In an act reminiscent of Stalinism, staff members of the Novosibirsk Opera have removed the principal conductor’s name from its website. There is still a sign on his door today (we are told) but it appears that Ainars Rubikis is no longer in control of artistic affairs of the opera house where a production of Wagner’s Tannhäuser caused the Kremlin to fire the general manager.
Ainars, a young Latvian who won the 2010 Gustav Mahler conducting competition, stands behind the Tannhäuser production. In a letter today to colleagues and friends, published exclusively in Slipped Disc, he seeks to put the record straight on what really happened in Siberia and to dismiss false rumours that he has supposedly abandoned the opera company.
Here’s what he writes:
Many colleagues and friends have asked me why I have not participated in the debate surrounding the Tannhauser situation at Novosibirsk State Opera House…. I am grateful to all those who have written letters and petitions in support of Tannhauser.
A press article I came across some time ago prompted me to address the members of audience, colleagues and friends in the music world. In particular one of the reasons given for the removal of Tannhauser from the Novosibirsk Opera House repertoire is that the new head of the Opera House [Vladimir Kekhman] was unable to get in touch with the play’s director Timofey Kulyabin.
This claim comes as something of a surprise in the modern age of mobile phones. However, no one can be available for conversation every minute of the day. Each has their own obligations to themselves, to their work, to the people with whom they work and we bear collective responsibility for the results of our work. I know Timofey Kulyabin well: he is a responsible person; I know his attitude towards his work and his very intense rehearsal schedule. And from my own experience I can say that any outside interference with the creative process can lead to negative results.
It was I who invited Timofey Kulyabin to direct Tannhauser. I saw the play ‘Onegin’ directed by him and realised that he is a great and sensitive artist. As Musical Director and Conductor I take full responsibility for the Tannhauser performance and for the team that staged it. And for that reason I would like to repeat what I said at the press-conference before the opening night: I am grateful to every person in this theatre – from the cloak-room attendants to the General Manager who all helped me to create and to produce this performance.
The second reason mentioned in the press concerns me personally – the apparent financial difficulties between the theatre and myself. I categorically deny these rumours. My financial relations with the theatre have nothing to do with its removal from the repertoire, nor with the creative process in the theatre. The theatre’s financial obligations towards myself have always been resolved. So talk of my “deserting” Novosibirsk at the end of my three-year contract are unfounded.
In a situation of global economic crisis at the start of this year Novosibirsk Opera House and the agent representing me, Askonas Holt, worked out a new plan for our collaboration with the theatre, which we started implementing with the theatre’s then General Manager Boris Mezdrich. According to this plan we were looking for a mutually acceptable and most effective solution given the circumstances, and to do everything possible for the theatre’s professional development and forward progress. How else could you explain my presence at the theatre from 10 to 16 March 1015, including two performances of Tannhauser, conducted by myself?
Over the three years I spent in the position of chief conductor and musical director, the artistic team at Novosibirsk Theatre has shown an unbelievably high rate of professional growth. Of course it is difficult for me to judge, because all the performances were like children to me and parents often don’t notice the development of their children. In the same way it is difficult for me, working with these people every day, to assess their professional growth. But I know that this growth has been assessed by professional experts both in Russia and abroad. I cannot not take their word for it.
Each opera and ballet artist, orchestra musician, member of the choir or of the ballet corps is aware of their own responsibility, as they work towards a single goal: to build a professional theatre, whilst continuing to develop themselves and take part of the overall process of development, not resting on the laurels of individual achievements. It was this which was our aim and the basis for our work together: not to look to the past, but forward to the future. To undertake new creative challenges and to reach new heights. Such as Bernstein’s Mass, Stravinsky’s Holy Spring, Honegger’s Joan of Arc and Tannhauser. And many other challenges, when – in difficult circumstances – each of us worked selflessly with the aim of attaining the highest possible level of artistic achievement.
For this I am, unreservedly, grateful to my colleagues – musicians and conductors. I am proud of them. Today I am not ashamed to showcase to the whole world the level of quality at our theatre and the fruits of our labours, because each of the musicians bears not only personal, but also collective responsibility and is aware that they can never rest on what has been achieved in the past. It is essential to constantly uphold the level of quality of each performance, each project and concert, analysing both achievements and failures.
There is a film which every Russian-speaker knows by heart: every line, the way every line is spoken. It is a film shown every year on 31 December, without which New Year wouldn’t be the same: the Irony of Fate. At the end of the film the main character, Jenya Lukashin says to his friends, “Guys, I am grateful to you that we went to the public baths together that night, that you put me on that plane instead of Pavlik and that in Leningrad there is a street and a house number the same as here in Moscow. Otherwise I would never have been happy…” What I want to say to Boris Mezdrich and Tatiana Ginevich is this: “Boris Mezdrich, Tatiana Ginevich, you are my friends! I am so glad you came to Riga. I am so glad that, having seen the performance I conducted, you met up with me and we sat and spoke until midnight. And I am so glad that you talked me into coming to Novosibirsk. Otherwise I would never have met such wonderful people – musicians, artists, I would not have experienced the love of intelligent and thoughtful members of the audience. Without all that I would never have been so happy. Let me tell you: I could trust you with my life.” With my deepest respect, Your conductor, Ainars Rubikis
Our friend Holly Mulcahy, concertmaster of the Chattanooga Symphony, finds that many in her audience are uncomfortable as to when – and when not – to applaud. So she’s written a little etiquette guide:
Concertmaster enters, clap. The concertmaster bows, representing the orchestra, and then tunes. You can stop clapping once the tuning starts.
Music Director enters, clap. Keep clapping; generally the music director will invite the whole orchestra to stand and share his or her acknowledgment.
After that, it gets tricky. Read Holly’s full guide here.
Among other tips is one to conductors:
It’s not a great idea to shoot glaring looks or a frantic waving arm to “discipline” an audience member who has clearly clapped in a wrong point. People will remember your actions much longer than that of the offender(s).
Ring any bells?
The irrepressible Ukrainian-US pianist has turned up in Toronto, insisting that she will find a space to perform in on Thursday and Friday night, when she should have been appearing with the symphony orchestra.
She told the Globe and Mail today that her agent – Tania Dorn at IMG Artists – had an email from the TSO saying a Ukrainian donor had threatened to pull his funding if the anti-Kiev pianist appeared with the orchestra. The TSO’s boss Jeff Melanson duly fired Lisitsa.
If this email is fully validated, Melanson and the TSO will be disgraced for allowing financial pressure to override their evidently fragile artistic independence.
The British pianist Piers Lane has been announced as artistic director of 2016 Sydney international piano competition. He told the ABC that he wants a ‘transparent’ jury whose members will not include teachers of the competitors.
Now we’re talking.
The announcement that Regula Rapp will take over in October as Rector of the Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien (est. 1817) has provoked a round of Viennese self-congratulation. See, we’re just as equal now as anywhere else….
Regula Rapp, 53, was an outside candidate, a German who has been head of the Hochschule für Alte Musik in Basle and latterly of the Stuttgart Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst.
Having fired Valentina Lisitsa for her pro-Kremlin politics, the Toronto Symphony boss Jeff Melanson quickly reeled in a Canadian pianist, Stewart Goodyear, to take her place at the piano.
But, after extraordinary scenes of confusion and indecision, he then decided to drop the concerto altogether from its programme, announcing:
Dear Patrons:
In light of this week’s events, the TSO has taken a decision to remove Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2 from this week’s programme. The concert for Wednesday, April 8 and Thursday, April 9 will focus entirely on Mahler’s monumental Fifth Symphony. The concert begins at 8pm and will have no intermission.
This absurd instance of maladministration left poor Goodyear distressed and bewildered. MusicalToronto has his response here.
What a mess.
Some have detected an inconsistency between the widespread support for Opera Australia and La Monnaie in Brussels when they fired a singer for apparent homophobic comments, and the condemnation of the Toronto Symphony, which sacked a pianist for her Twitter campaign against the Ukrainian government.
What’s the difference?
Simple.
Valentina Lisitsa had launched a Twitter campaign as a vehicle for Kremlin propaganda. Many were upset by her comments, at safe distance and without diminishing their appreciation for her artistry. Then, a small Canadian lobby group protested to the TSO. The TSO caved in to pressure. Wrong.
Tamar Iveri, the Georgian singer, allowed her Facebook page to host ugly and violent homophobic comments (she later ascribed them to her husband). Iveri was about to sing at the Sydney Opera House, where some of her colleagues happened to be gay and were directly, personally offended by her remarks, as were many others. The Sydney Opera took several days before deciding to remove her from the production. It did so in order to protect the production, the safety of its participants and the general tide of public opinion. It acted in a practical, rather an a political sense, and was right to do so.
When an artist constitutes a risk to others, the artist – like any other employee – must be asked to leave.
Lisitsa presented no risk to anyone’s safety.
There’s the difference.
A sampling of informed opinion, taken by the Globe and Mail suggests that opinion as shifted massively against the Toronto Symphony for bowing to a minority lobby in dismissing an artist from its concerts.
Lisitsa, in an interview with the Kremlin-owned broadcaster, RT (below), says ‘I always separated music from politics… I was about to play Rachmaninoff concertos with the orchestra, not to preach politics.’
.
Gabriela Montero has spoken out forcefully against the pressures used by the Venezuelan regime to use El Sistema as a tool for its violent, corrupt and incompetent leadership and in support of its anti-US stance.
She writes:
VIDEO: The Absurdity of El Sistema today.
In this highly choreographed and expertly produced video, El Sistema musicians, dressed in the Venezuelan revolutionary flag, offer support to Chavista artists in a modified Venezuelan folk song. The words are changed to protest President Obama’s recent sanctions against certain Venezuelan officials, identified by the US government to have abused human rights or taken part in high-level corruption.
One of the singers is the daughter of second-in-command Diosdado Cabello – currently under investigation in the US for his alleged role as the leader of the “Los Soles” drug cartel.
To add to the abuse of these musicians, they are being forced to sign Maduro’s petition to President Obama demanding the lifting of those sanctions, under threat of losing their positions in the orchestra. This was revealed to me today in private by one of the distressed musicians.
And El Sistema’s Eduardo Mendez has the gall to publicly claim that El Sistema is not politicized?
The video was published on March 31 and has been seen by barely 2,000 viewers.
Gabriela, who lives in the US, has nonetheless taken considerable personal risks in speaking out against the regime. It would be unfortunate, to say the least, if El Sistema supporters in the US and Europe were to take against her as a result of her courageous stance.
The Russian starts at 2:00. He’s pretty good.
Enjoy.
In his dual role as Putin poster-man and the most influential musician in Russia, Valery Gergiev is said to be scheduling a Tannhäuser production at the Mariinsky – one that will not offend the Church and will generally cool tempers after the recent Siberian furore.
The production was announced by a member of the Russian Parliament, Vitaly Milon, who added a number of homophobic comments about the sacked Novosibirsk director, Boris Mezdrich.
