“I watched my children bloom”

Conductor Simon Rattle prepares the premiere of “Jenufa” at the State Opera Unter den Linden. A meeting.

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Berlin. Sir Simon Rattle always likes to talk about his projects at the State Opera Unter den Linden. He is currently rehearsing Janáček’s opera “Jenufa”, the premiere of which will not take place live this Saturday, but will be broadcast on television on 3Sat.

This time, however, it was more difficult to get into conversation with the star conductor who lives in Berlin, who may not want to talk too much about his departure from London, about Brexit and British politics because of his need for harmony. Sir Simon will move from the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) as chief conductor to the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Choir in 2023. There was great disappointment in the UK when the change was recently announced, while in Germany his return was cheered.

The conductor emphasizes that it has purely private reasons. “In the past year we all experienced a kind of reset in our lives,” he says: “I was able to watch my children blossom because my wife and I were with them every day, at home in Berlin. At some point I could no longer deceive myself about the fact that a life dominated by travel would do no harm. Even before the decision was made, a violinist from the Munich orchestra had copied a map of the fast train connections between Berlin and Munich and noted: “Not only Greta would be happy.” A reference to the young Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg.

The otherwise lively opera canteen slumbers in the semi-darkness

“I realized that he was right,” says the internationally sought-after artist: “We all have to think more locally in these times. Berlin is my home. If we had moved to London as a family, things might have turned out differently. There are wonderful people at LSO who understand my decision. ”He will continue to work with the Londoners until the end of his career, says Rattle, in the future only four or six weeks a year.

The State Opera Unter den Linden is eerily empty, the otherwise always lively canteen slumbers in the semi-darkness. A monitor hangs on one wall, showing the brightly lit stage. Leoš Janáček’s “Jenufa”, a story about the rigid moral concepts of a village community, will therefore be a modern staging. The conversation takes place in a rehearsal room of the house. The conductor’s cell phone rings in the middle. He looks a little unwilling, then he looks at the display and looks like he’s changed. He leaves the room. A few minutes later he will tell that his 15 year old son called him. It was kind of about math. Sir Simon looks satisfied.

The lockdown made us all little cyborgs, Sir Simon quotes an acquaintance. “Of course the technical possibilities of communication are enormous, but at the same time we are terribly isolated from one another. I hope that when this is all over, we can repair some of the damage that the crisis has caused. ”Normally, musicians would plan three years in advance. Now everything changes from one week to the next. “We have all become specialists in changing the schedule. But I’m sure we will learn something from this crisis. I’m optimistic about that. “

And then the subject comes back to London, where the situation of his orchestra is completely different. “In the last year before Covid, the orchestra was on tour for 99 days. Can you imagine this madness? This is the only way to survive because they are not subsidized like here. There is no fixed salary. From England one looks with great astonishment at the initiatives that are taking place in Germany to support artists. That is pure science fiction for us. ”The motivation to support the arts is different in England than here. “The Minister of Culture once told me on a smaller scale that it was wonderful that the arts were not subsidized in England as they were in Germany, because they made it more survivable and more commercial. The bad thing is: he really believes that. ”But of course there is also a bit of truth in it. “We are born here as artists in the business class, in a bed full of down. But that doesn’t mean the opposite is better. “

The performances are part of mental health

In Rattle’s Berlin “Jenufa” production, one should pay particular attention to the strong female cast. Camilla Nylund sings the title role, Hanna Schwarz sings old Buryjovka and Evelyn Herlitzius the sexton. Damiano Michieletto directs. “Being able to play is for everyone Musicians and singers have meanwhile become a question of mental health, “says Simon Rattle:” If you just read ‘No performance’ on the plans, it can get very dark around you. “In such a situation there wouldn’t be any Trouble more, the conductor adds, no one has a tantrum, no one plays the diva, everyone just wants it to work.

At some point he and the director Damiano Michieletto decided “to stop pretending that this is a normal performance. We stopped even thinking about whether we could get the choir on stage. Instead, we use the auditorium, where the choristers are placed as witnesses to what is happening. We use the whole house, the whole house sings. ”And with the dysfunctional“ Jenufa ”family, it doesn’t bother the fact that the singers are not allowed to get close on stage. “You get the impression anyway that if they got closer they would kill each other.”

Whatever concerts Sir Simon is planning in London and Munich, “I will definitely continue to conduct opera in Berlin.”

Premiere on 3Sat on February 13th at 8.15 p.m.

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