Montreal’s Yannick Nézet-Séguin is recreating the Metropolitan Opera from the bottom up
NEW YORK (AP) — Yannick Nézet-Séguin is recreating the Metropolitan Opera from the bottom up.
When the 48-year-old conductor leans forward during an orchestral concert to stretch his arms and emphasize vibrato or stretches high for a fortissimo, the red soles of his patent leather Christian Louboutins become visible. He’s about to take off, a visual contrast to the last years of predecessor James Levine, who conducted from 2001 seated from a motorized wheelchair during his last five seasons due to Parkinson’s disease.
“I still feel that we are at the beginning of our journey together,” Nézet-Séguin said during a rehearsal break last week. “I can perhaps appreciate the growth in our understanding of music, mutual understanding and trust, so it feels much more like – I don’t like to say Yannick’s orchestra, because that’s not the point – I’m there to just curate. “
After completing his fifth season as music director, he will be taking the Met on its first tour since 2011 and the orchestra’s first alone since 2002, playing concerts in Paris, London and Baden-Baden from Tuesday through July 2. , Germany.
Montreal-born Nezet-Séguin has directed eight new productions and five revivals as a music director, of the 23 productions he has directed since his debut in 2009.
Nézet-Séguin, music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra since 2012-2013 and of Orchester Métropolitain in Montreal since 2000, is working with Peter Gelb, general manager of the Met, to help the 140-year-old Met make more contemporary music in an effort to reach a wider audience. to reach the public. . For years, the Met had been synonymous with Levine, its main force as music or artistic director from 1976 to 2016, known for his bushy hair and emphasis on Verdi, Wagner, and Mozart.
“With the exception of the Vienna Philharmonic, major orchestras need conductors to join forces artistically,” said Met general Peter Gelb. “They were still the same group of great musicians, but they were artistically adrift without a conductor.”
From a Met record of 2,552 performances from 1971 to 2017, Levine has conducted only two operas written after 1951: John Corigliano’s “The Ghosts of Versailles” (1991) and John Harbison’s “The Great Gatsby.”
Nézet-Séguin has conducted five since becoming Music Director, a diverse assortment of Poulenc’s “Dialogues des Carmélites”, Terence Blanchard’s “Champion” and “Fire Shut Up In My Bones”, Matthew Aucoin’s “Eurydice” and Kevin Puts’ “The Hours Nézet-Séguin will conduct Jake Heggie’s “Dead Man Walking”, Daniel Catán’s “Florencia en el Amazonas” and Jeanine Tesori’s “Grounded” next season to open 2024-25.
“What is striking is the catholicity of his taste. For a long time, especially in the Levine years, I think it seemed like there was sometimes one new piece per decade,” said Aucoin, who is in the early stages of editing Dostoyevsky’s “Demons” for the Met. “What’s really healthy about the kind of aesthetic ecosystem that Yannik nurtures is that it relieves the pressure on each piece to be a unique masterpiece in the same tradition. And it also really exposes the audience to a sense of the real diversity of music out there. … You have to write the bad operas to get to the good ones. Verdi knew that.”
Nézet-Séguin has given the Met a new look in its hairstyle and attire. He dyed his close-cropped hair blonde for the 2019-2020 season and has traded the conductor’s uniform of tuxedos and tailcoats for outfits made by the Met’s costume department: colorful and sometimes floral shirts, a boxing robe for “Champion,” and a blue band leader’s jacket with gold braid. for Puccini’s “La Boheme”.
“He likes being a showman,” said Gelb, “but if anything, it’s really the icing on the cake because the most important thing is that he’s very solid musically.”
Originally hired by the Met in 2016 for a term as music director beginning in 2020, Nézet-Séguin pushed back his start to 2018-19. Twelve orchestral musicians have been hired since Nézet-Séguin was appointed music director in 2017.
“With Jimmy, he would really just sit on stage, shape the music, and everyone would come to him in some way. And it was more of a communication through eye contact, the occasional wry smile on his face,” says Donald Palumbo, the Met’s choirmaster since 2007. “from the choir and from the orchestra.”
Nézet-Séguin conducted the original French version of Verdi’s “Don Carlos”, the first performances of Wagner’s “Lohengrin” since 2006, and will conduct the return of Verdi’s “La Forza del Destino” in February. -the-Met Claus Guth staging of Strauss’ “Salome” in 2024-25, along with a revival of “Die Frau ohne Schatten” and in later years a new staging of Wagner’s “Der Ring des Nibelungen” with a director yet to be are selected.
He led a tour group of 143 that flew to Paris last weekend, requiring 76 cases of equipment in a 747-400 freighter. The concerts include Aucoin’s “Heath (King Lear Sketches),” which premiered at Carnegie Hall last week. New music is more central than he had in mind.
“After ‘Fire’ I went to Peter and said, look, the public is sending us a message here,” Nézet-Séguin said. “We need to make sure all communities are welcome in our hall, so we need to reprogram and think: How can we build on these communities?”
Nézet-Séguin’s enthusiasm stimulated composers who viewed the Met as a museum.
“This new approach to programming from The Met is obviously very exciting, not just for me, but for composers everywhere, that they’ve put contemporary music at the center of what they do,” Puts said. “The first time the orchestra plays the piece, you feel its excitement. That is very important for a composer to feel that enthusiasm.”
