(audience applauds)
- Yeah, sure.
- [Brian Zeger] We have some time left.
We'd be very interested to hear some questions for Maestro
about preparing these scores, about his work with singers.
We have all students down here
in these first couple of rows.
So, fire away.
Nicolette.
- [Nicolette] What would your opinion be for young singers
studying a score, especially
in Italian repertoire Bel Conto Verdi.
With all the traditions that are associated with it,
would you prefer that the singers learn the score
as the composer wrote it?
I'm just curious as to your opinion
on traditions in general.
- The question is about traditions...
Especially when young singers are studying a score, right?
First of all, you have to define tradition.
What is tradition?
Is something we are used to
or is something which is now established
because is has a reason?
So, there are good traditions, there are bad traditions.
And it is very difficult to choose.
And it depends on taste, and it depends also
on what we are used to hear, especially if you
for example, are listening a lot of old recordings
of the 50s, you are used to those traditions,
and it is very difficult to separate yourself from them.
Because, "But I heard Callas, I heard Tebaldi,
"and I heard those singers doing this. Why?"
I may not do it, because the conductor said,
"Don't do this fermata, don't do this ritenuto and go."
So, my advice is study the score as it is first.
Like tabula rasa, so you can base on the text,
on the real text what the composer wrote.
This is the very good advice.
This is the very important first step,
and then, depending on
with whom you are studying the scores,
which coach, which, conductors, then they will tell you
what they want, what they think to be right.
But be prepared.
Every conductor has different ideas.
Which is the beauty in music.
There is not the absolute truth.
There are many different ways to express it.
So, why not?
It can be very interesting.
- [Male Student] Thank you so much
for being here with us, Maestro.
I would ask, for you, what is the difference
between a singer who you are happy to work with
and a singer who you are excited to work with?
(audience laughs)
- So, the difference between the singers I'm happy
to work with and the singers...
I'm repeating because of the TV, you know..
And the singers I'm excited to work with.
I'm excited to work with the singer
who can teach me something.
So, if I have the feeling I can learn something new,
something interesting, something exciting,
then I'm excited to work with them.
And I'm happy to work with most singers.
Because I know the singers I'm working with
are all very high level and they have their ideas.
Mostly, they think about what they are singing.
They know what they are singing.
But there are a couple of singers,
from whom I know,
from her or from him I can learn.
And this is special.
- [Male Student Two] I have two questions.
The first is, what can we do to build opera audiences
in the 21st century, especially here in America?
And the second is, do you think opera will ever have a place
in popular culture and popular listening again?
- Opera was popular once,
and this is a pity that it is not anymore,
or not so much as it used to be.
This is a very difficult question.
I think we should try to convince people
that opera is special,
but reflects our existence.
In opera you have like a mirror of yourself,
you can see, you can watch yourself, watching at the stage.
They are doing things we are doing all the time.
Jealousy, fear,
all the feelings we have in life,
we can see them,
maybe sometimes a little bit too much black and white.
Yes, of course we are not going around killing people
and so on. (laughs)
But the feelings are the same.
And so, this is why opera is so good for life.
Because that's us, and there are some,
not many, but some pieces which are real
microcosmos of life and of existence.
When you have everything.
I think Falstaff, for example, I think Rosenkavalier,
and you have so many different persons
and so many different characters and each one of them
reflects what we are in life.
And this is so important.
So we should be...
I think it's our responsibility to be very humble
and really to be open for the audience,
and tell to the audience,
"We are doing something special,
"but we are doing this for you
"in order that you can reflect about yourself."
This is art in general, but this is opera in particular.
So, I don't have a recipe for this,
But I think, if we are...
If we try to be,
ethically true to ourselves,
then that could be a very good...
It's not about show business.
Of course, it's a little bit of show business too,
in the oper business, but taking it serious.
- [Female Student] From a conducting stand point,
both in symphonic verse and dramatic verse,
can you speak about how do you go about
preparing atonal scores--"
- I cannot hear you properly as every conductor.
- [Female Student] From a conducting stand point,
how do you go about preparing atonal scores,
whether they be operatic or symphonic?
- [Professor] Atonal scores.
Atonal, modern scores, non-tonal ones.
- [Female Student] For example, you had mentioned Lulu.
- Yes.
- [Female Student] Things like that.
How do you go about studying or preparing?
- Not differently then Gluck, Scarlatti, Handel
or Bach, actually.
- [Professor] Can you repeat the question?
- Yes, how I approach atonal scores in my studying
from a conductor's point of view, right?
- [Female Student] Yes.
- Okay, it doesn't matter
which age is the score connected to, which style.
My first step I open the score
and I try to imagine the sounds coming out of the score.
And so, it's really the same if it is Lulu,
if it is Ligeti, if it is Stockhausen, or
if it is Beethoven or Mozart.
The approach is always the same.
And you mentioned the difference
between theatrical or symphonic?
- [Female Student] Yes.
- Well, this is a question you can answer
after having studied the score.
What is your idea in presenting the music you have studied.
What is this?
Is it the three orchestra pieces of Berg?
You can imagine a story.
Is there a story behind these pieces,
or there is not a story?
Is there a plot?
You can create for yourself a plot.
This is fear, or this is anger or whatever,
but it's something which is very personal.
But the first approach is always the same,
for me, at least.
- [Female Student Two] What are some of the worst things
a singer can do in rehearsal?
(audience laughs)
- Not being prepared.
It's not one of the worst; it's the worst.
- [Female Student Three] To you, what takes a singer
from just being good to being great?
What makes them into a great artist
besides just being prepared
and just knowing their character?
What really makes them magical?
- Many things.
I, personally, believe in a lot of instinct.
A good artist should have instinct,
something which is beyond his preparation,
beyond his or her story.
Instinct for theater, instinct for music,
which is also like being aware
what is happening around you.
There are very good singers,
they isolate themselves from everything.
What happens on stage, in the orchestra, conductor,
it doesn't matter.
They are focused on themselves.
Good singers, but they are,
for me personally, not interesting.
Because I can see he is thinking only about himself,
and this is not art, this is not opera, especially.
So, I think the great singer is the singer
who is able to react of everything is happening around him.
Having an own idea of course,
but also being part of a big thing.
This is the great singer.
We don't have many.
(audience laughs)
- [Professor] Question.
As music director at Zürich Opera,
how do you plan an entire season?
How do you think about balancing repertoire
when you look at a whole season?
- Yes, we have a standard.
For example, every year we have one Baroque opera.
Every year we have contemporary or classic modern opera.
We should have at least two Italian operas,
one to two German operas, and one other opera
belonging to another repertoire.
It could be a Slavic opera or English, Britain for example,
or American opera, something like this.
So we have every year a balance for the planning.
More questions?
- [Male Student Three] If you could change anything
about the way singers are trained,
would you change anything or would you give,
to put it another way, if you could give a message
to every singer you work with five years
before you meet them?
(audience laughs)
- No, it's a good question.
I'm not singer
I just studied two years singing
during my study as a conductor,
but it ended up with my teachers telling me,
"Okay, I sing and you play piano."
(audience laughs)
So, I cannot speak a lot about training for singers,
but what I see is most, many young singers coming,
making a career, and coming to important stages,
many of them they don't know what they are singing.
They don't know the meaning of the words,
and they don't know the subtext of the words.
If you sing a Mozart opera, Da Ponte opera, for example,
they are full of subtexts.
And if you do not understand the subtexts,
you cannot sing this properly.
You sing the words, maybe
more or less good,
but it's not about the words.
It's about what's behind the words.
And I think singing, and especially singing opera,
is not only question of voice, but is question
of understanding what you are singing.
So, the text should have more importance
in training of young singers, in my opinion.
And languages, of course.
- [Female Student Three] Stemming from that question,
how would we go about to start finding that subtext?
Of course, we do our translation,
but where would we go from there?
- Learn the language.
So, you sing a Mozart opera?
You cannot do it without knowing Italian.
Impossible.
You want to sing a Strauss opera,
especially Hoffman style operas,
so Rosenkavalier, and so on?
Learn German, otherwise, you are not able to understand.
- [Female Student Three] Thank you.
- Personally, I don't conduct Slavic opera,
because I cannot speak Russian, I cannot speak Czech.
I did Jenůfa a couple of years ago.
It was beautiful because the music is great,
and I had great singers, but for me,
it was a torture because I cannot speak Czech.
I could not talk to the singers and tell them
what I normally do.
"This word is more important.
"This other word is more important."
That was very difficult to me,
so I just conduct Italian, French, German, English operas,
because I understand the text.
- [Professor] Just one last question.
You'll be conducting the Julliard Orchestra coming up,
What is different in your approach
that you bring to students as a conductor
as oppose to professionals?
And could you repeat?
- The approach to a student orchestra
comparing to a professional orchestra,
this is the question, right?
No difference actually, because the basics
of orchestral work are the same,
no matter if I'm with young children orchestra
or with Philadelphia Orchestra.
So, of course, with young people,
I cannot assume they have the experience
to understand very quickly how I want to shape a phrase.
So, I have to explain exactly,
"This phrase, we shape this phrase from the beginning,
we are going to the peak, we are going a little bit back,
then another peak, and then we end the phrase.
For a professional musician with experience,
it's normal;
it's something an experienced musician understands
very, very quickly.
It belongs to his musical background.
For young people, sometimes they don't have
this background yet, so I have to explain this.
But basically the technical work is the same.
So, the approach is, for me, is the same.
And the goal I set,
the goals I set are the same.
More question?
No more question?
- [Professor] Thank you very much.
- Thank you.
(audience applauds)