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Remember the TV broadcast entitled Profil, poveste, personaj? It started one year ago and the first guest was Angela. Just to refresh your memory...
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At the beginning of the second season the guest is Ion Marin, the famous Romanian conductor. Needless to say that Angela's name was mentioned several times. (See the excerpt below and the translation). The entire interview (two parts, on Oct 20 and 27) is posted on TVR Cultural website. It's in Romanian and the interviewer is Marius Constantinescu.
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There are some videos included in the interview, some from Waldbuhne 2010 where Ion Marin conducted Berliner Philharmoniker, some from Live from Covent Garden (2001) and one short fragment (the one above) from their concert in Luxembourg (2007) that I've never seen before. It's an aria (well.. just half of it... or less) from Pagliaci.
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Before watching the video.. there's something Ion Marin said regarding the way artists consider the reviews after the performance. He said that the artist knows exactly how the performance went, if it was good or bad. And if the reviewers try to hide the truth, then the artist will hate them... I guess it's true, isnt't it?
And many stories about Waldbuhne. It seemes that it's emotional both for the conductor and the audience. I was there last year and it was one of my best symphonic experiences ever (even if they were wired).
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You and Angela Gheorghiu have been working together for a long time. Which is the essence of this very rewarding cooperation for both of you, I believe?
Angela is part of my family and I want to think I’m part of hers, with all the cousins, husbands, wives, children and so on. Our professional relationship is amazing and it’s one of the milestones of my career as conductor, as musician. There’s also a humane connection and why not, it’s about sharing the loneliness that a great international career implies. It’s a connection between two of the few Romanian musicians that have a career abroad. It’s not necessarily a licensed professional relationship, we just happened to find each other. Because we respect each other and believe in one another we tried to work together and to show where we come from and what we became.
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I can’t place Angela in the same line with Jessye Norman, Margaret Price, Leontine Price, Agnes Baltsa, Edita Gruberova and so on. I could tell you lots of names. Angela has a special place and she’ll always have it because we replaced our native country one for the other. Moral support is important because the life of artist is not made only of successes, applauses and huge billboards. We have our doubts, sufferings. The lack of routine allowed us to do what we did, without the support of our country, without walking on a red carpet all the time. We deliberately annihilated the routine through total involvement into music. This is how the public all over the world feels our performances as unique moments.
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I want to talk about something you said earlier, about yourself and about Angela, that you always want to show everybody where you come from. Do you want to prove something, to show that there’s a Romanian School of voice studies?
This “Romanian school voice studies” is a pattern that I consider out of place. It was often used during Communism and it is still used. But they'd better stop because when you talk about a School, you immediately reduce the personal effort of each artist to something very general, belonging to a group. Angela Gheorghiu is not Angela Gheorghiu anymore, she represents the Romanian school voice studies. Putting the work, sacrifice and development into parenthesis denotes lack of respect. Well, if you say Hariclea Darcle plus Virignia Zeani plus Angela Gheorghiu plus Ileana Cotrubas, then we could talk about tradition. But it’s impossible to talk about a School. One must avoid speaking in general. Have you ever heard somebody saying that Karaian was the representative of the Austrian school of conducting? Or that Jessye Norman is the representative of the American school voice studies? No. These are just some stereotypes used by those who never had the chance to have a career abroad. There’s no such thing as “School”. If there’s a School, it means there’s also a recipe.
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