“An American in St. Petersburg”

Please describe your personal and musical background. We heard that you played in a high school marching band in New Jersey with the wife of our principal trombonist Lee Rogers!

I grew up in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, about 15 minutes’ drive from Philadelphia. My mother is a pianist and was my first teacher when I started piano at the age of 5. I later switched to the violin but grew tired of practicing standing up—so I again changed instruments—this time, to the cello. I stuck with that one all the way through conservatory. I always wanted to play the drums, though - and my parents bought me a drum set for my 14th birthday. I was ecstatic. There was one condition though—that I continue with the cello. I joined as many musical ensembles as I could in addition to the school orchestra—including the wind ensemble, marching band, and jazz ensemble. I was nuts about being in the drum line in marching band—it was so much fun. I started off as the whacker of the smallest of 4 bass drums and moved up to center snare. I played the cello in some honors orchestras where the repertoire was more advanced than in my high school ensemble, and that’s really where I caught the bug for symphonic music. I can remember playing Tchaikovsky’s Francesca da Rimini in Pittsburgh, and being so physically and emotionally affected by the music—it was truly overwhelming. That’s when I knew I wanted to do this in my life.

What led to your studying in Russia? Do you have a family background in Russia?

I have not a drop of Russian blood in my body. My mother, as general manager of the Hollybush Festival (in New Jersey), created a Soviet-American season in 1987 to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Lyndon Johnson—Alexei Kosygin summit at Hollybush House on the campus of Glassboro State College—a season which included a production of Prokofiev’s Love for Three Oranges with four singers from the Stanislavsky Theatre in Moscow, performances by the Kirov Ballet, and a Soviet/American composition competition. She traveled to Moscow and Leningrad to organize all of this, and through her contacts there, she became involved with the Moscow Conservatory Summer School—a three-week intensive course of private lessons and master classes with some of the greatest professors of the Moscow Conservatory. I tagged along with her to Moscow in the summer of 1991 and took private cello lessons for about 5 weeks from Stefan Kalianov, who had been Rostropovich’s assistant until he left for the west. I was so amazed at the approach to teaching music in Moscow, (I would also sit in on other teachers’ lessons), and I felt I had learned so much with Kalianov in such a short amount of time. The general level of playing there was so unbelievably high, and I wanted to achieve that level. When the summer ended (with a coup in August, but that’s another story entirely), Kalianov suggested that I come back and audition for the Moscow Conservatory, which I did.

I had been interested in conducting (and opera) ever since being around the Hollybush Festival as a child—whether it was singing in the children’s chorus for La Boheme, sitting in the pit for performances of Tosca, being a supernumerary for Carmina Burana. The amazing Croatian conductor Vjekoslav Sutej did a number of productions at Hollybush and made a huge impression on me—he had so much fire and energy and inspired everyone around him, myself included. I wanted to be at the helm of a great roaring machine like that. However, I decided to finish my cello studies first, since the unanimous opinion in Moscow was that I needed to play an instrument at a professional level first, before even thinking about picking up a baton.

Tell us about your teacher, the legendary Ilya Musin.

After graduating from the Moscow Conservatory, I was told that I should go to St. Petersburg to study with Musin. Frankly, I was shocked to hear that the man was still alive—I mean, he was the teacher of Temirkanov, Gergiev, Bychkov...he must surely be in his 90’s and why would he ever want to work with me? But I took the overnight train to St. Petersburg and went to Musin’s class. At my audition, he turned to his assistant and said, “Well, he doesn’t know how to do anything at all!” He was astounding. His approach was similar to that of all of the great instrumental professors I had seen in Moscow—a comprehensive, systematic technique at the service of sound, phrasing, expression and imagery, its sole purpose to make music come alive. I was so drawn in—I knew I could study only with him. And at the age of 94 he had as much energy as someone at 54.

What is it like to work at the Mariinsky Theater?

It’s an amazing place. fabulous and important history, great musicians and dancers. Very busy at the Mariinsky. Three venues in St. Petersburg alone—2 opera houses, one multi-functional concert hall. We easily have 6 main events a day on weekends, maybe 10 with chamber music in the smaller halls. We currently have 367 musicians in the main orchestra and 18 musicians in the stage orchestra (the banda)—which makes 385. That’s four full orchestras. It is complicated but works with a lot of thought! Our scheduling system is computerized, everyone can remotely sign in to the system and see their own schedule—even “punch in” for performances from their mobile phone, if they’re connected to the Mariinsky wifi. The orchestras are color-coded and each group more or less has their own repertoire, to make life easier for everyone. We conductors try not to take orchestral rehearsals when we don’t have to, so as a conductor you really need to know what you’re doing. You go to the opera and ballet rehearsals, take notes, come to an agreement and then sometimes go straight to the performance. Our musicians are great—they watch and listen like crazy, so it works. Of course, some pieces need rehearsal. I don’t rehearse Swan Lake but will take three rehearsals for Turn of the Screw. [The Mariinsky website lists six conductors on its roster, in addition to Artistic and General Director Valery Gergiev.]

In what ways has Gergiev been an influence?

Valery Gergiev is an incredible musician and a phenomenal conductor. He is such a fascinating person to be around. Not only is his mind astoundingly fast, but he is very charismatic. He is the absolute head of the Mariinsky Theater and that authority frightens people to a certain extent, but the fact is that people really like him. He has greatly influenced the sound and approach of the Mariinsky Orchestra, of course, because they’ve worked with him for so many years (even the newer players learn very quickly what it means to play in this orchestra), but he has been an enormous influence on me as well. Even while studying conducting across the square from the Mariinsky with Musin—his teacher—we would go to Gergiev’s rehearsals and performances whenever we could. Back then, all the students at one point or another tried to copy his very individual, very unusual conducting technique—we all found it mesmerizing. Of course, it never really worked for us because we were not HIM. The most interesting times for me were when we would be working on the same piece together. Then you really could see how his mind and ears worked. A couple of years ago, we were on tour together in New York. There was a run of Swan Lake—he had two performances, I had three. They asked me to start the dress rehearsal, and then about 20 minutes later Gergiev came in. We switched places but he asked me to stick around in the pit for the remainder. It was fantastic. Swan Lake, which the orchestra plays with their eyes closed—well, Gergiev conducts for a little bit and stops to say, “You know, it’s been only 4 bars and it’s already boring. You have to vary this, vary that, change the bow speed here, look, let’s phrase this way, maybe that way…” He made great music out of it, and demanded that the orchestra be hyper-attentive to a kind of musical improvisation. When I conducted my performances, the orchestra was so sensitive, so flexible, so responsive to my phrasing and gestures—that was a great deal due to him. I wasn’t copying him, but he set the bar high—and I knew I needed to get up there and do what I felt, and do what I felt was right, and necessary. He forced me to stretch my imagination. Because you have to bring music to life! Once music stops being interesting, you should just close the score and go home.

Music Director of the NSO, Gianandrea Noseda used to be on the Mariinsky conducting staff. Were you acquainted with him there?

Of course! Gianandrea was Principal Guest Conductor of the Mariinsky when I was a conducting student, and we would often go to his rehearsals and performances. It’s always a huge pleasure to watch him work. A great conductor with incredible energy, and the nicest guy. Always had time for the conducting students. He left a lasting legacy at the Mariinsky, as many productions that premiered under his direction run to this day: Le nozze di Figaro, La Boheme, Il Trittico, etc. I’ve conducted those operas there and the rehearsal pianists remember very clearly: “Noseda did this here, Noseda wanted that there." And these things always seem to make perfect sense to me. And his symphonic concerts were tremendous.

Was it hard to become accustomed to accompanying dancers when you first got started?

Well, I understood very quickly that unless I knew exactly what they were doing, and what I needed to do to help them, I was dead. Unfortunately, none of it is written down anywhere - except in Russian in the rehearsal pianists’ scores, which doesn’t do any good unless you know what it means. So I would pore over videos, pausing, rewinding, and drawing stick figures into my score when I figured out what pose, what move, what jump needed to be where in relationship to the music. And then I learned that the video wasn’t always right…and out came the eraser.

When working with dancers, do you just have to follow their personal wishes and the demands of the choreographers and directors? Is there room for compromise on tempo if you feel it is musically important?

Yes and yes. There are physics involved in what dancers do, and each dancer will have different needs. Big jumps take more time. Smaller ballerinas can maybe do things faster than taller ones with longer limbs. A conductor is foolish if he thinks he’s going to come in and change these basic things. You need to be smart and experienced enough to understand where there IS some wiggle room, and if you know the text (the dancer’s steps) well enough, you can find an optimal solution. No one is going to change the choreography just because you find a tempo too slow, but if you know where you can move things, or stretch things, you can get the music to sound great and the dancers will look great, too. There are lots of places even in classical ballets where there’s not much critical stage-pit coordination necessary, and you can pretty much move the story along as you see fit, but a dancer’s variation, well, that’s sacred. You do everything you can there to make them look as good as possible, while keeping basic musical principles in place.

I’ve realized that the principle of “line” and “phrasing” is similar with singers and dancers. In opera you don’t line up with every single word in a phrase with the music. You know you’re both moving along a line (sometimes a curvy one), towards the end point of a phrase, so you arrive there together, having had the same mutual understanding of the phrase. With a dancer it’s really no different. Say she’s got a diagonale, and some tours piques, something else and an arabesque. Well, often it’s better not to try to line up with every single pique but lead her down the phrase to the arabesque. She might be using some kind of “rubato/syncopation” (as they call it) and you’ll just make things hard for her. You need to put the music there so that it gives them an “impulse”—a “reason” to dance. If you’re reacting to them, sometimes that means you’ll be late.

During the Bayadere week there were different casts on stage every night. Is it difficult to remember which dancers prefer which tempi?

My score had loads of notes penciled in - Tereshkina this way, Kondaurova that way, etc. That’s part of the challenge. Lots of things you just see when you look at the dancer, because who knows how they feel on the night? It is good to have a general idea beforehand, however of how you think things are going to go with a particular artist.

The spontaneity of a live performance is so exciting.

Well, I love the concept of “theater”. I remember the first time I conducted Marriage of Figaro at the Mariinsky (which was the first time I’d done it anywhere)—there towards the end of the overture, the curtain went up. It was so exciting, so thrilling—I’ve got tears in my eyes right now just remembering the feeling I had. I thought, “This is it! It’s a SHOW! It’s real! We’re doing this live and the audience is a part of it and it’s THEATER!” Theater is LIFE, and that’s what I try to remember always. You rehearse with your convictions but then you have to light a spark at the concert, otherwise people won’t experience it.

You seem pretty settled in St. Petersburg. How much time do you spend in the US?

I am Music Director of a festival in Minnesota called the Northern Lights Music Festival, and spend about a month there every summer - we do one new opera production a year and a couple of symphonic programs as well. I usually take my vacation in the US together with my family. Every once in a while, I go to the US on tour with the ballet, which is fun - they are in a foreign country but I am right at home!