INTERVIEW
Wagner Project in Dresden
10.07.2023
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Kent Nagano is considered one of the outstanding conductors for both operatic and orchestral repertoire. He has been General Music Director of the Hamburg State Opera and Chief Conductor of the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg since September 2015. In addition, he is very committed as Artistic Director of the Wagner Readings and as patron of the Herrenchiemsee Festival. In 2006 he was appointed Honorary Conductor of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, in 2019 of Concerto Köln and in 2021 of the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal. Franco Soda talked with Kent Nagano about The “Ring Tetralogy”.
What's the Wagner project in Dresden?
The "Ring Tetralogy" in historical performance practice will be comprehensively developed, rehearsed and performed over several years, flanked by a comprehensive framework programme and in association with a new Wagner Academy. Research will be entrusted to scientists from different fields; the individual works of Wagner's tetralogy will be performed in concert every year from 2023 to 2026 at renowned concert halls in Germany and abroad.
Philological approach to 18th century brought a new interest to these music. Playing Wagner on historic instruments is somehow philological. Will this stylistic approach as well as historical instruments orchestra become interpretation praxis?
Philology is indeed a critical term in our Wagner project. As explained, this extensive multi research project has focused upon Wagner's texts, how to pronounce them, the dialect used by Wagner, and how Wagner prioritised expression and content through choice of words and their diction. Similar to research, which is ongoing, focused upon how the instruments of the time, not only supported the vocal expression, but also used articulation, timbre, colour, ornament and rhythm/harmony in pioneering ways
What can the audience expect listening to Wagner played on original instruments?
Most immediately apparent will be the diapason, which is lower than what we are used to today. Also the particular timber, colour, and transparency these instruments bring to the general orchestra sound will be immediately apparent. The historical woodwind instruments, and brass instruments creates a tone which blends with a human voice in an organic sense, allowing the singer to express themselves in a particularly large range of dynamics and articulation
What does it change for the conductor to conduct Wagner with orchestra of original instruments?
A certain sensitivity towards breathing, phrasing and tempi.
Kent Nagano (Photo, Sergio Veranes Studio)
Kent Nagano (Photo, Sergio Veranes Studio)
How will Dresdner Festspielorchester and Concerto Köln, accustomed to play 19th Century repertoire, approach Wagner's score?
The reason the research has taken place over so many years and is ongoing is because the project began with carefully exploring both scientifically, and with extensive performance experience many of the major composers who wrote music between those who wrote the repertoire with which Concerto Köln is most familiar, (which is to say those of the so called baroque, classic periods) gradually extending through late Haydn, Mendelssohn, Schubert, Schumann, Berlioz, early Bruckner, Offenbach, (and others), into the middle of the 18th century.
In a sense we as an ensemble abstractly "lived" through the development of European music history. We carefully documented and learning through each evolutionary phas In this way, the Dresden Festival Orchestra and Concerto Köln interact with the music of Wagner with a freshness, open-mindedness, and historical context sympathetic to those musicians who played Wagner's music in Wagner's times.
© Franco Soda, 2023
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