Composer Emily Howard's first full-length chamber opera, premiering today on the opening night of the Aldeburgh Festival this week, is based on a science fiction short story in which the crime of coldness is punished by invisibility. I could say a few things about the symbolism of this theme and how very much one wishes it could be true for certain people in public life, but you can work that out for yourselves. Instead, let's go over to Emily for her insights into the creative process. Toitoitoi for the performances! JD
The Invisible Opera
A guest post by Emily Howard
My first full-length chamber opera To See The Invisible[trailer] premieres this week on the opening night of this year’s Aldeburgh Festival, and we’re nearing the end of the production period. In the next few days we’ll have stage and orchestra rehearsals followed by the dress rehearsal and I can honestly say that these last few weeks have been a real eye-opener for me. Before now, I actually had no idea that there would be so many people involved in making an opera work. I’ve enjoyed working closely with librettist Selma Dimitrijevic, director Dan Ayling and music director Richard Baker for some time now, and in addition to this, collaborating with a wonderful cast of singers, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, a full opera production team as well the Aldeburgh staff over the last few weeks has been an amazing experience. That’s a lot of people and I’m delighted to have learnt a whole lot of new information.
I wonder how many other composers have had a similar experience during the production of their first opera? The feeling that in fact you are part of a giant machine and that there are many more cogs in the system than you had possibly imagined? Set Design, lighting, costume and the most amazing number of very practical considerations that in some cases can end up re-shaping your music in places. I love it. I love the collaborative nature of working as part of an opera team, and the fact that the problem solving involved has to factor in so many dimensions, with music being one of them.
My first outing in opera was a mini-opera Zátopek! commissioned by Second Movement for New Music 20x12, part of the London Cultural Olympiad. I created this with writer Selma Dimitrijevic and we were keen to work together again. We began to discuss the idea of shunning as a central theme for an opera at least five years ago in 2013, and this was the starting point for To See The Invisible.
In 2014 Selma and I linked up with director Dan Ayling, and we all decided that it would be beneficial to approach opera development in a tripartite fashion: composer, librettist and director in discussion from the outset. In particular, we spent significant time together on artistic residencies at Snape Maltings developing materials and ideas, a period that I believe was hugely valuable for the opera. We are all very strong-minded and the three-way conversation enabled us to discuss the many layers of the opera from very different perspectives.
To See The Invisibleis loosely based on a short sci-fi story To See The Invisible Manby American writer Robert Silverberg. The way we came to discover this wonderful short story is worth telling. Selma was working on the libretto in 2016 and staying with her brother in Croatia. One day she described the story that she was working on to him, and he said “that reminds me of Robert Silverberg’s short sci-fi story” and directed Selma to his bookshelf. Selma then realised that this was a story she had read in her childhood and that it was now resurfacing in our opera! We had been searching for the ‘crux’ of the theme of shunning, and what the crime would be – and finding the Silverberg story clarified this complete for us, as we encountered the concept of the crime of coldness around which his story hinges.
In the opera, like in the Silverberg, our protagonist, The Invisible, is sentenced to a year of invisibility for committing a crime of coldness. The Invisible’s physical journey through the world of warmth, and emotional journey from hope to despair are also rooted in the Silverberg short story. But there are significant differences as well: the opera begins a lot earlier than the story: we see the arrest, and there is a court scene where The Invisible receives the sentence. In the opera, we also experience the toll this takes on The Invisible’s family.
In my concert music as well as my music for stage, I am always excited by the collision and union of disparate ideas from diverse sources: the subsequent translation of these hybrid ideas into sound is the crux of my creative process, and never more so than in the musical score for To See The Invisible. In the opera, it has therefore been my aim to create hugely contrasting types of music that interact with each other in unexpected ways.
Writing concert music is deeply rewarding in a completely different way from writing music for the stage and over the last decade I’ve written a number of works using ideas from science and mathematics as creative catalysts. These include my string quartet Afference(2014-15), receiving a performance given by the Piatti Quartet in Aldeburgh, and orchestral works sphere(2017) and Magnetite(2007), both being performed in Aldeburgh by BBC National Orchestra of Wales conducted by Mark Wigglesworth as part of my residency this year.
Yesterday it was announced that the Italian conductor Fabio Luisi has been appointed music director of the Dallas Symphony. Many congratulations to both maestro and orchestra - it's splendid news. He takes up his post in 2020. Currently he is music director of the Zurich Opera House, the Danish National Symphony Orchestra and the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino.
About two and a half years ago I was dispatched to Zurich to interview Fabio Luisi for The Independent. It was the start of the 2015-16 season and the opera house was opening with a stunning new production of Berg's Wozzeck by Andreas Homoki, with the baritone Christian Gerhaher in the title role. I enjoyed a fascinating, wide-ranging and deep-thinking discussion with Maestro Luisi which could have filled a small book. When I got home I found that I was required to write all of 600 words...about my interviewee's side enthusiasm - his perfume brand. Meanwhile the auto-"correct" on my phone, on which I record interviews, had saved the track as "Fabio Lucidity". Which was not inappropriate.
I've therefore been waiting for a suitable moment to run selected highlights from the rest of the interview. The chance is upon us. Please bear in mind, reading the below, that this took place several years ago - but I've tried to choose only the parts of the interview that are still relevant today (and in particular I have not included some passages about the Met in New York, as recent events over there have rendered them quite seriously outdated).
Fabio Luisi
Photo: Barbara Luisi Photography
JD: I’m fascinated by the contrast between Zurich and New York – I can’t think of two more different places and opera houses.
FL: The first thing is we think about the size of the houses, but the way to make music is, for me at least, very similar, with the same principles. This house is a little bit more tricky because you have to care about dynamics, especially with a huge orchestra like Wagner or Strauss, and even Wozzeck can be dangerous. On the other hand it’s very good for the musicians and even for the correlation we have with each other because we try – and this is one of the best skills of this orchestra – to try to make chamber music out of every work. And this is always a good thing, so we can see the structures of the composition, we can hear every voice, every line, which means a lot to me. But basically it’s the same way I’m working in New York.
Wozzeck still feels like a contemporary work today…
I think every master work is contemporary. Even the oldest ones, if you see Monteverdi’s Orfeo,it is contemporary because it speaks about things which are actual to us as well – loss, love, search for identity, search for meaning of life. And this piece: of course soldiers have been soldiers for 10,000 years, it’s always the same issue with war and soldiers. It doesn’t change and it won’t change ever. I think a real masterwork, whether in music, literature or painting, is a work which shows you like a microcosm of life, which is actual no matter in which time it has been written and in which time is going to be heard, seen or read. Wozzeck is one of those masterworks.
Do you have ideas about what directions the operatic world could take to rejuvenate itself?
This is hard to say. I think the priority is always the quality of what you present to the audience. If you’re just presenting something without any artistic or dramatic goal before your eyes, this is what happened in many houses in the last 20 years, no matter what they did, the public hand was paying. Now it’s not paying any more, so they have to develop new ideas, that’s clear, and at the same time attract a new segment of audience.
Here in Zurich we are working very hard at this. Yesterday we had a day of open doors with a huge party on the square in front of the house where we presented our opera studio with the young singers, and we had a quiz. In the evening I had an open rehearsal of Falstaff for four hours; the house was packed – everyone could come inside and watch the rehearsal. I spoke to the audience before and told them ‘You are experiencing what we are doing every day and in order to improve our offer to you’ – so I interrupted, I talked to the singers and the orchestra, we did some parts again and again until they were good with the audience in the hall. These are small steps, but with time you attract people. It is important to talk to people about what you are doing, because they don’t know what’s happening. They come to us in the evening, but they don’t know we are working all day for this. Sometimes we hear the question “You play in the evening, but what are you doing during the day?”…
Zurich has a big reputation for building singers’ careers…
Yes, many great singers, Jonas Kaufmann, Vittorio Grigolo, Javier Camarena, a lot have been here. And we have a lot of new young singers who are starting a huge career. That’s a good thing and it means our director, casting director, music director, general director, they have good ears to understand how young singers could develop in the future & this is v important.
I’d understand if you didn’t want to name anyone – but any you specially like now?
Many of them – it would be unfair to the others to talk names, but maybe Julie Fuchs, who is in our ensemble. There are so many good young singers. They do not develop at exactly the same pace. Some need more time, others develop like an explosion from one day to another, they change the voice, they have the personality, or they have the courage to show the personanity. In our opera studio we offer two years where they can learn and also start to participate to the productions with small roles at first and then more. The good ones we take over to the ensemble. This is a very good path.
What’s it like working with Christian Gerhaher? [He was singing Wozzeck]
It is challenging and refreshing at the same time! It is challenging because he has – he’s a perfectionist. And he reminds us that we should be all perfectionists in our musical jobs, never be happy with what we could achieve because there is always a step forwards. This is like him: he is always looking for better. At the same time this is the challenging part, because he inspires everybody to be like him, and also the refreshing part because he reminds us we are doing this for music: it is not a normal job, it’s something special, we’re doing something that elevates us in order to elevate the people who come to our performances. It’s great to work with him on the human basis.
How do you manage your multi-tasking and dividing your time?
I try to make the best of everything. I always think I am so fortunate to be able to do this – opera, concert performances and even my perfume business, which is just a small thing like a hobby. They give me a lot of energy.
Illustration of Don d'Amour by Nafia Guljar for FL Parfums
How did the perfumery begin?
I was always interested in perfumes and one day I thought why don’t I try it for myself? So a few years ago I started to read, to get informed, to try by myself to make mixtures. I had a teacher and continued to learn. It’s a continuous learning process; it never ends.
What about Italy? We always think of it as the home of opera and we like to think you’d have been steeped in Italian opera from the start…
…Which for me is not the case! I started with music very early, but opera has always been something I did not consider earnestly until my teacher in Genoa brought me to a rehearsal. She was my piano teacher, but she played violin in the orchestra, When I was 11-12 she brought me to a rehearsal. I remember very clearly, it was Otello in the 1960s or beginning of the 1970s. It was something astonishing to me - so many people on stage and I thought they are actors and singers and the orchestra and the maestro coordinating everything, and that was probably the first input for opera.
Later I worked with singers on the piano and that was very important to me because I learned to breathe, to shape phrases. I learned also the physiology of the singers because that’s very important for a conductor. I began to think piano is too small for me, I want to develop a conducting style, so I started studying conducting. After that I had a job at Graz opera house as a coach at first and then conducting first small things. So I started that way. This is very normal: the old-fashioned path to opera conducting. I have to say I could not conduct opera if I had not had this kind of experience. It was important to me to accompany a singer on the piano and know when he needs to breathe and why and how the voice works, how his anatomy and physiology work – it’s something you have to know in order to do this job. It’s not just beating the tempo!
Were there musicians who inspired you, mentors, etc?
I studied in Genoa until my piano diploma and we did not have a lot of great artists coming to our town – it wasn’t like London, NY, Paris, Milano, where everybody should be. It is more provincial, so I tried to get out of Genoa and went to Austria and tehre I started to try to go deeper into the music. My only conducting teacher was Milan Horvath – he was a very experienced musician, not very famous, but a good solid conductor with perfect preparation and a wonderful technique. I learned a lot from him. Then I learned by doing: by coaching and by assisting other conductors actually. Of course I had my musical role models, like Leonard Bernstein, Sergiu Celibidache or Herbert von Karajan, but I never met them!
There’s a huge contrast between the still-prevalent Regietheater in Germany and central Europe and the Met’s conservative approach in the US. Do you have a preference for experimental productions or classic ones?
I have my preferences in an aesthetical world, of course, but I try not to judge aesthetics because they can be so different – and good, even if they are not my aesthetics, I have to admit it is well done and it works. For staging, I don’t like to make a difference between conservative and progressive or experimental. The first issue, the first task they have to achieve, is the respect of the score, the respect of what is the score, what is behind the score, what is the meaning of the piece, What I do not like is – there was a vogue in Germany 10-15 years ago, it was called Deconstructivism, to completely destroy the structure and meaning of a piece. I’ve never understood why! Why would we do that?!
And so of course you can have a very progressive staging which is terribly boring, and you can have a conservative staging which is full of wit and ideas and which describes, even explains the piece. That’s what I want to see: please explain to me this piece. What I always say – which is maybe easy to say, but for me crucial – if I went to an opera performance with my kids, when they were younger, and they didn’t understand what’s happening, then it was a bad staging. No matter if it’s conservative or progressive. They have seen progressive things and were enthusiastic; and conservative ones, well done, but they thought it was boring, because they did not understand exactly what was happening. As a father I think it’s a good way to understand whether the staging is adequate or not. This is my point of view.
Any directors you’d refuse to work with?
It happened several times already to refuse an offer because I knew which director was doing that and I told the intendant of the opera house that I’m sorry but I’m not the right man to work with him, so before we have then problems in the moment of working together, take another conductor so you won’t have problems at that point. It has always been a wise decision on my part to do this, even refusing an important opera house. I work here [Zurich] and I can choose my directors – I know with whom I want to work.
Which directors do you like to work with?
Robert Carsen, for instance. I also like to work with Andreas Homoki, we did many, many works together. I had a good experience many years ago with Tony Palmer – we did Simon Boccanegra in Hamburg. He’s a wonderful man with a deep understanding of theatre and music and he has made a lot of movies, which are very interesting. He was not doing much opera, but at that time what he did do was beautiful and deep and simple. The simplest things are often the best. I have also worked with Günter Krämer a couple of times: it’s always very beautiful to work with him.
Anything you haven’t conducted yet that you still want to do?
Yes, there are a couple of Wagner operas I’d like to conduct, but also operas that I’m waiting for, because I don’t feel ready yet. There are many conductors who say ‘everything as soon as possible’. I don’t agree. Maybe I would have agreed 20 years ago, but I don’t any more because 20 years ago I thought La Traviata is an easy piece! But today if someone proposes me La Traviata I think Oh God, it is one of the most difficult pieces there is! To do it well is very difficult. It’s a question of personality, and of ageing. I think differently now from how I thought when I was 30.
Which pieces would you wait for?
Tristan: I’d wait. I think in a couple of years I could try. Parsifal: I could do it now. I’ve never done Otello, but I don’t know if I want to do Otello. Otherwise I’d like to do Moses und Aron and I think I could be ready for this now.
You’re doing so many different things at such a high level – would it be fair to say you’re someone who likes to do things properly or not at all?
Yes!
So you’re a perfectionist?
To be perfectionist is a challenge. This is important to me: if I do something I try to do it properly, yes.
Because I think some people who might take up perfumery as a hobby might not turn it into a business!
Possibly! But I cannot stand people who do not care about quality. This is important. Why are we doing this: just for the money? It’s not for the money. For the audience? Yes, for the audience; but also for the respect of what we are doing. I think how much energy, thoughts, passion and time, but especially thoughts and passion Alban Berg put into this work [Wozzeck]; I feel forced to do it well for him, for the work, and to show the audience how great this work is. Sometimes I can do it; sometimes not as well as I want. But my father always used to say to me you have to try not harder, harder is not enough, but hardEST, because if you don’t achieve that goal, even if you are a little bit behind it, it will still be good. But if you don’t aim for the best, you will never achieve any goal – and this is right.
Was he a musician?
No – he was a train conductor! And of course I loved him and I loved his job & he took me sometimes on the cockpit of the train.
Every small boy’s dream…
It was my dream too, actually. J
Was he surprised you became a musician?
No, because it was their decision to make me learn piano. I was three and a half years old, I could not make such decisions, and my parents wanted to do something with me. I have to say that I never heard him play,but I know that he was 12 years in Belgium working and he played saxophone in a jazz band there. And my mother was a tailor.
Was there much support for you while you were studying music?
They had to make a lot of sacrifices. I know that now. I didn’t see it then, and that was good, because it means that they tried not to show me. But now I know that it was difficult and now I understand why we never had vacation, why we never went out to dinner or lunch, why we did not have a car. At the time I was surprised because all my friends went on vacation or had a car and we did not, so now I understand: they had other priorities. It was good. And they did the same for me and for my brother – he is teaching baroque violin in Austria and is an outstanding musician. They did it for us. I have a lot of respect for this. They are no longer alive, but they saw me conducting many times and they were very proud of us.
Live radio is quite scary, but I took the plunge yesterday. It's an honour to be on the panel of judges for the BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour Power List 2018, which is devoted to Women in Music and was launched yesterday. I'm the classical representative alongside some formidable figures from the pop world - producer Catherine Marks, broadcaster Jasmine Dotiwala and singer-songwriter Kate Nash - and we have quite a task ahead of us, whittling down the number of powerful women in the music world to select the top 40. The list will be announced in the autumn.
You can hear the podcast from yesterday's programme on the iPlayer, here. Happy listening.
I had a lovely interview with the Dutch violinist Liza Ferschtman the other week (official version available to read in this week's JC, here) - she will be in London to play Bernstein's Serenade at Cadogan Hall with the Brussels Philharmonic on Thursday 31 May. Her recording of it - and the Korngold Violin Concerto - is highly recommended. During our conversation, I learned that her family was close to the absolute legend of a violinist that was Philippe Hirschhorn. Her father was the cellist of the Glinka Quartet until they left Russia in the late 1970s, her mother was a pianist, and she grew up in the Netherlands with fellow emigré Hirschhorn virtually as honorary uncle. Hirschhorn, born in the USSR, won the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels, and later settled in the Netherlands - but his career ended tragically, with his death from a brain tumour aged only 50. His sound burned one up like no other. There was more to say than I could put in the article, so here are some more of Liza's memories.
"For a while, Philippe played second violin in my father's quartet because he loved playing second - it involved less pressure and beautiful inner voicing. My parents both went to the same famous school in Moscow as he did - the Central Music School, for elementary and high school together, and Philippe came there when he was 13. They met then, in the same class. But he was expelled for misbehaviour after about a year - he was burning piano keys and being a bit of a rowdy kid. But, as later in life, at the same time everyone was a little bit in love with him: there was a very devilish-and-angelic thing about him.
He left the USSR already in the mid 1970s and my parents were aware of that, so when they emigrated they picked up contact again and became very close friends. The practical situation was also that he from the early 80s used to teach in Utrecht, round the corner from where we lived, so every weekend when he’d teach he’d stay with us. From as long as I can remember, he’d just be there, practically every weekend, so I always played for him. Sometimes he’d arrive on Friday and I’d be home but my parents weren’t, and he’d say 'OK, play me something...' "He was not a particularly pedagogical teacher then - he was still playing a lot himself and he had no idea how to teach children at all. But I distinctly remember I would play something and he wouldn’t necessarily know how to explain something, but he would play it for me on my tiny violin and it would sound incredible! So I'd have that example - the he would give the violin back to me and say 'OK, I’m going to smoke a cigarette now, you can deal with that...'!
"A little later, in my my mid teens, I would play more regularly and more seriously for him. In the last two years he was unable to play any more himself. They didn’t know what it was for ages. He had neurological failure in his fingers, so they were trying all kinds of physiotherapy, but it was being caused by a brain tumour. Finally they discovered that and operated and he was fine for a short while. Then it came back. "But when he started to teach me more seriously, there were some very crucial moments. I remember playing a little Kreisler piece, Tambourin chinois or something, with my mother and there was a modulation where something turns suddenly from minor to major quite suddenly. I remember distinctly that he complimented me - or dissed my mother a little bit! - by saying 'Look, she [Liza] got that colour change much better!' But pointing out to me, he was so sensitive to shifting colour - he was the one who taught me what happens at the end of a note, how to make a diminuendo, how to really change something: this awareness of sound at the end of a note, how things shouldn’t die. It’s almost a vocal thing, actually. Those seem tiny little things, but they became so important to me, about how to produce sound and how to listen. "I won a youth competition when I was 14 and there was a video - and then there was a TV programme in which I had to play the same piece. He would watch both videos and point out to me why something worked or didn’t work in one or the other, not so much things you could put your finger on, but something about tension. And it’s important that someone points it out to you when you’re young, because you become much more sensitive to it and aware of it. "Still to this day, I’ve been fortunate enough not to have lost too many people and he is still the biggest loss we have had in our family circle. As I said, everyone was always in love with him a little bit. It’s 22 years ago that he died, but he’s still so much in the forefront in my family. I have so many pictures of him in my violin case. I called him my uncle, but he was much more than that." Here is Liza playing the Beethoven 'Kreutzer' Sonata with pianist Julien Quentin. Occasionally - very occasionally - I come across a musician who looks a bit like me and plays exactly as I'd have wanted to had I been any remote use as violinist, and I wonder if Liza might be a long-lost soul-sister. Don't miss her Bernstein if you're in London (book here).
Barbara Hannigan as Isabel, Stéphane Degout as The King, Gyula Orendt as Gaveston Photo: Stephen Cummiskey
There has been a great deal of fuss this week, courtesy of questionable decisions at the Philadelphia Orchestra, about 'respecting the sanctity of the concert hall' (Read Philip Gentry's piece here.) Just the tired old standard defence against anyone objecting to decisions made by performers/managers that are...questionable – designed simply to silence those who disagree. It's saddening to see Yannick say 'Musicians are not men and women of words', as most of the ones I know bloody well are.
My latest evening at the Royal Opera House has left me wondering why anyone would consider there's anything resembling 'sanctity' in any performance house – I won't say 'any more' because it probably was never there.
Last night I went with a friend to see the new George Benjamin opera Lessons in Love and Violence. We sat in the amphitheatre - clear overview, great sound. It's also rather hot and airless and the seats, though 20th-century, are designed for 19th rather than 21st-century people, so you're very up-close-and-personal with your neighbours. None of this encourages an atmosphere of 'sanctity'.
Five minutes before curtain up, we were reading Martin Crimp's synopsis, wondering how far the opera relates to Christopher Marlowe's Edward II, when the couple to my right started having a massive row, fighting over some conversation that must have taken place just beforehand. When one voice was raised, the other shushed, which was a pity because it was getting interesting. He was demanding that she take something back and that they never discuss it again. She wasn't having any. Eventually he said, "We should just go". She didn't want to just go. She wanted to hear the opera. Then the lights went down, at which point the man shoved the woman's cardigan - which he'd gallantly been holding - back onto her lap, then went clambering over everyone's knees to the exit, just as the music began. What followed on stage was not exactly the thing to see or hear when you're having a bust-up of this magnitude, so one could hardly blame her for following suit at the halfway pause. At such moments, one can well understand, a house of performance is not a place of sanctity. It's a trap.
Then, about half an hour in, the couple on my companion's left started having a massive row too. She was checking her phone. He was telling her she shouldn't. He was right. She responded by becoming awfully upset. Tissues were produced. Maybe she didn't realise the performance house was a place of sanctity where you shouldn't get out your mobile. Did you know: If your light goes on, the whole theatre can see you and point, including the people performing, if they're so minded? This, of course, is nothing new. Most performances these days are liberally sprinkled with the tears of those who can't stay off their phones for two minutes, let alone 85.
Sanctity shmanctity.
What of the opera? It is wonderfully written: imaginative, concise, focused, clear. You could hear every word. The orchestration is magical, lit with fresh and inventive percussive effects and flickers of woodwind and brass. The pacing is varied, surprising, masterly: the most memorable section possibly the death scene, in which the King "experiences death" in absolute stillness and rapt quiet. There is no red-hot poker. The performers - Stéphane Degout as The King, Barbara Hannigan as Isabel and a magnificent line-up supporting - could not have been better. And yet there was startlingly little about the action that could make us begin to be interested in what was going on, and the staging, directed by Katie Mitchell (whom I usually admire) with designs by Vicki Mortimer, seemed stylised and confusing: a giant bed faced by rows of empty chairs, people trooping in and out even without much to do, and some soothing tanks of tropical fish.
If someone decides to create an opera out of Marlowe's Edward II, fine - but this adaptation fell somewhat short. Isabel becomes a one-dimensional figure despite Hannigan's best efforts: pure opera-woman cliché, a devious being with frustrated sexual appetite and characterless children. Contemporary sideswipes - issues over playing music while the country falls apart, or Trumpy-style references to "Dead Man Mortimer" which called to mind "Crooked Hillary" - feel slightly incongruous and unnecessary, especially as there wasn't one lead character anyone could reasonably relate to. Except I do want to know what happened to Felicity the Cat (brought in in a scarily familiar-looking carrier-box), whose deluded owner is brutally murdered: perhaps she got to eat some of the fish later... On the whole, admirable though the score is, I regret to say I'm with the critic who remarked that he was quite pleased to exit at the end in search of a burrito.
The true drama was in the audience – along with the real lessons in love and violence. All the world's a stage.
