Opera is booming in Turkey: Bettina Mara talks with the Director and the Chief Conductor of Istanbul State Opera. (BM)

 

Some friends of mine in Athens, a young Greek composer and his wife, herself an accomplished singer, told me I would be more than just a little surprised: an Istanbul production of Pagliacci a few years back was one of the best they had ever seen, they informed me - in fact, it was so superb that it didn’t matter if they never saw that particular opera on stage again.

Still under the influence of an impressive performance of Otello at the matinee premiere for which I arrived in quite a fluster the previous afternoon at Atatürk Kültür Merkezi on account of the nature of Istanbul taxis and traffic, I am slightly more composed when I turn up at the offices of Istanbul State Opera the following morning to speak to its director and head conductor. Architecturally, the Culture Center, built in 1969, located on Taksim Square, right at the heart of this teeming metropolis, and named after the founder of the modern-day Turkish Republic, may not be anything to write home about. However, this imposing structure houses a noteworthy theatre seating 1,250 and has more than adequate acoustics. Having wandered around the back of the building for a while and inadvertently landed in a neighboring art gallery first, I finally find the right entrance, leave my passport with the concierge and take the somewhat rickety elevator up to the director’s office, where we are served piping hot, sweet Turkish tea in miniature flared-top glasses. Yigit Günsoy, the opera company’s head of publications and a former assistant stage director (here today acting as an interpreter) is keen to mention how rewarding he has found collaboration with Greek artists such as former Athens National Opera director Lukas Karytinos, again confirming my impression that though politicians may still be working to overcome the centuries-old conflict between Turkey and Greece, artists – and especially musicians – have long set their disagreements aside. Both gentlemen who have agreed to speak to me are highly enthusiastic about their work, and don’t really wait for me to ask them any questions… 

 

Before becoming manager and artistic director of Istanbul State Opera and Ballet in June 2005, A. Kerim Soysal played the double bass in the opera’s orchestra for 36 years. He is eager to point out that “in Turkey, our opera houses generally receive sufficient government subsidies, so fortunately we don’t have to be on the lookout for sponsors all the time. To me, this is just one way of carrying forward the legacy of Atatürk, for whom education was of paramount importance, and that of course included supporting classical music.” “As a result,” he continues, “we have always been able to keep our ticket prices very low and accessible to almost everyone – the very best seats at the Istanbul Opera House still only cost the equivalent of $12.50, and tickets to performances at the Aspendos Summer Festival (mid-June through July) are only slightly more expensive. The ancient theatre in Aspendos, on the southern Aegean coast of Turkey, now a member of the association of International Open Air Festivals, is a showcase for the best productions from all five Turkish opera houses (the others are located in Ankara, Izmir, Antalya and Mersin), but we also host quite a few from abroad: last summer, for example, there was Eugene Onegin with Valery Gergiev, and this season we are looking forward to seeing Deutsche Oper Berlin’s production of The Magic Flute.”

 

When appointed chief conductor at Istanbul State Opera in September 2005, Fabrizio Ventura had already built an impressive career at various opera houses in Europe and elsewhere. One of his many jobs in the German-speaking world was that of chief conductor at the Nuremberg Opera House from 1990 to 2000, where he made a name for himself with new productions of Jenufa, Peter Grimes and the world premiere of Hiller’s Wolkenstein. He has yet to appear in the United States, though he looks back fondly on a performance at the Athens Peace and Friendship Stadium with the great Leonard Bernstein in 1986. His debut at the Australian Opera in Sydney in the summer of 2002 with La Bohème was a great success, as was his new reading of Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk presented in Wiesbaden, Germany, in 2005. Needless to say, his German is fluent, and not without a pleasant Italian inflection, as he proceeds to tell me that he was recruited to Istanbul at fairly short notice, but that this fortunately also made it easier to coordinate his new job with prior commitments. “In Turkey I was welcomed by an enormously strong potential in terms of musicians, in particular the orchestra, but also the opera chorus, whose members have immense voice material to offer. Many of the members of the chorus and orchestra – all Turks, by the way, with the exception of our first violinist, who is a Ukrainian - are as young as 30-something Markus Baisch, our new chorus master whom I just recently brought here from Germany. And incidentally, the performance of Otello you saw yesterday was his Istanbul debut! Everyone here is extremely committed to what they are doing, and naturally this generates immense momentum in the orchestra, which is, in turn, conveyed to the audience. Voice training at Turkey’s conservatories is outstanding. Considerable attention is paid to supporting musical culture in this country, and I would venture to say that in Istanbul we have the best, or perhaps the strongest stage in the whole of Southeast Europe. Despite the fame of individual Turkish opera stars, such as Leyla Gencer (or Bülent Külekci, currently appearing in Rigoletto in Paris) most people have no idea of the long-standing opera tradition in Turkey.” Another tradition is apparently bringing Italian conductors to Istanbul: Antonio Pirroli was one of Ventura’s predecessors here, as was Renato Palumbo, now at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin. And Bruno Aprea was at Ankara State Opera, where Dario Lucantoni is chief conductor at present.

Moving on to his plans to expand the German and contemporary repertoire at Istanbul opera in the near future, Ventura mentions that “up to now, there wasn’t much on offer in that department, except for the odd Salome or Fliegender Holländer. The same goes for 20^th-century works, an area in which there are distinguished Turkish composers as well. One I appreciate a great deal is Ahmet Adnan Saygun. Some people don’t find his operas all that fascinating to watch on stage, but the music he writes is of the highest caliber. Saygun accompanied Bartok on many of his journeys through Europe, researching folk melodies, and you can hear it in his musical language – and on top of that he has a tremendous grasp of the nuts and bolts of music, which he knows how to use to great effect.”  “And while we're on the subject”, he adds, “not everyone is aware of the fact that the German composer Paul Hindemith spent many years in this country, and he certainly left his mark as well.”

Employment conditions here are apparently excellent: “Musicians are hired for life,” Ventura informs me, “and as a result we’re not forced to work under the constant threat of potential budget cuts and orchestra reductions, providing us with the kind of stability that colleagues in other countries can only dream of. The opera house even supplies instruments to musicians who can’t afford their own, and as a rule these are better than many I have seen in Eastern Europe. It also employs numerous other staff, so that we have our very own masseur and luthier at the theatre here in Istanbul. The orchestra consists of approximately 100 members, the chorus of 95 and our ensemble includes about 70 soloists. Regardless of their open-ended contracts at home, these singers are allowed to give guest performances abroad as well, and naturally this helps them remain committed to Istanbul.” “They know their duty!” Soysal interjects, “and Leyla Gencer” (who chose to spend much of her career abroad) “is now very sad about having lost her pension.”

“Of course the opera is also a kind of vehicle for the Turkish government, eager to project a European image and define itself as Western in orientation,” Ventura promptly concedes, “but this is also something which works in favor of music in Turkey. I haven’t been living here for very long yet, but I can certainly say that with its population of 16 million, by any measure Istanbul is a metropolis, its inhabitants are clearly looking towards the future, things are on the move here and this is a city in which I do not feel foreign at all. The mere fact that there are two significant state orchestras – the opera and the symphony orchestra – offering a new program weekly is enough to illustrate what I am saying. Many impressive things are being done for music in the private sector as well, but what is important is that in light of all this, the government doesn’t just decide to shirk its own responsibilities and pass them on to private sponsors, an example that others would do well to follow!” And this brings him to a topic he obviously feels very strongly about: “I resigned from my last job as chief conductor in Meiningen, Germany, because the orchestra was supposed to be ‘rationalized’. In my opinion it is simply wrong to expect an opera house to be able to cover all of its own expenses. No one in Europe would expect that of a school or a hospital! Music is an important part of people’s education, supporting it means nurturing culture, not only a nation’s own ethnic heritage. Beethoven’s and Verdi’s works are by no means ‘German’ or ‘Italian’ music”, he goes on to explain, “they are a part of world-wide culture, and the Turks have recognized this, as have the Chinese, I might add, who are training 10 million musicians as we speak, twice the population of Switzerland in numbers. The ‘western’ countries seem to have lost sight of the value of our culture in many ways.”

Bottom line? “Naturally there is still a great deal of work to be done here and problems calling for solutions, but what counts is that in the evening, the music our audiences hear comes straight from the heart.”

 

Bettina Mara



Note : Bettina Mara is a correspondent for the opera magazine Orpheus International. She will report on further operatic events from Turkey for Seen and Heard. (Regional Editor)