(Photo: Ivano Buat)

Internationally acclaimed conductor Daniel Oren is particularly recognized for his interpretations of Italian opera, especially works by Verdi, and is noted for his successful career at prestigious opera houses around the world. He has collaborated with conductors Herbert von Karajan and Franco Ferrara and was famously chosen by Leonard Bernstein to sing the role of the boy solo, David, in Chichester Psalms at the age of 12 and a half.

Oren began his international career in 1975, winning the first prize at the Karajan Competition Award and he has worked extensively with many of the most renowned artists and singers over the past forty years.

Maestro Oren spoke with OperaWire in his dressing room at the Royal Ballet and Opera just before his final performance of “Aida.”

OperaWire: Congratulations on the successful run of “Aida.” How has the experience been for you?

Daniel Oren: It’s been Fantastic. Everybody in this house is so high level, and also the production is great, although it is not usual like the classical “Aida” production set in Egypt. This production is very impressive, I have to say; when you have a great director like Robert Carsen you see immediately that he’s a genius. We worked on it for almost one month and it was really a great pleasure.

Also, the level of this orchestra is amazing. I think that I have conducted something like 500 “Aidas” throughout my career; many of them in the Arena di Verona, the most incredible outdoor stage in the world. But I have to say that in the theatre, in the closed theatre, everything changes; you are able to build more inspired sounds like the ones of the overture. When I began to work on it with the orchestra, I told them that the overture is like the business presentation card of the opera. In these five minutes, Verdi is telling you exactly what he’s presenting: it begins and ends in pianissimo, and it plays on all delicate colors, very intimate; it’s not the triumph. In fact, for me the most beautiful part of “Aida” is the Tomb scene in the final act, not the triumph march. Everybody comes to see perhaps the triumph, everyone knows its tune, even children. But it’s not the message Verdi intended, and I work with very much what Verdi wanted to express with “Aida.” I respect the will of the composer, which I think is very, very important. So, it was thrilling and emotional to work with the orchestra to try to realize all these special sounds. The overture… it is like in a cloud, a very special and very magical atmosphere; this orchestra succeeded in it like nobody else. Also, we gave all our energy in the most powerful and “forte” moments… It was a very interesting and enthusiastic work.

The chorus is also fantastic, it was really a pleasure to perform with them, to find the right nuances with them and with the soloists. It’s clear that during performances they’re taking something from me and I’m taking something from them. It’s a mutual exchange. Many times, you find singers that want only to be accompanied; that’s not doing music really, for me that is disappointing. But I had here a very good cast of singers in London, all of them of the highest level and among them was, I think, the most incredible baritone, (Amartuvshin Enkhbat) from Mongolia. He doesn’t have a very big role, but he is really something; a voice that you could hear only from the past.

As Robert Carsen has great experience in theater, he knew how to valorize music also with a modern concept of “Aida.” It is the fashion nowadays to have an empty stage; empty behind and above, which is terrible for the voices. The directors of old times, they knew the secret of how to build the scene, so that the voice would bounce against the wood and into the audience. If you leave everything open, that’s a problem for the voice, and consequently for the music (and the music is a very important element!). So, Robert Carsen, he knows it very well, and everything is built in a way that the scene is helping the voice. Every night here for me has been a big pleasure and a real joy to make music.

OW: You mentioned that you consider it really important to remain faithful to the composer’s intentions. When you approach a work, do you have a vision that you might like to maybe embellish it or add something of yourself to it?

DO: Yes. But when you are studying an opera that you don’t know, you obviously have to study hard. I am not ashamed to study and to learn from the big conductors or singers of the past: it’s very important to learn from them. And for a singer, it’s very important to learn from the big singers of the past, but I often see a reluctance for some people to learn.

I remember when I got the Karajan first prize, in Berlin with the Berlin Philharmonic and Karajan was speaking before the concert, and he said:
“You don’t know how lucky you are because we didn’t have all the sources that you have: all the possibilities to learn and to listen to the big conductors.” And what about today? Conductors and singers have even more advantages: you have YouTube, you have CDs, you have everything.

I was never ashamed to learn from the big musicians of the past, but that does not mean to be an imitation of somebody. Learn, yes, study, but then I’m sure that I’m also giving from my interpretation. It becomes then completely my interpretation – and it’s possible that every night the interpretation changes. I mean, we are changing every day, every minute. So, I imagine that I’m changing every performance. I think what is very important for a conductor, and not only for a conductor, is to always approach the opera like it was the first time. That’s the secret: never act like you have conducted it a hundred times, or two hundred times. Never, ever. Always, you must create it like it’s the first time you have done it. Every night.

OW: You famously worked with Leonard Bernstein and Herbert Von Karajan. What are your memories of those times?

DO: With Bernstein, I sang when I was twelve-and-a-half the boy solo part, David, in the “Chichester Psalms.” It was the biggest experience I’d ever had up to 12! I think I had the biggest luck to see him and to be just a meter away from him for the whole piece. To see him and to see how he was… that’s what inspired me and that was when I think I understood I was to have a life in music. I try to communicate through music and the emotions through every part of my body because he was exactly like that.

He was also a fantastic person, so it goes together…sorry, it doesn’t always go together.

OW: He famously often came across as quite strict. Sometimes austere and harsh. Was he like that in your experience?

DO: Lenny? He was the most incredible person in the world. He was not strict. Yes, he was very demanding, that’s clear, but as a child I went to all his rehearsals of the Israel Philharmonic, and it was like a family for him. Many times, you see a conductor who creates a barrier between him and the orchestra because, if not, we are afraid that we don’t have authority, and you know he was the opposite. He came there and didn’t even go to his room to rest. He was speaking with the orchestra in the intervals, and he knew everything about them; about their family about their children…it was like a family. He was the most human and warm person I have ever met in this field. Even as a conductor… even in this position, it was a great family. But he could do it because he was a genius.

And Karajan, he was completely another personality. I don’t think he had great technique. That’s not just me saying so. When I was studying in Berlin before and after winning the prize, I was very friendly with many musicians of the Berliner Philharmoniker. And some of them, they told me: “Daniel, we don’t understand anything!” But… he was the greatest. The fact that he conducted for so many years the Berliner Philharmoniker and created such a wonderful sound…the quality of that sound, I don’t know if anybody after him succeeded in reproducing it. Evidently, the gesture is not the most important thing. What a musician, Karajan, what a personality he had. THAT is what is mostly important in a conductor.

OW: You conducted a “Tosca” with Luciano Pavarotti. It has become fashionable these days among some to criticize him, his apparent inability to read music, his perceived laziness, and his reluctance sometimes to rehearse. What was your experience of working with him?

DO: What I can say about Luciano is this: what would we give to have a Luciano today? First, the voice. The technique… which is very very important for a singer. Every note was studied and had its position, its right position and he knew why this note was reproduced like this. So…technique, and then the beauty of the voice! The facility on high notes, the way of phrasing, the legato, the way of singing, the diction. With Luciano you understood every syllable. What can I tell you? He was a present we received from God.

The first time we met for “Tosca” in Rome, with Raina Kabaivanska, I asked him if he could sing one phrase in another, different way and he said (because I was always singing everything): “Daniel could you sing it for me please?” What do you want me to sing to Luciano Pavarotti? (laughing) I told him he’s crazy, but he says: “You have to sing it!”

He knew that through the voice you can show them much better your ideas. It was a wonderful relationship between me and him. I don’t know how many years we will have to wait to listen again to another Luciano, if ever…

OW: We’ve spoken of two different, yet gifted, conductors already. What would you say are the things that make a great conductor?

DO: First, a conductor must have a solid base of technique. I am not saying it has to be fantastic… There are people with a fantastic technique, like Carlos Kleiber. I love him so much. And, of course, Lenny Bernstein. Lorin Maazel had great technique as well, one of the best techniques in the world.

But I think in any case the most important thing is to communicate, to interpret. Arthur Rubinstein was a great interpreter, no? Perhaps today you have pianists that are playing better than Rubinstein, or than Vladimir Horowitz, but the music that Horowitz, Rubinstein and other great pianists made was important, even if there were some –  or many –  wrong notes. That’s the same thing with a conductor; he has to communicate. What I’m looking for in a conductor is to be a true musician and to communicate great emotions.

For example, one of the biggest musicians of today is the conductor Daniel Barenboim, also as a pianist, one of the biggest musicians in the world. But it’s not always a question of technique, absolutely not. You have to listen to the interpretations; that’s the most important thing.

When in opera, nonetheless, it’s more complicated, because it is necessary to understand the voice in order to work with it. You have to give the singers advice, solutions or hints for when you think they could sing better or different; you have to lead them musically. Advise for the legato, for the way of singing, for the character they are portraying. If you have clear musical ideas, then you will always be willing to work hard to realize them. I’m working very much with the singers on interpretation and very much on colors. I hate when singers sing only in forte and mezzo forte; music is not one color or two, it is THOUSANDS of colors. Like I always say, we have thousands of possibilities of creating, and producing colors exactly like a painter.

An opera conductor has to know how to work with the orchestra, knowing that the orchestra is not a soloist. The orchestra has to know how to sing, and a conductor must work with them in order for them to sing as much as possible with the singers, like Toscanini said: “Sing with them, sing, breathe, you have to breathe with the singers.”

There are so many things to resolve in opera, that in a symphony concert you don’t find. I must say I also love conducting symphonic repertoire; but I like so much doing opera because there are voices, the most fantastic instruments ever created with which you can get closer to heaven.

Many times, we see conductors conducting the orchestra with forte and fortissimo, constricting singers to force the voices; this means these singers’ careers will be at risk in a short period. So, you really have to create a carpet for them and let them express themselves without forcing the voice.

OW: What haven’t you conducted yet, that you aspire to be involved with?

DO: Perhaps in the future, an opera by Wagner. I conducted a piece in a symphonic concert, it was very emotional… but never an opera. The reason I haven’t yet conducted a Wagner opera was not for musical reasons but as respect for those poor souls who were sent to the crematorium. During that terrible period, they were playing mostly Wagner in deportation camps; as a Jew, I didn’t want to hurt or offend the people that suffered so much in that period. But Wagner is in any case wonderful music; I think now I am ready to get into it.