Thielemann as Barenboim's successor?

"By the way, I don't have to be the boss anymore"

Created: 01/11/2022, 18:15

By: Markus Thiel

Christian Thielemann took over the Berlin "Ring des Nibelungen" from Daniel Barenboim, who was ill and is actually General Music Director until 2027.

© BARBARA GINDL

Berlin and Chicago are courting him, so Christian Thielemann can sit back and relax.

But what does the coveted one really want?

A Berlin “Ring” visit with a conversation.

That was almost 2500 years ago, this procedure was already practiced in Sparta.

And here, at the Berlin State Opera, they fall back on it: It's not the ballot papers or the show of hands that are decisive, but the volume of the parliamentary groups.

There is great, roaring unanimity as soon as the savior enters the stage.

Sure, Christian Thielemann has to do it, says the hurricane after each part of Wagner's "Ring des Nibelungen", even now, in the second round for Thielemann after the premiere in early October.

If the contract of the seriously ill Daniel Barenboim expires in 2027 or if he can no longer take the helm (which is likely), then the big son of the capital will have to wupp it.

At 63, Thielemann sees himself in the position of the world's most sought-after bachelor.

Musically, of course, and in terms of being a principal conductor.

He will be with the Staatskapelle Dresden until the summer of 2024, so the big coupling is just beginning.

How does it feel to be the hottest contestant on the scene?

"Oh, what people say, you don't feel any different than usual." Routine dismissal.

"You think, for example, that after the Bruckner series in Chicago you have to pack your things and fly home because you still have a 'Ring' to conduct in Berlin."

"Grab him now," says the Chicago Symphony Orchestra

Thielemann was just with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, in 1995 he last made a guest appearance there.

And people are also keeping an eye out on Lake Michigan, where Riccardo Muti will conduct his farewell concert in 2023.

For large parts of the press and the public, the successor is obvious after four performances of Bruckner's eighth.

"Grab him now," a musician is quoted as saying, you don't have to translate it.

Although Thielemann still has a lot to do in Dresden, he seems to be thinking about the time afterwards.

They did not extend his contract on the Elbe.

Exactly why, no one knows.

It is probably a mixture of a new start, the will to rejuvenate and turning away from something difficult.

Thielemann's appointment book then filled up with guest performances.

His calendar, he says with a mixture of groans and pride, is full until 2028.

"I have things I can't cancel.

I still have inquiries that I could take on, but for which there are no contracts yet.

Tours are planned, including with the Vienna Philharmonic.

There are also opera revivals and a 'Ring' at La Scala.” In other words, it's no longer that easy to accommodate the duties of a boss.

"I'm very relaxed and just have a look.

By the way, I don't even have to be the boss anymore.

Ever since I was 28, ever since I took office in Nuremberg, I've always been the boss somewhere."

"Paternal closeness" to the seriously ill Daniel Barenboim

The sigh of a stressed person?

In any case, Thielemann is the only lectern star who maintains a pronounced work-life balance.

He has canceled his traditional three-week vacation on Sylt, as he emphasizes.

And only because Barenboim asked him to step in in Berlin.

"A kind of paternal closeness" resulted in the almost 80-year-old.

On the other hand, the groaning is also coquetry: the more Thielemann toyed with the idea of ​​traveling through the music centers as a free radical, the more coveted and expensive he made himself for the orchestras who were hungry for a boss.

Because everyone knows: As far as the "big names" are concerned, the market has just been swept clean.

All sold out.

The flirtation with the Berlin Staatskapelle has turned into an affair.

Thielemann is taking on another tour of Asia for Barenboim.

Two have just found each other: the Staatskapelle, which, thanks to Barenboim and a long Wagner tradition, has long since breathed in the four "Ring" operas.

And Thielemann, who has the 15 hours in both little fingers.

They are all sitting on the edge of a chair – what could possibly go wrong?

Desperate boss of the human experiment company "ESCHE": Michael Volle at the peak of his career as Wotan.

© MONIKA RITTERSHAUS

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You can't play Valkyrie in a more differentiated way.

All are determined to the ultimate interpretation.

In love, beauties of sound are tasted.

And yet it all often boils down to cold, saturated brutality.

The third act, overwhelmingly and harrowingly intense, is one for the annals.

It also has a lot to do with Michael Volle.

This had already become apparent in “Rheingold”.

Perhaps you have never seen such a text-conscious, raging, cynical, desperately loving Wotan.

When Volle begins his monologue in the second act of "Valkyrie", the 1300 in the sold-out house stop breathing.

You follow a baritone at the peak of his career while thinking in song.

The Staatsoper Thielemann also donates a few first-class casts that iron out questionable things like Rolando Villazón's box.

Anja Kampe as Brünnhilde, for example, Mika Kares as Fasolt, Hunding and Hagen, Andreas Schager as the tireless Siegfried, Vida Miknevičiūtė as Sieglinde, and Johannes Martin Kränzle, who as Alberich is led into the institution by men in white sneakers.

Director Dmitri Tcherniakov's is absurd.

Wagner actually thought of the Nibelungen as Wotan's opponents, not as poor lunatics.

There are a few such inconsistencies.

And yet one is always caught by Tcherniakov's precision work, which lets everything play out in a human and animal laboratory.

This staging is at its weakest when it wants to be realistic and dims Wagner's world designs down to the very small of the company.

Strongest against.

when Tcherniakov uses the institution like an alienation effect à la Brecht, allowing characters, dreams and subtexts to stand out in an overly sharp manner.

Does Christian Thielemann even fit into the Berlin State Opera?

This “Ring” is “artistically very delightful”, says Thielemann, looking at the orchestra.

"We get along really well." But do those responsible in Berlin do such a star?

Only one to a maximum of two premieres per season as in Dresden, almost no repertoire conducting, but lucrative tours with the orchestra, that actually stands in the way of the development of a house frozen under Barenboim.

Precisely because Thielemann is so relaxed, this confirms the suspicion: he is at his best when he doesn't have to deal with administrations.

Because – as in Nuremberg, at the Deutsche Oper Berlin or with the Munich Philharmonic – there will be fights at some point.

Thielemann has already prepared a scenario for a career in late summer without a managerial position.

No traveling from one orchestra to the next.

"If so, then there must be a few selected ones - and this with great regularity." But in the end, life is full of surprises.

Which means I can wait.

“For me it was always the case that fate somehow decided.

Such a decision must be in the air.

And for me right now it's in the air that a lot of work is waiting for me."

Recording

of the Berlin "Ring" from November 19 on arte.tv/concert.