Zurich it didn’t come across that way, from his concept. He was probably still searching.

At the time, in the context of the Vienna recording, he was also working on the Verdi Requiem!

Oh yes? But there was something that I don’t understand at all: he once just stopped conducting for quite a long time before the end, stood there and just left his arms down. And then I was at the premiere party, and I heard the concertmaster Frank Gassmann say to Ms Harnoncourt: ‘Please tell your husband that there was one more page to be finished.’ I never found out why he didn’t finish conducting it. Was he so shaken? I don’t know.

I remember that he was booed during the first part.

Yeah, that’s the Nello Santi fans, the traditionalists, they didn’t like it. But anyway, this Aida was not a happy occasion.

Where he was usually carried by the audience in Zurich, quite in contrast to Vienna.

What is the name of this book where he is leaning against a tree?

His biography ‘Vom Denken des Herzens’

Yes, I was very surprised that Zurich is practically not mentioned, I find that disappointing.

That’s one of the reasons why we’re writing this book

Exactly, that’s missing!

Yes, and Amsterdam too! Zurich and Amsterdam paved the way for him. Vienna did not.

The Viennese are a nation of their own, envious, Drese knew that too. Here it’s a breeze compared to the intrigues in Vienna.

(We digress……………)

That feeling of well-being when you walk out after an opera! I miss the opera in my retirement, I don’t miss the intrigue. People do a lot of bad things, but music, like all the arts, is good.

(He talks about his childhood and how he came to music)

When I was able to work with Harnoncourt, I immediately had the feeling that this was something great!

It was also wonderful on a personal level, but also with Ponnelle. He was killed in an accident in Tel Aviv, but even before that I had noticed that he liked to drink, sent the assistants for water glasses full of whisky, he came from a wine house. He then became very fat.

The Magic Flute: there were problems between the orchestra and the director

Yes, with the worm, the children who formed this worm walked on a very narrow bridge over the orchestra, which was dangerous. This was changed before the premiere.

A great Magic Flute, impressive aesthetics, a unity of music and scene, I don’t like these very modern productions.

We had some Verdi opera where everyone was in a suit and carrying a little suitcase. And then I go to the Bahnhofstrasse and see the same people coming out of the bank. I don’t need that!

I still remember a feeling, maybe it’s daring to say it at all, but from the very beginning I had a family feeling with Harnoncourt that I never had with any other conductor. As if I were part of his family. He doesn’t know that. But at Christmas I write, and Alice writes back and he signs. This feeling is certainly one-sided, but for me it’s just there! And the time when the son had the accident! I suffered with them.

He had just conducted ‘Gypsy Baron’ with you.

The son was driving, wanted to help someone and was run over. And his brother, Franz, has exactly the same voice as he does. An interesting family!

(we talk about Harnoncourt’s family background)

Yes, you can tell he’s noble, but he’s always remained simple. He always wears checked shirts, but my wife doesn’t like them. She always says, ‘Harnoncourt shirts are not coming into my house.’

There were other baroque operas with Harnoncourt!

Yes, that’s right, I forgot. Yes, I played in the new Ulisse but some of my colleagues didn’t want to because they remembered the old production. I didn’t like the staging either.

But in the second Poppea, a colleague of mine took my place. The production was no good either. I was surprised that there was no Orfeo in 2007, the 400th anniversary of opera itself. Pereira was even made aware of it.

And Haydn’s L’anima del filosofo?

Yes, exactly, wonderful. Haydn is still underestimated, even as an opera composer, he doesn’t really come out. As with Schubert, it’s more a matter of the material…

But Alfonso und Estrella and also Des Teufels Lustschloss were great! Do you really think that’s a bad text?

Yes, maybe there’s not enough going on on stage, it’s more inward.

I’ll tell you an anecdote: Schubert’s Lustschloss Saturday morning rehearsal: the first bassoon, the colleague, was ill, so I played it, I should have played second. He kept shouting: more second bassoon, until I said he wasn’t there today, when it would have been me. He didn’t understand that, he could have asked what you were doing on the first bassoon.

(It’s about the letter with the shoe sole and a collection of anecdotes about ‘Gärtnerin’ that I already have.)

I played in the opera orchestra from 1975 to 2006, went through the whole Harnoncourt phase, and I was always aware that it was something unique.

Harnoncourt is different from all the others. With him, there is a development in the course of the work, he himself develops.

I will now tell a completely contrasting story. I was very young and the Tonhalle and Opera still had a single orchestra, which of course split up in 1983. Karl Böhm conducted Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. 1. It begins with a horn solo, which was played wonderfully, Böhm interrupts, says again! Without explanation. The horn player played it again, Böhm said again. Not criticised, not said well, just again. It happened four times. Then the horn player got up, took his horn under his arm and said: ‘Professor! I will play this solo only once more, and that will be tonight at the concert. Because nothing can happen to me anymore, since I retire tomorrow.

That’s good!

You see, it was just for bullying, not a good concept.

You must have also taken part in all the guest performances at Monteverdi, they had a kind of stage role.

Yes, of course. The trombones even had a big role in Ulisse. It wasn’t that big for me. Here I have the programme from La Scala

Aha, from all three operas!

Here is the Hamburg State Opera! And here is a book with all the guest performances, and then here are the stamps that were issued for them.

Oh, how nice! Harnoncourt made his debut as a conductor at La Scala!

Yes, exactly, at the Piccola Scala.

And these medallions that you see in the stage design can be seen on churches in Venice, for example on the Santa Maria Formosa.

Christoph Groszer’s directorship was not so good conceptually, Drese was great, a specialist in German studies, educated, and he had these great ideas. (see interview with Drese)

(talking about the current situation at the Vienna State Opera, that there is no rehearsing)

We did play at the Theater an der Wien in our guest performances, not at the State Opera.

Harnoncourt hates Rossini! I do too, and I don’t like Berlioz either. Both are inorganic.

I collect all my programmes, and I also played with the Collegium under Paul Sacher and in the Zurich Chamber Orchestra.

In opera, Mozart is the ne plus ultra. I must have played 400 Magic Flutes, and I never got tired of it.

We did a concert of Mozart’s Gran Partita with Harnoncourt: at the time, he wanted modern instruments, because the instrumentation was less important than the way the music was played. With Idomeneo, he experimented with whether he wanted four bassoons or two, since it’s actually only two. But I think Leopold Mozart says that there should always be the same number of cellos as bassoons, and that was the case with Handel too. But of course the balance is different with modern instruments; the four bassoons were then too loud, but he tried it out. We then had two.

The old instruments are much quieter, the timbre blends better with the cellos. I played Bach cantatas with a modern orchestra, and I had to play extremely softly. It was always too prominent, not too loud, but not mixed in. But with the baroque instruments, it’s wonderful how it blends and mixes. It’s a completely different world. And it’s not that strenuous either.

In the beginning, Harnoncourt found the old instruments very important, but later it didn’t matter so much, as phrasing was more important to him then. He can cultivate his style just as well with modern instruments. The old ones are still a bit temperamental, though, and he used to put gut strings on new violins. I think it was for Idomeneo.

Monteverdi was only with the old instruments, some of them genuine. That doesn’t work for the wind instruments, they are replicas.

There were also cornetts and the wonderful sound of the theorbo. It was played by a clownish guy, Jonathan Rubin. He sat on the stairs. He lives in Bern and is Australian.

The Zurich Opera has achieved international recognition through Harnoncourt, hasn’t it?

It was important before that: the premieres of Lulu, Moses and Aron, Martinu, and not to forget: Wagner conducted here.

But you can say that…

Yes, and then there was Offenbach…

Oh yes, that’s right! I completely blanked him out, I don’t like him, I find his music to be thin.

I don’t like Offenbach either, and I wonder why Harnoncourt likes him so much.

Maybe because Offenbach was also a cellist. Or maybe he is interested in the political situation of the time, I don’t know and don’t understand it.

With kind permission of Anna Mika

Nikolaus Harnoncourt is known for his anecdotes. Sabine M. Gruber, a member of the Arnold Schoenberg Choir, has even published them in book form. As I have had the opportunity to attend Harnoncourt’s rehearsals myself, I would like to add a few anecdotes or typical stories that, as far as I know, have not yet made the rounds.

In January 1989, I was allowed to attend an orchestra rehearsal in Zurich for Mozart’s Don Giovanni, thanks to my friend Gabriele Sima, who was Zerlina. It was a brilliant cast: Edita Gruberova, Gösta Winbergh, Laszlo Polgar, to name but a few.

The first story: After about 20 minutes of rehearsal, one of the brass players, who have little to do in this piece, calls in. He said that he hadn’t played a note so far and whether he would actually get a turn. Harnoncourt was quite concerned, but perhaps also a little ironic: ‘Oh, I forgot about you! Next time I’ll bring you a book for such a case. For example, The Brothers Karamazov, a great novel. Do you know it?’

The meaning of the second story is well known. Here it went like this: The fantastic principal flautist of the Zurich Opera Orchestra, Maria Goldschmidt, played a striking passage, unfortunately I can’t remember which one. Harnoncourt interrupted and asked her to play this passage more quietly. She said: ‘But then it’s a risk’. He responded (and every Harnoncourt fan knows what comes next): ‘Wonderful! Music is most beautiful when it is accompanied by risk.’

At this point, I’ll tell you about my own work with Harnoncourt. That was in the 1981/82 season at the Salzburg State Theatre. It was a programme with Henry Purcell, especially his opera Dido and Aeneas. At Dido’s death, the chorus sings: ‘With drooping wings ye cupids come’, and the soprano had to enter polyphonically on a g‘’. Harnoncourt wanted this singing to be very delicate, so much so that my voice broke again and again – not so bad, because we were several sopranos, about seven. But I was always very ashamed of it. Much later, I realised that this was exactly what Harnoncourt wanted: to sing on the verge of vocal failure, as if you were crying.

Another anecdote comes to mind that Eva Mei told me. She was rehearsing Mozart’s Figaro, the Countess’s first aria, with Harnoncourt. As we know, she is very sad at the beginning because her husband is betraying her (‘Porgi amor, qualche ristoro’). Harnoncourt said to Eva: ‘You must sing this as if you had been crying all night’. Eva responded: ‘And what do you think the critics will write?’

Now a little story told to me by the late Günter Fetz, father of a violinist in the Concentus Musicus Wien. This incident happened a while ago, when leggings came into use. You have to realise that Nikolaus Harnoncourt was anything but fashion-conscious, and you also have to know that some of the violinists in the Concentus had particularly pretty long legs. So now: at a morning rehearsal, the second violin section leader sat on the podium in attractively patterned leggings. Mr Harnoncourt was rehearsing, but kept looking in her direction with irritation. Finally, during the break, he took her aside and whispered: ‘For God’s sake, Anita, you forgot to change. You’re still wearing your pyjama bottoms.’

At the stage orchestra rehearsal for Beethoven’s ‘Fidelio’ in Zurich in the early 1990s, it was the final scene’s turn. The choir began with ‘Heil sei dem Tag, heil sei der Stunde’ (‘Hail to the day, hail to the hour’). The individual voices’ interjections with “Heil” were lacking; the singers were unable to produce this highly present attack. Choir director Karl Kamper wandered nervously around the stalls. Not only was I allowed to listen to this rehearsal, but there were also two young women with a small child inside. At the height of the perplexity about how to deal with this part (Beethoven’s demands on singing voices are notorious!), the child began to crow at the top of its voice. The mother rushed towards the exit, but Nikolaus Harnoncourt turned to the child with a smile and then said to the choir: ‘Listen to that, that’s how you have to sing it! Just go for it. Baaahh’ Everyone laughed and the part worked, both at this rehearsal and at the premiere.

This incident is less humorous now, but is indicative of Nikolaus Harnoncourt’s intellectual attitude. It was 1998, and to mark the tenth anniversary of Jean Pierre Ponnelle’s death, the Zurich Opera House reconstructed his production of Mozart’s ‘Lucio Silla’ with stage sets based on sketches by the architect Palladio. Harnoncourt conducted. At the premiere celebration, which as always took place on the backstage in Zurich in the presence of the artists and the audience (everyone was invited), Artistic Director Alexander Pereira gave a speech – as usual – thanking all those involved. When it was Nikolaus Harnoncourt’s turn, Pereira said: ‘That was so wonderful, we’ll all kneel before Nikolaus now.’ There was a moment of stunned silence, during which you could actually hear the rustling that signalled that everyone was getting ready to kneel. Nikolaus Harnoncourt shouted: ‘No, don’t do that, it’s blasphemous!’

With the kind permission of Anna Mika

‘Nikolaus Harnoncourt has not only changed the history of musical interpretation, but also the lives of many musicians who have been dazzled, so to speak, by the fantastic empathy of this great maestro. I remember being shocked by his revolutionary interpretation of Vivaldi’s ‘Four Seasons’, Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 and others: After that, it could never be the same again. In terms of historical dimensions and the nature of the conceptual upheaval, I would compare it to the Copernican Revolution!’

‘Dear Nikolaus, you have put all your insights and decades of experience down on paper and documented them on recordings. You have left a legacy to your posterity that is an unavoidable, necessary legacy for every single musician and music lover. The music world reveres you as an authority – it has learnt from you – and on their behalf I would like to express how grateful we all are to you. All my love, Rudi’

Éste es el episodio # 117 de Dirección Coral Online y hoy vamos revisar un texto del director Nikolaus Harnoncourt referido a Johann Sebastian Bach

watch on youtube