Your teachers at the Academy of Music included Albert Simon and András Kóridi. What were the most important professional skills that you learnt from them, with special regard to Simon, who is considered a legend these days?
To put it simply, everything I do well I learnt from him. One could steal a certain type of sensitivity from him, demonstrated in articulation, intonation and in every detail of listening to music. He was a hyper-sensitive musician with a complex personality that has lived with me ever since. This helps me learn new pieces and get a sense of musical processes. At the time when I was a graduate, he offered me the post of assistant lecturer, but then Kórodi, from whom I also learnt an enormous amount, took me to the Opera House suggesting that I should be a répétiteur for a year and then decide what to do.
Did you ever regret the decision?
No, not at all. Being an assistant lecturer would have been too limited for me. It would have been impossible to follow in Simon?s footsteps: nobody could ever emulate him successfully. But this way I managed to inherit his attitude that it is not mandatory to present operas in a boring and sloppy way.
Was it also this decision that resulted in becoming an assistant in Bayreuth?
Indirectly yes. Bayreuth happened by accident. Theo Adam was a guest in Pest, when I was starting out at the opera, and he took me with him as a pianist. At the time they were playing the third season of Patrice Chérau?s famous Ring adaptation. It was a definitive experience for me to see how he was constructing the work rhythm by rhythm, with incredible imagination.
What do you think is the ideal relationship between the director of an opera and the conductor?
The primary task of the director is to have a lively imagination for the stage (and very good musical assistance is of course also necessary). He or she does not have to be a good musician, just to prepare the ground for the music and let it fill with life. To make sure that the conductor?s job will be more than just allotting the score. My playing will also become very different at a rehearsal if the director?s work is sufficiently good and concrete. As Ferencsik once put it, musicians will eventually have to think of something when they put the various motifs in shape. It doesn?t matter what, but they have to think of something.
After several decades of experience in the opera, what future would you like to see for the house?
Considering that I?ve been working at the opera since 1973, I?ve climbed all the ladders there and I am perhaps excessively attached to this institution. My main weakness is not my faithfulness, but rather the fact that I believe my roots are so deep that I cannot part with the opera anymore. Either way, my beliefs are quite old-fashioned. I believe in having a company and a repertoire, and I secretly hope that they will come back one day.
Many theatres, including operas, have achieved spectacular results by inviting famous stars and bringing them together with other freelancers as part of the season?s schedule.
Perhaps it is easier with prose actors, although many people have told me that in the long term, even they find it stressful. Gábor Zsámbéki once went as far as saying that it?s impossible to make real theatre without a company. In the case of musicians, perhaps soloists are the only ones whose artistic personality will not suffer from loneliness, considering that they have that lifestyle anyway. Singers, however, are dependent on the group they have to work with. Reliability is therefore essentially important for them. Talented people need it as much as everyone else. I am of course aware that this is a complicated issue that cannot be discussed in due detail here. I know that ?recruited? performances can also result in very good teams but I still believe that a festival-type arrangement will only be beneficial to the productions and will not allow personalities to really develop.
In the current situation of the opera, these plans do not seem to be easy to accomplish. Is it possible to make plans at all?
Not really. Well, one can always make plans but as long as the current leaders are only concerned about making a personal success instead of thinking of the institution, these plans will remain futile daydreams. The condition of the house has deteriorated for several years and now it?s worse than ever before. Under these circumstances, it is impossible to think in the long term. There?s nothing else to do but work day by day and keep hoping.
(Since the interview was made, the acting director of the Hungarian State Opera House István Mozsár resigned from his post and the minister of national resources asked the first conductor to head the institution. ? ed.)
Interviewer: Zsuzsanna Rákai / Source: Fidelio.hu
