MusicAeterna orchestra and choir, Teodor Currentzis. Teodor Currentzis: “Mozart knew he was the best”

I. Introitus: Requiem;
II. Kyrie;
III. Sequentia: Dies Irae;
III. Sequentia: Tuba Mirum;
III. Sequentia: Rex Tremendae;
III. Sequentia: Recordare, Jesupie;
III. Sequentia: Confutatis Maledictis;
III. Sequentia: Lacrimosa;
IV. Offertorium: Domine Jesu;
IV. Offertorium: Domine Hostias;
V. Sanctus;
VI. Benedictus;
VII. Agnus Dei;
VIII. Communio: Lux Aeterna.
Simone Kermes - soprano, Stéphanie Houtzeel - contralto, Markus Brutscher - tenor, Arnaud Richard - bass / The New Siberian Singers / MusicAeterna, Teodor Currentzis - conductor / Novosibirsk, Feb. 2010

2. Theodor KURENTZIS (conductor): Georg Friedrich Handel - Psalm Dixit Dominus for soloists, choir and orchestra in G minor HWV 232 - Download

1. Dixit Dominus
2. Virgam virtutis
3. Tecum principium
4. Juravit Dominus
5. Tu es sacerdos
6. Dominus a dextris
7. Judicabit
8. Conquassabit
9. De torrente in via
10 Gloria Patri
(1707)

Nuria Rial (soprano), Anna Prohaska (soprano), Vitaly Polonsky (choirmaster), orch. & choir MusicAeterna (Perm) / cond. - Teodor Currentzis / Live Rec. 2014

Theodor KURENTZIS (b. 1972)- conductor, musician, actor: | | | | | .

Teodor Currentzis is one of the most famous and unique young conductors of our time. Concerts and opera performances with his participation always become unforgettable events. Theodor Currentzis was born in 1972 in Athens. Graduated from the Hellenic Conservatory: Faculty of Theory (1987) and Faculty of string instruments(1989), also studied vocals at the Greek Conservatory and the "Academy of Athens", attended master classes. He began studying conducting in 1987 and three years later he headed the Musica Aeterna Ensemble. Since 1991 - chief conductor Summer International Festival in Greece.

From 1994 to 1999 he studied with the legendary professor I.A. Musin at the St. Petersburg State Conservatory. He was an assistant to Y. Temirkanov in the Honored Collective of Russia Academic Symphony Orchestra of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic.

In addition to this team, he collaborated with the Academic symphony orchestra St. Petersburg Philharmonic, orchestra Mariinsky Theater, the Russian National Orchestra (in particular, in February-March 2008 he made a big tour of the USA with the RNO), the Grand Symphony Orchestra. P.I. Tchaikovsky, the State Academic Symphony Orchestra of Russia named after. E.F. Svetlanov, State Symphony Orchestra " New Russia”, the State Chamber Orchestra “Moscow Virtuosos”, the Moscow Chamber Orchestra “Musica Viva”, the Greek National, Sofia and Cleveland Festival Orchestras. Since 2003 he has been a permanent guest conductor of the National Philharmonic Orchestra Russia.

Creative cooperation connects the conductor with the Moscow theater "Helikon-Opera". In the autumn of 2001, the theater hosted the premiere of G. Verdi's opera Falstaff, in which Teodor Currentzis acted as a stage director. Also, Currentzis repeatedly conducted another Verdi opera, Aida, at the Helikon-Opera.

Teodor Currentzis has performed at many international music festivals in Moscow, Colmar, Bangkok, Carton, London, Ludwigsburg, Miami. Conductor of the world premiere of the Russian opera performance"The Blind Swallow" by A. Shchetinsky (libretto by A. Parin) in Lokkum (Germany) as part of music festival (2002).

In 2003, he acted as a conductor-producer of the ballet "The Fairy's Kiss" by I. Stravinsky at the Novosibirsk Opera and Ballet Theater (choreographer A. Sigalova), in March 2004 - the opera "Aida" by G. Verdi (stage director D. Chernyakov), which was awarded several awards at the Golden Mask (2005), including in the nomination "conductor-producer".

Since May 2004 T. Currentzis has been the chief conductor of the Novosibirsk State academic theater opera and ballet. In the same year, on the basis of the theater, he created Chamber Orchestra Musica Aeterna Ensemble and the New Siberian Singers chamber choir specializing in historical performance. Over the 5 years of their existence, these groups have become popular not only in Russia, but also abroad.

At the end of the 2005-2006 season, according to leading critics, the conductor was named "Person of the Year".

At the beginning of the 2006-2007 season, Teodor Currentzis again acted as a conductor-producer of the performances of the Novosibirsk state theater opera and ballet - "The Marriage of Figaro" (stage director T. Gurbach) and "Lady Macbeth Mtsensk district"(director G. Baranovsky).

The conductor is widely known as a specialist in vocal and operatic style. Concert performances of the operas Dido and Aeneas by G. Purcell, Orpheus and Eurydice by K.V. Gluck, "The Wedding of Figaro", "Everyone Does It" and "Don Juan" by V.A. Mozart, "Cinderella" by G. Rossini, "The Soul of a Philosopher, or Orpheus and Eurydice" by J. Haydn. Within the framework of the project "Offering to Svyatoslav Richter" on March 20, 2007, on the birthday of the great pianist, in Great Hall At the Moscow Conservatory Teodor Currentzis presented G. Verdi's Requiem to the public, changing the usual interpretation and bringing the composition of the instruments closer to that which sounded at the premiere in 1874.

In addition to the interest in the music of baroque and classic composers, successful experiences in the field of authentic performance, Teodor Currentzis in his work pays great attention music of our day. Over the past few years, the conductor has performed more than 20 world premieres of works by Russian and foreign authors. Since the autumn of 2006, among the well-known young cultural figures, he has been co-organizing the festival contemporary art"Territory".

In the 2007-2008 season, the Moscow Philharmonic presented a personal subscription "Teodor Currentzis Conducts", whose concerts were a phenomenal success.

Teodor Currentzis twice became the winner of the National Theater Award " Golden Mask”: “For the vivid embodiment of the score by S.S. Prokofiev” (ballet “Cinderella”, 2007) and “For impressive achievements in the field of musical authenticity” (opera “The Marriage of Figaro” by W. A. Mozart, 2008).

In June 2008 he made his debut at the Paris National Opera (director of G. Verdi's Don Carlos).

In the fall of 2008, the record company Alpha released a disc with the opera Dido and Aeneas by H. Purcell (Teodor Currentzis, Musica Aeterna Ensemble, New Siberian Singers, Simona Kermes, Dimitris Tilyakos, Deborah York).

In December 2008 he performed music director performances of G. Verdi's opera "Macbeth" - joint project Novosibirsk Opera and Ballet Theater and the Paris National Opera. In April 2009, the premiere was also a huge success in Paris.

By the Decree of the President of Russia D. Medvedev dated October 29, 2008, Teodor Currentzis, among the cultural figures - citizens of foreign states - was awarded the Order of Friendship.

From the 2009-2010 season Teodor Currentzis is a permanent guest conductor of the State Academic Bolshoi Theater Russia, in which he prepared the premiere of the opera Wozzeck by A. Berg (staged by D. Chernyakov). In addition, under the direction of maestro Currentzis, new performances were staged at the Novosibirsk Opera and Ballet Theatre, concerts in Novosibirsk with the Musica Aeterna Ensemble, in which works by Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev and Shostakovich were performed (soloists A. Melnikov, piano and V. Repin, violin) , concert in Brussels with Belgian National Orchestra March 11, 2010 (symphony "Manfred" by Tchaikovsky and Concerto for Piano and Orchestra by Grieg, soloist E. Leonskaya) and many others.

From 2011 - artistic director Perm theater opera and ballet named after Tchaikovsky.

Conductor Currentzis

If we judge which of our performers most deserved the right to perform with, then the name with its orchestral and choir musicAeterna comes to mind among the first. Who else so systematically developed Mozart's field ("", "", "", "" and other scores)? Who else is so fanatical in conveying the sound coloring of the 18th century, who has at his disposal a complete orchestral set of authentic instruments and an ensemble of musicians who confidently master them? poster. Especially if you remember that we have few artists equal to Currentzis in their ability to create an aura of expectation of a miracle. Not only because of the PR art: more often than not, this miracle actually happens. It happened this time too: Mozart's music opened portals to completely unexpected sound worlds.

The singers and musicians of musicAeterna were dressed in monastic dresses.

Actually, Mozart's sound world itself turned out to be unexpected. It is clear that Currentzis hears him in a completely different way than, say, or Sveshnikov. The choral sound is instrumental, its harmony is pure to the point of distillation. Bowed strings seem to constantly play with a light mute - after all, they have sinew, not steel strings. The pace, as a rule, is greatly accelerated compared to the usual ...

It’s a sin, I don’t know where this law of authenticity comes from, that in the past everything was played much faster than the academism of the 19th and 20th centuries inspired us. Indeed, in other parameters, the development of music went in the direction of intensification: an increase in the tuning fork, an increase in sonority ... Why should the tempo demonstrate the opposite dynamics?

But let's leave it to the authenticists to prove their theoretical correctness. As for Currentzis, in most cases he proves his case not as a theoretician, but as a practitioner - by the degree of persuasiveness of what sounds. Yes, the first bars of Requiem aeternam, known since childhood, shocked with the “frivolity” of the accompaniment of the mind of the mind. But this is a snag - the stronger the contrast of the initial feeling with the true energy of this music, when it is revealed to us in the sharpness of accents, the sharpness of the dotted rhythm, the aggressiveness of instantaneous crescendos and diminuendos, the infernal "illumination" of brass and timpani. The “divine”, “angelic” Mozart turns out to be able to speak simply, without shouting, but extremely harshly and truthfully about the most tragic things.

Sometimes this tragedy grows to the scale of heroism - as if we are listening to some decisive aria of the commander from the opera. Like Rex tremendae or Domine Jesu Christi. As if the one who punishes sinners performs not only an act of retribution, but also a feat of victory over himself, over his focus on universal love - for the sake of the triumph of justice. Remember the suffering face of Christ with doomsday Michelangelo?..

Teodor Currentzis is congratulated by Irina Shostakovich

And what an amazing polyphony in Kyrie eleison, where the thematic voice in its melodiousness seems to soar to heaven, and the counterpoint crumbles into a fraction of jerky, almost staccato sounds, as if sinners are swarming into hell. In no previous performance heard by the author of these lines, this fugue was revealed in such a sense.

It didn't sound convincing anyway. Excellent soloists - Natalia Lyaskova (mezzo-soprano), Thomas Cooley (tenor from the USA), Edwin Crossley-Mercer (bass from France). But why did the flat and “orphan” voice of Elizaveta Sveshnikova (soprano) stand out so sharply from their ensemble, as if from the porch, which at the end also began to detonate?

And, it seems to me, even being a convinced authenticist, you need to know the measure in mannerisms: often the performers flaunted “antique” intra-phrasal crescendo-diminuendo so much that the ends of the motives were simply swallowed in silence. I don't think Mozart would have been happy about that.

But what made me gasp was a few fugato bars inserted after Lacrimosa, usually not performed: this is the last thing Mozart wrote in his life - he wanted to complete this number with a polyphonic chant of the word “amen”, but managed to make only a sketch.

And between the last two parts of Agnus Dei and Communio, something completely unexpected happened: the choir suddenly switched to Russian and began to sing the sad story of Mozart himself, who fell ill after the “black man” who ordered the Requiem came to him, and died for this work... Purists may be indignant - but the Requiem is really not finished, and composers have the moral right to propose their completion. A few years ago, Currentzis carried out such a project - "Finish Mozart's Requiem." Instead of pieces completed by Mozart's student Franz Xaver Süssmeier, four versions were proposed. Russian author. What we have heard now is a contribution to the project by Sergei Zagniy, one of the brightest composers of the middle generation. The contrast of styles did not weaken at all, but on the contrary only strengthened the relief of the form. And the intonation in the spirit of the epic highlighted the figure of Mozart as the protagonist of his own unfinished mourning hymn...

The concert had an unexpected continuation in the foyer by candlelight

However, if you decide that at this surprise all the pigeons from Currentzis' pockets have been released, you are mistaken. The last formidable quint of the Requiem resounded, followed by a long ovation. Then even longer traditional congratulations from friends and most loyal fans, from Irina Shostakovich to Roman Abramovich, backstage. The bulk of the audience has long since dispersed. But for those who are devoted, royal gratitude to the maestro awaited. Decorated with his characteristic directorial inventiveness. In the foyer, still bustling with people, the lights suddenly went out. Bewilderment and murmur. Through it, a minute or two later - a barely audible choral tone, a slight ringing of a bell - and an inconceivable, languorous beauty interweaving of several trebles. Barely visible in the flickering candlelight, the face and hands of the conductor Currentzis. The faces of the choir in dark almost monastic robes left on the singers from the Requiem. What is this, Balkan prayer music? Caucasian cult chants? It turned out to be the work of the German nun Hildegard von Bingen. XII century. Another proof that the root sense of beauty and the desire for God in all people is the same, regardless of times, nationalities and confessions, and its ingenious manifestations are intelligible to anyone, and this art is not subject to aging.

The music of Hildegard von Bingen sounded like an afterword to Mozart's Requiem. Or a preface born for six centuries earlier.

I confess with shame - the creation of Hildegard heard for the first time. From what she said, she great composer. A woman… A distance of nine hundred years… All this is amazing. A few years ago, Currentzis was also shocked. Now, they told me, Theodore is on fire with the idea of making a whole performance program based on the work of Hildegard. Perhaps this will come true for the Diaghilev Festival 2019. And we were shown the first sign of the project.

These are the dizzying distances that the echo of Mozart's music has taken us to.

Photo by Sergey Biryukov

The main musical event of the Diaghilev P.S. International Festival Petersburg was the performance of the Perm choir and orchestra Music Aeterna conducted by maestro Teodor Currentzis.

Opera opera - "Don Giovanni" by Mozart - they presented in a concert performance with a European cast of soloists. Teodor Currentzis spoke about the genius of Mozart, the political nature of Wagner and how to resist the invasion of Evil.

- Was the line-up of singers presented in Don Juan at the Diaghilev P.S. festival a dream team?

– I don’t think there is a concept of “ideal composition”. Today these singers sang, tomorrow there may be others. Everyone is changing. In general, everything should be treated very flexibly. It is more important to get into the right state. In my opinion, in St. Petersburg we all succeeded.

- And how were you received a little more than a week ago in Dortmund, where you performed all three operas of the so-called Mozart da Ponte trilogy - “The Marriage of Figaro”, “Everybody Does It So” and “Don Giovanni”?

- In Dortmund, after our performances, they yelled and squealed, like at a rock concert. There were standing ovations. Petersburg success seemed cooler to us.

- Do not forget that in St. Petersburg, by definition, it is cooler than in Dortmund, so the reception that you were given can still be regarded as “very hot”.

– For me, it is a huge event to perform all three operas one after another. It is not easy, but it is very important for me to show the results of my long-term laboratory work. After all, I don’t give concerts that much, I prefer laboratory work, collecting and analyzing the concepts of works for a long time - that’s what I’m really interested in. And the records are important only as a fixation of that huge period of laboratory work that will remain for history.

– We already talked to you once about the very fast pace at which you interpret Mozart's operas. Perhaps it is a delusion to think that in the 18th century life was a little calmer than it is now?

- The funny thing is that our tempo interpretations correspond to Mozart's instructions! I think I told you the story of Wagner. At one time, as a maestro, he rehearsed Le nozze di Figaro, conducting 4/4 slowly - on two counts.

Suddenly someone from the audience said: “Maestro, it must be fast, fast! Mozart liked very fast tempos." - "How do you know?" “I was at his rehearsals.” So today we play Mozart as fast as possible. In 10 years, most orchestras will play Mozart the way I do now. But even today, many are changing their minds about the interpretation of the music of this composer.

Many people in Europe tell me that my cadences are made left and right. And I am very pleased if I can offer my little stone in the evolution of performance.

- Evolution, and at the same time revolutions?

– Mozart's music itself is revolutionary, if, of course, it is performed correctly. Mozart was a revolutionary in life. Mozart is not a composer of his era: he is an eternal composer. It will always be up to date. In his "Don Giovanni" one can hear avant-gardism, and baroque, and classicism with romanticism, and everything in the world. Therefore, Mozart will always be relevant.

Didn't you have the feeling that you were listening to some old naive music of the 18th century? And she will never look like that. And look, for example, at the operas of Salieri or some other contemporaries of Mozart - they really look somehow outdated, naive. Mozart knew that he was the best, that he was a genius.

Being a genius is not easy when you are surrounded by mediocrity. Although, of course, if everyone were brilliant, the world would be different. Why did this composer die so early? Precisely because he had nowhere to put his genius. He experienced the loneliness of a genius.

- Do you have any desire to deepen the context to perform some opera by Salieri?

- He has good music. In general, in my opinion, our conversations about Mozart and Salieri have more to do with Pushkin's tragedy. To be honest, there is so much brilliant music that I have not yet performed, but should, that I don’t even know if I will have enough time to take on Salieri as well. It is better to learn some compositions by Michael Haydn.

And how much baroque music has not yet been performed, which I have to do. Now the orchestra and I are recording Beethoven's symphonies also on Sony at the same time as Mahler's symphonies. Our plans include the release of a whole corpus of Beethoven's works in addition to symphonies - and the Solemn Mass, and all the piano concertos, and the violin concerto.

The musicians played standing up. Was it also an authentic tribute to the era?

– Yes, but it is also a tradition of our orchestra. We and Mahler's symphonies are played standing up, and all the operas in the pit are performed standing up. It's a different energy, body language.

- Don't they get tired?

– Tired, terribly tired, but what to do? Music requires sacrifice.

– Last season you performed Wagner's Rheingold at the Rurtriennale. Is he as close to you as Mozart?

It's a different story, a different world. But we have done a lot Good work and I'm happy. We play Wagner in a completely different way than usual, on gut strings, making his music much more transparent. Our orchestra has such high precision, everything works like clockwork. We play symphonic music like a chamber music, like a quartet, and this gives a completely different volume, a different feeling of space. There is no pompous pathos. More - philosophical ideograms.

This is not the romanticism that comes from Bayreuth in the 1930s. My Wagner is not Hitler's Wagner, but Bakunin's Wagner. Feel the difference? Wagner touched me very much, he is very serious. But all this fog of philosophical texts that accompanies it seems to me unnecessary. Wagner's music is very ambiguous and I feel like it's being mishandled. You need to perceive his music in a different way - as a mystery theater, and not as a museum of the history of mankind.

- Will there be a continuation of the tetralogy?

- I don’t know, but we will definitely prepare his “Tristan and Isolde” - we were invited to the Wiener Festwochen with this opera. Honestly, the next composer, whom we will study for a very long time, will be Beethoven. We are purists. We do facsimile historical instruments. We approach Beethoven not through romanticism, but through baroque. We have a sense of the revolutionary nature of a person who lived in the Baroque era and suddenly became aware of the existence of Beethoven, and there was a big explosion in his mind.

- How do you balance performances in Russia and Europe in your schedule?

- Of course, I would like to perform more in Russia. I am a Russian, I love Russia. But we, unfortunately, have fewer opportunities to perform in the capitals, in St. Petersburg - once a year. And in Western Europe I perform with my orchestra all the time. We have been invited to the Salzburg Festival to stage Mozart's "Mercy of Titus". At the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris, we will present Mozart's "Thus Everyone Does". In Amsterdam, they expect us to take part in the production of Purcell's Indian Queen.

– Do you sometimes cross paths with Valery Gergiev? It manages several beautiful halls, among which the main pearl is Concert hall the Mariinsky Theatre, where you and your orchestra, choir and soloists would listen perfectly.

– No, our roads do not intersect, but for communication we need intersections. I have great respect as a conductor and as a person, but we do not communicate. I live in Perm, I rarely go to St. Petersburg. Maybe he would communicate if he came here more often. Our intersection with Valery lies only in the fact that we studied with the same teacher - Ilya Musin.

- What are your moods now?

– I perfectly understand that Evil encroached on the world. We must get rid of darkness by turning on the light, which is not afraid of darkness. Evil will reign as long as we pay attention to it, so it must be ignored, stop talking about it - then it will disappear. Although it is very aggressive.

On the way from Perm to Salzburg, where the rehearsals of the opera "The Mercy of Titus" will soon begin, Teodor Currentzis stopped by Moscow to give a concert in the Tchaikovsky Hall along with his orchestra and the MusicAeterna choir. Sergei Khodnev listened to the unexpected performance of Mozart's Requiem.

Formally, of course, this was the experience of a "historically informed" reading of the most famous funeral mass of the 18th century. The experience is decisive and almost on the verge of provocative: such restrained strings, such whirlwind tempos in "Kyrie" and "Dies irae", such chiseled accents, such colors in natural copper and such artillery roar in the timpani (standing right at the front edge of the stage) in Recordings of authentic conductors of the past still need to be searched.

And at the same time, experience, which itself, without reference to theory, testifies in its favor. With the efficient work of soloists (soprano Elizaveta Sveshnikova, mezzo-soprano Natalia Lyaskova, tenor Thomas Cooley and bass Edwin Crossley-Mercer), each in his own way trying to get away from obsessive opera. With the purest, mirror-smooth sound of the choir and amazing woodwinds, with many non-trivial finds, with honest inspiration and unstamped sincerity.

Ancient sacred music is well given to Currentzis (and it is a pity that we have not yet heard any of Handel's dramatic oratorios, or even Carissimi performed by him - it would certainly be much more interesting), he has the keys to it, which in fact In fact, not only according to our conditions, a decent rarity. All the more strange this time was the choral interlude inserted between the final parts - "Hosanna" by Sergei Zagniy. Yes, the play (which briefly recounts the same story about the visit of the “black man” in the joyfully naive style of spiritual verse) has a certain relation to the Requiem. Back in 2008, Teodor Currentzis ordered contemporary composers essays that should have been concert program to supplement the unfinished Mozart text instead of those numbers that belong to the pen of Franz Xaver Süssmayr - and one of these compositions was Zagnia's Hosanna. But here, between "Agnus Dei" and the communion verse in their generally accepted edition, it was alien - at least in artistic, even in liturgical logic.

Moreover, the trembling before the mystery of Mozart's death, privatized long ago by mass culture, is, of course, sacred, but around the Requiem, in fact, there are already enough fascinating stories, biographical and musical. The troubles of Mozart's widow Constanta, who, for commercial reasons, secretly commissioned the completion of the Requiem, first to Joseph Eibler, and then to Süssmayr, and forged Mozart's signature on the score of the completed mass. Some either oral or written instructions of the composer, which, if you believe the not entirely reliable testimony of the widow, were guided by Süssmayr, creating last sections"Requiem" - those for which even the author's sketches are not in the surviving manuscripts of Mozart. Finally, several alternative editions of the Requiem that appeared in recent years forty (and almost unknown to the domestic listener: what is not an incentive for a conductor, especially with performers of such an exceptional level?) - these achievements of fundamental Mozart studies when they simply correct Süssmayr's orchestration, and when they offer completely new versions of the musical solution of the final parts of the Mass (It is based, however, mainly on conjectural considerations about what exactly from the finished material of his other compositions Mozart could use in this case).

Currentzis touched on these subjects - after "Lacrimosa dies" the choir sang several bars of a fugue barely begun (no more time) by Mozart on the word "Amen". But the general tone of the event, as usual, was sustained as if in fear that someone would take it for an ordinary philharmonic routine. Here are black cassocks on the artists of the orchestra and choir, and a completely unexpected medieval afterword - "O vis aeternitatis" by St. Gildegarde of Bingen - performed in the foyer of the Tchaikovsky Hall with the lamps off, with electric candles in the hands of the chorus girls and with the ringing of bells coming from somewhere in the dusk. Although the "Requiem" in the interpretation of Currentzis, after all, has something to present in abundance even without this sublimation of listener (or rather, even spectator) amazement. Yes, the performing style is as close to baroque as possible; but how could it be otherwise, if, in fact, the dying Mozart here and there directly referred to the music of Handel? Yes, the conductor's words about Byzantine church singing in relation to the "Requiem" sound strange at first glance; but if you look at it, Western authenticity in general often relied on the traditions of choral art that seemed to be non-mainstream for European modern times (it is enough to recall Marcel Perez and his Organum ensemble) and owed a lot to them. Only all these important intuitions of a completely academic sense sometimes still need to be seen behind the decorative and charming "smoke screen".