The Maestro. The Shaky Foundation of Clichés.
Clichés in the world of classical music and opera — deep down in our hearts, we love them. Our absolute favorite is “velvety pianism.” You know, that refined and warm sound of Grigory Sokolov, the legendary Russian master with his fantastic command of timbre. Or the delicate, velvety-soft, hypnotic touch of Arcadi Volodos. Of course, we mustn’t overlook Arthur Rubinstein and his Chopin here. How did he play his Pleyel, which is, in itself, made of velvet? The answer is: aristocratically, lyrically, and poetically.
Mutatis mutandis, opera conductors are often described as “energetic” (Lorenzo Viotti). They are also frequently called “sensitive” (Pappano), or “dedicated to serving the singers” (Richard Bonynge). This terminology provides a solid and practical foundation: gravy needs potatoes, otherwise, you’re left with an indigestible pool of fat on your plate.
But essentially, these clichéd descriptions say about as much as a restaurant review that states the waiter “smiled kindly.” Fine. But how did the food taste?
Anyone who truly wants to evaluate an opera conductor —and, of course, with the necessary respect— must ask a more challenging question. Did this maestro have the score fully under control as “a relevant piece of musical theater”? (“relevant piece of musical theater”: sorry, we read that somewhere.) Or was the emphasis simply on ensuring that a large-scale production —with orchestra, chorus, and soloists— reached the finish line without too many hiccups?
Conducting opera is not the same as conducting a symphony with a few costumes thrown in here and there. Of course, it’s important to keep everything together, prevent mishaps, and guide everyone safely to the final applause. But in the orchestra pit, the musical relevance must constantly meet dramatic criteria.
Tempo, balance, articulation, transitions, fermatas, recitatives, orchestral timbre, silences— these are not technical details, but the building blocks of the drama. A director like Calixto Bieito can ruin an opera from the stage. A lousy opera conductor like Plácido Domingo does the same from the orchestra pit, as was the case during his disastrous Walküre in Bayreuth in 2018.
Energetic
Tempo, tempo, tempo
Tempo isn’t a metronome; it’s dramaturgy. Tempo is the first litmus test for determining what kind of conductor we’re dealing with. “Fast” isn’t automatically good, and “slow” isn’t automatically bad, to dip into the grab bag of clichés for a moment. What matters is whether a conductor senses how long a musical idea can breathe, how long one can build up the tension before it bursts, and how fast or slow that idea must move without letting the emotion it evokes turn into a rush job.
In Mozart operas, you often see two classic approaches. On the one hand, there’s the lead-heavy, monumental approach that turns a lively dialogue into a state funeral. Think of Otto Klemperer (the legendary studio recording of Die Zauberflöte, 1964, with dignified and stately tempos — actually quite beautiful) or Herbert von Karajan with his Don Giovanni or Le Nozze from the ’70s and ’80s, featuring a massive, symphonic orchestral sound. On the other hand, there are the hyperactive, breakneck performances by Beethoven-killer Teodor Currentzis, in which all elegance and ambiguity have vanished. The mannerism and artificiality of his overdramatized interpretations are extremely exhausting due to the constant extremes in tempo and volume.
With Verdi, the pitfalls are different: either everything thunders along like a high-speed train without any rhetorical weight, or every phrase is stretched out so broadly that pomposity is mistaken for grandeur.
If there is such a thing as the “right” opera tempo, it is not a number, but a delicate balance between text, voice, orchestra, and stage. It’s not a matter of watching the clock, but of watching what’s happening on stage. Do ensembles build naturally toward a climax? Do the cabalettas bring about the desired controlled explosion, or is it just a matter of turning up the volume? Can a lamento emotionally freeze time without the performance itself ending up in no man’s land?
When the tempo is right (“right” is quite subjective, as People of Now will throw in our faces), singers suddenly seem to sing effortlessly. With the emphasis on “seem.” When the tempo isn’t right, it’s time for The Great Compensation. Too fast here? Then too slow there.
Die Zau…. ber… flöte
Accompanying means making music together, not just tagging along behind the singers. A common compliment is that a conductor “accompanied the singers beautifully.” That, too, sounds better than it often is. In our view, accompanying does not mean obediently slowing down with every breath or treating every high note as if the laws of nature had been temporarily suspended.
Opera houses are full of well-behaved Kapellmeister who sell caution or restraint as singer-friendliness. But the other extreme is no more appealing: the conductor who wants to carry out his own grand vision at all costs and, in doing so, forgets that people —not just singers but also the audience— need to be given a chance to catch their breath. The truly devoted opera conductor does something far more difficult. He creates the conditions in which singers can be as expressive as possible, without the score falling apart. That is why conducting opera is considered the supreme discipline within classical music.
A fine artistic tightrope
The opera maestro walks a fine artistic tightrope between two fundamentally different worlds: the orchestra pit and the stage. He is tucked away deep in a dimly lit orchestra pit, while the singers battle it out meters away. A legendary example of an acoustic and physical nightmare is the “Scena delle maschere” (Don Giovanni): Donna Anna, Don Ottavio, and Donna Elvira sing the trio “Protegga il giusto cielo.” For this ball scene, Mozart composed three different on-stage ensembles that play simultaneously with the orchestra in the pit. Each group plays in a different time signature—namely, 2/4, 3/4, and 3/8. At the same time, the soloists walk among the partygoers while singing. “Well, here’s another nice mess you’ve gotten us into!” The conductor can’t be everywhere at once. He has to direct the musicians on stage via assistants or monitors, follow the singers’ movements, and meanwhile ensure that the rhythmic gears in the orchestra pit don’t jam.
A single second of hesitation, and the polyrhythmic structure created by Mr. Mozart turns into an irreparable artistic disaster. And that is definitely not what we want. Therefore: recall Carlo Maria Giulini’s 1959 recording with the Philharmonia Orchestra. Or set us straight with your favorite conductor from your hometown or current location.
“Protegga il giusto cielo”
“But now farewell to the cowardly spirit:
The dawn brings a brighter day!”
There is a sympathetic but persistent misunderstanding: “How beautifully the orchestra sounded.” Beautiful as in “pretty.” A velvety (!) string sound, lustrous woodwinds, and heroic brass can, to quote the French Communard Eugène Pottier, make us exclaim in ecstasy, “But now farewell the spirit craven: The dawn brings in a brighter day!”, but they can also completely undermine the drama. Opera is not a symphonic concert with stage sets.
“Playing beautifully” can degenerate into a triumph of superficiality. Above all, an orchestra must respond, characterize, propel the action forward, seduce, and sometimes even cause pain. If the orchestra pit finds itself more interesting than what’s happening on stage, something is fundamentally wrong. And when we sit through Wagner, the last thing we want is for something to go wrong. And that goes for Strauss, Puccini, or Bellini as well. A massive orchestral sound is sometimes certainly appropriate in Puccini, but an overly rich orchestral sound can also suffocate the compositions of the womanizer from Lucca. Strauss can devolve into mind-numbingly boring glitter, lurking in his unpalatable monstrosity Der Rosenkavalier — an endless ordeal that makes waterboarding seem like child’s play. And the damage a “heavy orchestra” can wreak on bel canto isn’t that of an elephant but of a bulldozer in a china shop.
So the question isn’t so much “does the orchestra sound good?,” but “does it sound good for this opera, these singers, and this dramatic moment?”
The Marschallin is 40 years old, but sings as if she were 100.She suffers from a noble midlife crisis.
She stares at clocks and sighs over wrinkles that aren’t even there.
Reviewers love to write about arias and final applause. We do that too, although we like to point out contemporary parallels, such as with Waldos de los Rios (sarcasm mode on). But, granted, arias and final applause are obvious points of reference. But may we suggest another factor? A conductor’s intelligence! You hear it between the opening and closing applause, and between the arias. How does a scene build up before an entrance? How does the tension remain alive during a set change? How does a public confrontation imperceptibly evolve into an intimate confession?
Opera dies when it “degenerates” into a pasticcio —an opera performance composed entirely of pre-existing arias, choruses, and musical pieces from various operas and composers— no matter how much we may love this genre: 45 minutes before intermission, 30 minutes after intermission, and then beer and nachos in an adjacent dive bar.
Opera for People of Today. “Relevant”, “Contemporary”, “Provocative”, and “Urgent”.
The “Conductor” Brand
Opera houses love it, complete with glamorous photos from the gym, heroic interviews, and promising descriptions of a “unique vision”. One could also judge a unique style based on articulation, phrasing, dance rhythms, rubato e tutto questo, and above all, on the way music and language converge. Italian opera without acume verbale (verbal acuity) becomes wallpaper. German opera (everyone: “What’s that, German opera?”) without harmonic tension becomes concrete. French opera without elegance turns into a Washington D.C municipal office.
An Olympic Sport
Conducting? “That’s an Olympic sport!” There’s crouching, jumping, sweating, waving, and dramatically pointing at the brass section. All wonderful for the front row. But Lorenzo Viotti’s and Gustavo Dudamel’s lack of muscle control doesn’t produce a single note. You’re better off watching the stage. Are the soloists singing (more or less) relaxed? Do the ensembles respond alertly to one another? Does the choir sound as if it’s truly part of the drama? Do the musical impulses coincide precisely with what’s happening on stage?
Isolated effects, beautiful scenes, impressive climaxes, a lot of noise… but on the way out, you find yourself wondering why the evening felt so strangely empty. That doesn’t change the fact that, in principle, we should feel compassion for the conductor. More often than not, the conductor is given the thankless task of salvaging a production that has about as much to do with the opera as an abstract painting has to do with a traffic sign. Sometimes it works. More often, you end up with two performances happening at once. Down below, the score tells one story. Upstairs, a wandering director dampens the mood with an entirely different story —usually about a stingy capitalist who’s pissing against the facade to save money on a dog. A conductor isn’t responsible for all that theatrical nonsense. But he must defend the musical truth (Quid est veritas?).
A conductor can lead a masterful second act and still fail to create the necessary dramatic arc. We learned this from a friend, because we must confess that we are no experts on dramatic arcs; we’ve never even noticed one or missed one ourselves. Another conductor might build up an entire evening brilliantly but struggle with a single soloist —Doris Soffel, for example— or a tired choir. That’s why qualifications like “precise,” “energetic,” and “supportive” are really nothing more than labels. The essential question remains surprisingly simple: does this conductor bring the score to life as a living drama? Don’t listen to the applause. Don’t look at celebrity status. And above all, don’t believe the marketing; that’s not a difficult task here in Amsterdam, where we live, because at the Dutch National Opera, the marketing copy is completely incomprehensible.
Listen to see if the performance evokes a sense of inevitability.
Then you are witnessing opera.
Olivier Keegel
