Christian Thielemann: ‘I don’t do it for the money’

Early in his career, the controversial German conductor gave an insight on his priorities to our featured interviewer, Bruce Duffie. This is the second in a short series of Duffie interviews.

‘Opera conducting is more an adventure than concert conducting.  And don’t forget a concert usually is from 8 to 10.  An opera like Rosenkavalier begins maybe at 6 and ends at 11.  Tristan is longer, and Götterdämmerung is, my God, six hours!

‘I don’t like to talk about money, but I get the same for Rosenkavalier (as for) a concert.  You don’t make music to make money.  That’s not right, but an opera like Rosenkavalier is so exhausting that you cannot imagine.  You as a conductor have to get them all together.  Sometimes they are not very exact, and you must be friendly since you have to keep it together — which sometimes can be quite hard.’

Read the full interview here.