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L Y R I C O P E R A O F C H I C A G O
November 1 - 30, 2017
|
15
DARIO ACOSTA
The
Walküre
scene exemplifies the
qualities that, in the current
Ring
, Davis
believes he will now be able to achieve
“more instinctively, intuitively, than by
calculation.” His hope is that his singers
will be completely in accord with him: “The
greatest singers are people for whom every
moment is not necessarily written in stone.
You want your work with them to be like
chamber music – a dialogue that can vary
from performance to performance. That’s
vital in all music-making, of course.”
Bizet’s
The Pearl Fishers
, a debut for
Davis, who has previously triumphed at
Lyric with this composer’s
Carmen
, is
the latest addition to the French wing of
his vast repertoire. It’s a source of great
satisfaction to him that French opera has
become one of his major specialties, not
just in Chicago but also in other major
houses internationally.
Davis first led Puccini’s
Turandot
at
Lyric in 2006/07, and he’s looking forward
to returning to it. “I love
Turandot
, which,
along with
La fanciulla del West
, is an opera
in which Puccini’s use of the orchestra is
at its most extraordinary. He was such a
great melodist, but people forget about his
orchestration. In that respect,
Turandot
can be a truly sensual experience! It’s a
good example of why I get such a big
kick out of doing what I do for a living.
This is an opera that gives you so many
opportunities for color and drama.”
When it comes to the Lyric orchestra,
Davis is unstinting in his praise. “The
technical level of this orchestra is second
to none. We have a phenomenal brass
section, and the cello section is sounding
particularly marvelous at the moment. The
strings in general have a wonderful depth
of sound. In any music, this orchestra
has the potential to deliver something
extraordinarily powerful. With Massenet’s
Don Quichotte
last season, I was incredibly
proud of the orchestra because of its
ability to suddenly transform itself into
an orchestra that sounded as if it played
French music all the time. In the more
intimate scenes, the delicate, almost
‘perfumed’ sound that you also get in
Debussy and Ravel, was something they
produced quite exquisitely. I point that out
only to emphasize the stylistic flexibility of
this orchestra.”