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SEEN
AND HEARD INTERVIEW
The Music Has To Come First: An interview with Greek baritone Dimitri Tiliakos (BM)
Dimitri Tiliakos recently spoke to Bettina Mara on the occasion of
his impressive home-base debut as Simon Boccanegra at Greek National
Opera in Athens
(reviewed here ) : a breakthrough resulting in recent
engagements as Rodrigo in Paris and Covent Garden this June.
One of his country’s most distinguished opera singers, Dimitri
Tiliakos wasn’t initially predestined to seek out a career in music.
He hails from the beautiful Dodecanese island of Rhodes, and
although he was exposed to quite a bit of music as a youngster -
singing in a choir and learning to play the viola – after finishing
high school he set off to the Greek capital to study topography at
the University of Athens. But he also enrolled at the Athens
Conservatory, and soon realized that it was not his calling to
become an engineer… The rest is history, as he is now a regular
guest at opera houses throughout Europe and overseas, as well as in
his native Greece.
The first thing he does as we sit down in the coffee shop at
Euripides – an apt name for a Greek bookstore if there ever was one!
- is to pull up the window blinds. “I always need to let in the
light,” he explains, “it’s a habit I developed in Germany, where
there was often precious little of it…” The years spent in Germany
were an important milestone in his career. He arrived in Bavaria in
1996 as a winner of the prestigious Maria Callas award, initially
continuing his vocal studies with Daphne Evangelatou in Munich,
followed by an offer to become a member of the ensemble at
Staatstheater Nürnberg, where he stayed for eight years. An ideal
setup at the time, he says, since it provided him with the
opportunity to take in and perform a great deal of repertoire. Then,
after nearly a decade on the Nürnberg payroll, he decided to go
free-lance, “as do many colleagues, but it’s tough, and after
several years of performing around Europe while based in Germany, I
decided to move myself and my family back to Greece. And I haven’t
looked back. First of all, I’m by no means restricted to accepting
local work - Athens is only a few hours away from most European
cities. And as I just said, ours is a demanding business, and it’s
essential to have time at home in between engagements in order to
recharge your batteries. That was simply not possible for me in
Germany, and it was compounded by the fact that whenever I went away
to work, I left my family behind ‘alone’ in a country where they
were not at home, whereas now our children, a son and two
daughters,” he smiles, “can attend school in Greece and they and my
wife are always surrounded by relatives and friends, something which
is extremely important to me as well when I’m at home– not to
mention the light!”, he points out, nodding towards the window.
“It’s essential for an artist to live in an environment – and
naturally I’m talking about more than just the climate – which is
conducive to their artistic spirit – for example, I go to the
theater as often as I attend musical events here in Athens. I learn
a great deal from actors, perhaps even more than from watching other
singers perform. I’m not saying that you can’t find the environment
that is right for you almost anywhere, but in my case, it is most
definitely my home country. And I’m certainly not the only one – my
colleague Angela Marambio (who was here in Athens to sing Amelia in
Simon Boccanegra) says she won’t budge from Santiago de Chile,
although she’s often told she should really consider moving to Spain
for professional purposes. But surely we artists have the right to
decide who we are and where we want to be – I believe that those who
think and plan exclusively in terms of the logistics of their career
run the risk of ending up with an impoverished spirit. The music has
to come first, and in order to devote ourselves to it, we need to
allow our soul to flourish.”
Moving on to the topic of future plans, I wonder what is to come
after Boccanegra, and how he feels about contemporary opera
productions. It turns out that besides some more long-term
commitments as Marcello in Monte Carlo in 2010 and at the Met in
20011 (!) his next debut will be this coming season as Verdi’s
Macbeth, at the Novosibirsk and Bastille Opera Houses. Following in
the footsteps of his teacher, the late Kostas Paskalis, I venture?…(Paskalis
rose to international fame with his Glyndebourne Macbeth – read an
interview
here. “No,” he answers, “I wouldn’t put it that way at all. Paskalis was
a great artist and has certainly always been an immense source of
inspiration to me, but his posture, his aura, his involvement in his
roles – all of this was intensely personal and would be absolutely
impossible to emulate.”
“Contemporary productions,” he continues, “are an interesting topic.
I always like to point out that putting the characters in jeans
doesn’t make a production modern. ‘Modern’ is when what the audience
sees on stage draws them in, when it allows them to relate to works
written and composed long ago that are now being shown on a
present-day stage. In this sense, I am very much in favor of modern
stagings, but there are not many directors who succeed in producing
that effect – those who do are good at exploring roles and
characters and how they interact, and one such exceptional director
whom I have had the pleasure to work with is Graham Vick, who
directed La Bohème at GNO last December (reviewed
here
). But having said that, whenever I am part of a production, it means
that I am a member of a team and I always support the project 100%,
even if I don’t happen to agree with the director’s perspective.”
We go on to talk about how he prepares for new roles: “Every new
part is a challenge. Usually I will start by collecting
dramaturgical information about the work – don’t forget that
studying music, especially opera, also means studying literature -
by getting to know my character, listening to recordings. Thinking
about how to pace oneself is also very important, by mapping out
when there is going to be an aria to deal with, a cantilena, or
sotto voce passage, in order not to waste energy at the wrong moment.
But naturally stage rehearsals are the most important phase of
preparation – this is when an artist must have the courage to make
mistakes, to exaggerate if necessary, to recognize his limits.”
And speaking of new roles, his debut as Simon Boccanegra in Athens,
a location somewhat off the beaten track of the major opera house
circuit, has turned out to be a breakthrough: “Just three days after
I had finished the Boccanegra performances, the phone rang – could I
replace Hvorostovsky as Rodrigo in Paris? Of course I accepted
without thinking twice about it. I had only performed the role in
concert form before, and a long time ago, so I practically had to
learn it from scratch, and on the double – but I greatly enjoyed
doing it! It is an absolutely splendid role, you get to sing with
the fire of a revolutionary and the flame of youth, and fortunately
things went well in Paris – at least well enough for Covent Garden
to ask me to step in for Simon Keenlyside soon afterwards.”
When I begin to speculate about the up and down sides of being an
opera singer, he immediately fires back a question at me: “Do you
mean what do I like most or least about my profession or about my
art?” Both, I suppose, so we agree to call it an occupation, or a
pursuit… “Well, there are always things that bother people about
their occupation when they have been at it for a number of years, so
I won’t bore you with ‘technical details’ of that sort; I think what
bothers me most at this point is not being able to shake the
trepidation I often feel when going on stage. Although,” he
chuckles, “fortunately, my son is always there to advise me on how
to relax. He’s still in elementary school, but he always likes to
point out to me that ‘he knows a thing or two about the stage’.
Seriously, though, at that moment, an artist is a perilous packet of
many fuses…...But it is worth it, perhaps because of what I like most
about what I do: creating unique moments – whether during rehearsals
or performances. That is what we deal in, creating moments when time
stands still, if even for a split second, moments which can never be
repeated in precisely the same way.”
How does he feel about teaching? “Not very strongly, but it is
definitely a perspective for later. There are some young singers who
I have been happy to listen to when they’ve asked for suggestions,
but I haven’t considered teaching regularly just yet.”
And what about his musical interests besides opera? There are
several: “I have always been enthusiastic about performing Lieder,
and am planning a staged version of Schubert’s Winterreise with some
colleagues in Greece for some time soon – though I might add that my
favorite of all Lied composers is Schumann.”
And Greek composers? I remember seeing him in the premiere of Mikis
Theodorakis’ opera Lysistrate some years ago....“Actually, I would
love to perform more works by Greek composers – besides the
contemporary ones there are also some 19th to early 20th
century composers, such as Spyros Samaras, who wrote interesting
music for the stage – but unfortunately there are not many
opportunities. And I greatly enjoyed performing songs by Periklis
Koukos (and some of the composers who have inspired him) this July
in Epidaurus at the Hellenic Festival. And another exciting event
for me this summer will be Beethoven’s 9th in Sao Paolo
in August, with the Israel Symphony Orchestra under Dan Ettinger
(the new GMD at Mannheim Opera).”
And is there anything he does to get away from music once in a while
– play basketball perhaps? (Tiliakos is extremely tall…) “Not since
junior high school,” he chuckles. “I do all sorts of things besides
making music, but they don’t include a specific ‘hobby’ – my wife
and I like to travel, go on walks, enjoy good food and company or a
film together, the kind of thing everybody likes to do. When you
dedicate your heart and soul to your profession like I do, it is
very important to have opportunities like this to relax.”
Does he have any advice for young singers taking their first steps
as professional artists? “None at all!”, he replies instantly and
emphatically. “I would even go as far as to say that they should
take advice from no one (because everybody will tell them something
different), be daring, have the courage to make a lot of mistakes,
and above all, listen to their heart. Indeed, the one thing I
believe is extremely important - and this goes for all of us, not
just young colleagues - is to allow for enough time genuinely to
communicate with the people around us, especially those who are
important to us, be they colleagues, friends or loved ones. It seems
to me that although we have access to the height of technology for
the purpose of keeping in touch – cell phones, the internet, what
have you – and these ostensibly save us time (though the internet
tends to waste a huge amount of it), we still don’t use that time to
sit down and talk to each other often enough. All this rushing,
hurrying, the frenzy it creates - it shows in our work, so beware…
Bettina Mara
Read more about Dimitri Tiliakos at www.tiliakos.com