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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
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conducting actually work? Davis cites recent
performances of Mahler’s
Symphony No. 7
with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester
Berlin: “They hadn’t played the piece in at
least eight years. I started rehearsing four
days before the concert and had probably
a few hours more than you’d have with
North American or British orchestras, who
are incredibly quick. European orchestras
are very good, but it takes them longer
sometimes to figure things out.” Whenever
rehearsal time is limited, “early in the
rehearsal period you have to establish certain
stylistic or rhythmic concerns that are going
to be endemic throughout the piece. If you
fix those quickly, it will carry over into the
rest of the rehearsals. How you play the
dotted rhythms in the Mahler 7 – that kind
of thing.”
Whether a Beethoven symphony, a
Wagner opera, or a Strauss tone poem,
the privilege of leading great masterpieces
continues to thrill Davis immeasurably.
“This music is just so fantastic. But it’s not
a great sense of power that a conductor feels
– more often, it’s a great sense of terror!
The fact is that there’s all this extraordinary
repertoire that
needs
a conductor, this vast
treasure-house of music covering many
centuries.”
How does Davis explain what he and
his conducting colleagues
do
on the podium?
“The basic thing you’re doing is helping
musicians play together! But that, of course,
is just the beginning. If you play a Mozart
symphony, probably a great orchestra could
play it by itself, but it wouldn’t necessarily
add up musically. I’ve always been one of
those people who say that it’s all there on
the page – but obviously, you’re going to
interpret
one way or another. There are
infinite different details, and decisions that
can be made in different ways: how loud do
you want the strings to be in relation to the
brass? How much time do you take at the
end of a particular phrase? It’s incredibly
subtle sometimes, but those things really
make a difference.”
Whereas an orchestra concert can be
prepared in just a couple of days, preparing
an opera performance is different. With
Die
Walküre
, “we’ll start staging rehearsals and
then I’ll get into orchestra readings, which
are spread over a couple of weeks. Then we
bring everyone together for the first time in
the
Sitzprobe
[literally “sitting rehearsal,”
traditionally with singers onstage at music
stands and the orchestra in the pit]. It’s
very advantageous to have this time to
put everything together. That’s true of any
opera production, particularly something as
complex and long as the
Ring
operas.”
The initial days of the rehearsal
period don’t generally find Davis working
musically with the cast. The tradition in
opera is that everyone comes to the initial
piano rehearsals and goes through staging,
“and it’s only after it’s all coming together
dramatically that I’ll have music rehearsals
with the singers. That’s after they’re done
worrying about what they’re doing onstage
– we can then solidify the musical concept.
I think most conductors would agree with
me: in a long staging period, even the best
singers tend to put the music secondary, in
relation to what they’re trying to achieve
dramatically. For me, you need that time
when everything becomes musically really
solid, in the latter stages of preparation.”
An essential element that separates
Davis’s work on orchestral concerts from
opera performances is that “in opera you’re
dealing with the setting of text, so you have
to know the libretto very thoroughly. When
I’m conducting a Wagner opera, that aspect
involves a long period of preparation for
me.” For
Walküre
Davis started working
two years ahead. Some orchestral pieces, too,
certainly demand very extensive advance
work – for example, any Mahler symphony,
which Davis will generally begin working
on a year before the performance (“I’ve
done all the Mahler symphonies, but not as
often as you might imagine”). Even if it’s a
work that he’s conducted fairly frequently,
he always returns to the score ahead of
time to reconsider details, keeping in mind
Toscanini’s famous comment, “I sleep with
the ‘
Eroica’ Symphony
under my pillow!”
It’s important to Sir Andrew never to take
anything for granted in his music-making:
“I just did Mahler 7 in Melbourne in
March. The last time I’d done it was at least
20 years before, and it was like a new piece.”
Returning to certain works gives
a conductor a chance to rethink an
interpretation, something Davis invariably
relishes. “There will be things that had
totally escaped you previously that you now
suddenly discover, one hopes! With Mahler,
I think just the psychological fact of having
Don Giovanni
curtain call, 2014: left to right, set designer Walt Spangler,
costume designer Ana Kuzmanic, Sir Andrew Davis, director Robert Falls,
baritone Mariusz Kwiecień (title role).
TODD ROSENBERG
Whereas an orchestra concert
can be prepared in just a couple
of days, preparing an opera
performance is different.