Goodness, it’s been a strange but wonderful couple of months.
I have been conducting a production of Kurt Weill’s Street Scene for Opéra national de Paris. The music is incredible and every body involved has worked so hard to help create our production…and it’s genuinely really good! The Opéra itself has really given me the status and room to just get stuff done. They have allowed me to aim high and be demanding of the artists and about department needs. In return, I have put absolutely everything I have into this job, using the full weight of my imagination, concentration, expertise and musicianship to make this production the best it can possibly be. The production set-up gives me the room for this. I have an amazing assistant who has freed me up from all kinds of tasks so I can stay at the heart of the music. I have three pianists in support. The admin team listens carefully to my needs and implements things as closely as possible and as quickly as possible. The schedule itself also means I have room to really ponder matters; particularly now we are in shows where I have a day on followed by a day off, I have time to enjoy myself after the show, a day off to wander around Paris and eat-eat-eat, then show day to implement changes I want to make.
It’s been really hard to spot because I’ve been so artistically fulfilled – I’ve really lost touch with my other creative outlets. I haven’t touched a piano in at least 6 weeks, and composing currently feels like an activity on which I can’t steady my mind. I think this project hay be my first proper glimpse in what it is like to really specialise in something and, for the first time see why so many people do it.
However, I also know that the reason I did exactly the job I did on this piece is because of my diverse career. It is my experience in romantic music, contemporary classical, groove-based theatre scores, music directing, working with singers, pop-piano playing and a composer/arranger’s eye on what Weill was after that has made the production what it is. Perhaps I haven’t been specialising at all on this project – perhaps the reason I have felt happy doing this single project is because I actually haven’t been sacrificing these other bits of me.
The part of me that has been most neglected though is my composing. I have said this before but there is something about spending your days absorbed in the decisions of another creative that seems to leave me quite detached from my own creative drives and desires. Am I feeding this part of me in a way I can’t see? Or is it that, when I do something practical, my capacity to handle imaginary ideas is diminished.
To be solved. Or not? Perhaps I’ll only discover the true impact of this project on my writing in the weeks to come – I have a couple of (quite sizeable) things I really do need to be composing imminently so I guess we’ll find out very soon…!
Me conducting “orchestra alone” rehearsals at Opéra Bastille.
📸 Robin de Bervet
