A conductor is not a dictator
Donald Runnicles conducts
Erich Wolfgang Korngold's opera
Die tote Stadt
A case for theatre in the provinces? A few years ago Donald Runnicles revealed to a journalist that as a young kapellmeister in German provincial cities he had for years largely conducted without orchestral rehearsals. “That’s good training for reflexes and instinct”. In retrospect Runnicles regards the sort of thing that would make ambitious and career-hungry colleagues’ hair stand on end as a necessary phase of training, a form of learning how to respond to the musicians and listen to singers’, string players’ and wind players’ ideas about tempi. It is in any case a process of becoming familiar with the subject matter that is nowadays frequently neglected. Runnicles, who was born in Scotland and is a keen advocate of ensemble theatre (in which artistic characters can mature), laments this fact considerably.
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| Donald Runnicles conducts Korngold’s Die tote Stadt in the coming summer in Salzburg. |
Perhaps that was why, when in 1988 James Levine was suddenly taken ill at the Met and it was a question of finding someone to conduct Alban Berg’s Lulu with only five hours notice, Levine knew already that Runnicles was the perfect man for the job because he had been his long-standing assistant (from 1982) in Bayreuth. In 1992 Runnicles conducted the opening performance in Bayreuth, Tannhäuser, a production he remained in charge of until 1995. Donald Runnicles made his debut in Salzburg in 1996 when he took over Don Giovanni (in the staging by Patrice Chéreau) from Daniel Barenboim. In the coming festival summer Runnicles conducts Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Die tote Stadt.
In continental Europe Runnicles first conducted in the opera houses in Mannheim, Hannover and Freiburg. He has been much in demand as a guest conductor for the past twelve years both at the Vienna State Opera and at the Volksoper where in 1991 he made a particularly successful debut with Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. At the Vienna State Opera he has conducted a broad repertoire including Idomeneo, Don Giovanni, various operas by Verdi, as well as Salome, Peter Grimes and Billy Budd and he is no less in demand there as a conductor of Wagner’s Ring.
It was with Wagner’s Ring that he also made his mark in San Francisco, where he has been artistic director ever since. In the USA he enjoys conducting old works “fresh as the morning dew”, so to speak.
On the other side of the Atlantic, because opera does not have a tradition comparable to that in Europe, peoples’ preoccupation with opera seems to have fewer prejudices. This is matched by Runnicles’s avowal of tradition, especially to the specific characteristics of individual orchestras, something he would not want to miss in Europe.
He is convinced that what makes a good conductor is the spontaneous contact with musicians and an inner accord; this is what is immediately conveyed to audiences. He stipulates quite clearly, “the conductor is not a dictator”.
And how does he get on with stage-directors? “I am always prepared to try something out as long as it does not become gimmicky”. The ball is therefore in the court of Willy Decker, who stages Die tote Stadt in the coming summer.
Reinhard Kriechbaum