Teodor Currentzis: Music to die for

Teodor Currentzis (c) Anton Zavyalov

He is praised and reviled for his idiosyncratic approach to classical masterpieces. According to Teodor Currentzis (1972) this is ‘a myth, I only do what the composer wants’. On Monday 7 May he will make his debut at Dutch National Opera with his own musicAeterna in Mozart’s  La clemenza di Tito. The production is directed by Peter Sellars and was premiered in Salzburg in August 2017.

Organizing a talk with the controversial conductor turns out to be quite a challenge. After weeks of intensive correspondence, Teodor Currentzis agrees to an interview – the following day. When I call him at the agreed time in Vienna, I am kindly asked to wait another five to ten minutes, the rehearsal with Camerata Salzburg lasts somewhat longer than planned. Two hours and many repeated calls later I finally get him on the phone. But then he takes all the time to answer my questions.

Creating spaces in music

He politely but resolutely parries my observation that he is apparently a perfectionist, given the ever-expanding rehearsal. ‘You can put it that way, but I would put it differently. I am dedicated to music and always try to achieve what I have in mind, that takes time. For me, music is not simply a way to fill in the empty spaces in my life. The exact opposite is true: my life is at the service of the spaces I create in music.’

How are we supposed to understand this, I can’t help asking, being a typically down-to-earth Dutchwoman. My question sparks off an enthusiastic plea from the Greek-Russian maestro about the metaphysical value of music. It represents nothing less than the Good, the True and the Beautiful, and makes us into better people. With this conviction, Currentzis fits in seamlessly with Russian composers who counterbalanced the barbarity of the Soviet dictatorship with spiritually inclined works.

Natural harmony

‘I don’t see music as a series of sounds, but as a new form of communication that brings about natural harmony’, says Currentzis. ‘Our language, which has been developed over thousands of years, can only describe everyday matters that are absolutely necessary. It is becoming increasingly poorer and clumsier, and cannot express the really important things. We are stuck to our mobile phone all day, physical contact disappears. Instead of going for a walk with friends and enjoying the sunset, we have a conversation via Skype or Facebook. But music expresses the very essence of life.’

Contrary to this spirit of the times, Currentzis founded his orchestra and choir musicAeterna in 2004, with which he initiates an ever-expanding audience into these deeper layers of meaning. In preparation for a concert, visitors are a week long immersed in public rehearsals, master classes, workshops and lectures by philosophers, musicologists and psychologists.

Laboratory

‘I’ve created a laboratory in which we work with sensitive people’, says the conductor. ‘They are open, willing to look for the truth within and to enter into a relationship with what is happening on stage. This gives them as much insight into the performed works as the musicians themselves.’

Starting in Novosibirsk, the capital of Siberia, he moved musicAeterna to Perm in 2011, some two thousand kilometres westwards. At the time, this relatively small city presented itself as the centre of a cultural revolution and offered Currentzis the opportunity to develop his idealistic concepts in peace and quiet. All his musicians and singers followed suit. The public also keeps coming in: ‘Our concerts in Moscow and St. Petersburg are sold out months in advance, people come from all over Russia and even Europe.’

Renewing listening practice

Currentzis denies that with his approach he would preach mainly for his own parish. ‘I am not only looking for communication with intellectuals, we also play in squares, in hospitals and prisons, or for junkies. I notice that non-experts are often more open than the usual white audience, who think they already know everything.’

He is convinced that our listening practice should be renewed. ‘Listening to music is not about an opera fan who visits the same opera again and again, only with other singers, to judge how he or she takes the high note. Music is not a joke, it can transform us, it can teach us to love, forgive, help, show pity and compassion, cherish hope.’

Unconditional dedication

Too many orchestras ignore this transcendent quality, he believes. ‘They approach music as a nine-to-five job, playing as if they are office clerks. Instead of conveying emotion, they erect a wall between performer and listener.’ For him, the success of musicAeterna lies in the unconditional dedication of both musicians and singers. ‘We make music to die for, every concert anew.’

Still, he calls it a myth that his performances are contrary. ‘I do exactly what the composer asks. The usual concert practice is stuck in twentieth-century performing habits, as we know them from recordings on Deutsche Grammophon or EMI. When Mozart indicates “thunder” in his score, the strings play hushed sixteenths, so you don’t hear a thunderstorm at all. Tchaikovsky asks for ecstasy and scores six times forte, yet they play mezzoforte. They make completely different music than the composer intended.’

Mozart: contemporary composer

À propos Mozart: Currentzis once called him a contemporary composer. ‘I still think so. Historically speaking, the world has not evolved in essential matters, only in superficial things such as clothing, medicine, gadgets. But all the good and bad things we had ages ago are still the same today. Mozart does not speak in concrete terms about aesthetics, but about the asymmetrical beauty of our lives. He is contemporary because he has found the golden spot of harmony, where different energies are combined into one all-encompassing energy. Therefore he will never become old-fashioned.’

Read my review.

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#DutchNationalOpera #LaClemenzaDiTito #Mozart #PeterSellars #TeodorCurrentzis

La clemenza di Tito: exhilarating performance by Teodor Currentzis & musicAeterna

Paula Murrihy & Florian Schuele (c) Ruth Walz

Classical music matters again. At least judging from the protests against the Stockhausen retrospective Aus Licht and the fierce polemics about the interventions of opera directors. Thus La clemenza Di Tito by Teodor Currentzis and Peter Sellars caused controversy even before its Dutch premiere. They scrapped most of the recitatives and added music from Mozart’s Mass in c minor, among others.

‘A disgrace!’ cried opera fundamentalists without having heard a single note. Their irreconcilable attitude is at odds with Mozart’s own message: forgive even your own murderer. This co-production of Dutch National Opera, Salzburger Festspiele and Deutsche Oper Berlin received a jubilant first night at the Amsterdam Music Theatre on the 7th of May.

Music offers compassion and hope

‘Music can teach us to love, forgive, help, show pity and compassion, cherish hope’, Currentzis had previously told me. According to him, Mozart has an eye for our human weaknesses. He shows us the ‘asymmetrical beauty of our lives’ and is therefore ‘a contemporary composer’. And he is right. Our society is in great need of generosity and forgiveness.

Peter Sellers emphasizes the topicality of the libretto Caterino Mazzolà concocted for Mozart from an older model. The Roman Emperor Tito gives away his wealth to victims of a natural disaster and a fire. Sellars presents them as a group of ragged immigrants. He is often accused of seeking far-fetched connections with the present, but this staging is spot on.

In Mozart’s case, Emperor Tito had to give up his beloved Berenice because she was not a Roman citizen, but a native from Judea. In Sellars’ direction she is a Palestinian. He presents Sesto and his sister Servilia as two refugees who are invited by Tito to build a new life in Rome. He appoints the aristocrat Vitellia as their guide and mentor.

Suicide bomber

However, she was once rejected by the emperor and urges Sesto to kill him – as a suicide bomber. After an endless series of entanglements and a failed attack on his life, Tito forgives his assailants. Unlike in Mozart’s original he then dies, after which the opera ends with his Maurerische Trauermusik. Although appropriate, I would have preferred to hear the original finale here. Yet the other inserted fragments are aptly chosen.

For example, the formidable choir of musicAeterna sings ‘Benedictus qui venit’ from the Mass in c minor when Tito generously welcomes the asylum seekers. The cheerful singing fits in seamlessly with the festive atmosphere. However, this tilts when the members of the choir suddenly move into the hall. A not all too subtle but striking reference to the hordes of victims of poverty and violence that threaten to flood us. When Servilia rejects Tito’s marriage proposal and he thanks her for her honesty, we hear the exuberant ‘Laudate’.

Updated version

With such interventions, Sellars and Currentzis make the complex story recognizable. It is a mystery to me why critics would take offence at this. Mozart himself asked his librettist to drastically cut back the version of Pietro Metastasio’s 60-year-old text. Mazzolà cut the opera back from three to two acts and replaced solo recitatives with duets and trios. Why should performers not be allowed to make a revamped version over two centuries later?

Dynamic nuances

‘I only do what the composer wants’, Currentzis said in the aforementioned interview. Though, naturally, he presents his vision, I believe him. It is pure pleasure to hear how accurately and passionately he guides his own musicAeterna through Mozart’s music. Playing on authentic instruments the musicians bring the notes to life with a velvety sound and flashy accents. It sounds tingling fresh, as if the ink is still wet.

The dynamics are striking, switching from barely audible pianissimo to a deafening forte in one fell swoop. Not only the instrumentalists excel in subtle dynamic nuances, but also the choir singers. The moment when in ‘Qui tollis peccata mundi’ they suddenly shift to the faintest whisper in the middle of the word ‘mundi’, is hair-raising.

Everyone hangs on Currentzis’ lip, including the soloists. From row four I could see him miming every phrase – sometimes even singing along audibly. He gives the singers all the space they need, literally breathing along with them, creating pauses whenever he deems it necessary. Even though the tempi are sometimes fast, there is no question of agitation. A few moments when not everyone is quite in sync left aside.

Paula Murrihy is the true star

The cast is of somewhat uneven quality. The tenor Russell Thomas fails to convince as Emperor Tito; his voice is insecure and his acting mediocre. When he comes on stage with his retinue, our attention is inevidently drawn towards Sir Willard White, who has a much nobler appearance. In his twenty-fifth production at The National Opera, the Jamaican-British bass baritone sings the modest role of Publio. Despite his somewhat grainy voice, White convinces with his empathic interpretation.

The soprano Ekaterina Scherbachenko is a credible Vitellia, even though her intonation in the second act is not always flawless. The soprano Janai Brugger is touching in her role of the vulnerable Servilia. Her beloved Annio is a beautiful trouser role by Jeanine De Bique. She has an impressive stage presence and sings the most difficult coloratura with admirable suppleness and flawless intonation.

But the true star of the evening is the Irish mezzo-soprano Paula Murrihy as Sesto, another trouser role. More than Tito, he/she is the main character of this opera. Murrihy phenomenally impersonates the ‘asymmetrical beauty of our lives’. Awkward as the enamoured youngster who can’t resist the double-faced Vitellia. Determined once she’s donned her explosive belt in order to kill Tito, and full of remorse when she’s standing at his deathbed.

Duet between clarinet and soprano

A highpoint in the opera is Murrihy’s duet with the clarinettist Florian Schuele in the aria ‘Parto’, in which she definitively decides to carry out the attack Vitellia has incited. Like two lovers, Schuele and Murrihy circle around each other, one no less virtuoso than the other. Later on Sellars beautifully mirrors this scene, when Schuele besets the guilty Vitellia with a basset horn. Schuele delivers a top performance: he plays his rabidly difficult part by heart while moving about like an experienced actor.

Sellars’ direction is deeply human, even though one would wish for him to somewhat curb his excessive love for pathetic gestures. When choir and soloists once again desperately stretch their arms to heaven or cup their hands over their eyes or ears, the tension ebbs away. When Tito sings his final aria in his hospital bed convulsing in agony of death, this is unintentionally funny.

Nevertheless, dear opera fundamentalists, La clemenza di Tito is an excellent production. Be it only for the exhilarating interpretation of the music.

La clemenza di Tito runs until May 24th.

Liked my review? You can express your appreciation through a donation via PayPal, or transfer to my bank account: T. Derks, Amsterdam, NL82 INGB 0004 2616 94. Thanks!

#EkaterinaScherbachenko #FlorianSchuele #JanaiBrugger #JeanineDeBique #musicAeterna #PaulaMurrihy #RussellThomas #SirWillardWhite #TeodorCurrentzis

Berlin: Teodor Currentzis und das Utopia Orchester mit Wagners „Ring ohne Worte“
Kirsten Liese

Zwei Mal im Jahr, im Frühjahr und Herbst, gastieren Teodor Currentzis und sein phänomenales Utopia Orchester in Berlin. Ihre Konzerte zählen neben denen der Berliner Staatskapelle unter Christian Thielemann zum Besten, was die Hauptstadt zu bieten hat. Der vielseitige 53-Jährige, der sich auf die Spätromantik ebenso gut versteht wie auf Mozart und Rameau im Gewand historischer Aufführungspraxis ist aktuell das größte Talent unter den Dirigenten noch jüngerer Generationen unter 60. Da beißt die Maus keinen Faden ab, mag man ihn mögen oder nicht. (Rezension des Konzerts v. 3. November 2025/Berliner Philharmonie) […]

https://opernmagazin.de/berlin-teodor-currentzis-und-das-utopia-orchester-mit-wagners-ring-ohne-worte/