Canadian director Robert Carsen is among today's elite directors in the world of opera. His productions have been in the repertoire of major opera houses, such as the La Scala in Milan, the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the Glyndebourne Festival Opera in England or the Royal Opera House Covent Garden for many years. His work is often referred to as the so-called regietheater because he usually stages operas at times and places different from the original score. Yet his productions excel in unique poetics, dramaturgical compactness and mainly in the fact that they are an emotional, lively and extremely impressive theatre. The 2016 Janáček Brno Festival will open with one of the most famous productions by Carsen, Janáček's Katya Kabanova. It will be performed by the ensemble of the Janáček Opera of the Brno National Theatre. The Brno theatre will be the first ensemble in the Czech Republic that has a production by Robert Carsen in their permanent repertoire.
You are one of the most successful opera directors in the world, but first you studied theatre. What led you to become an opera director?
The answer is not that simple. I was an actor, I wanted to play since I was little. Then I went to a university in Canada, which I left to go to a theatre school in England, and that is where one teacher started talking to me about directing. He thought I could be a good director. So I decided to start as an assistant director and I worked in theatre for a little bit. They asked me to help with one opera performance at the Italian festival Spoletto, and that was my first experience. I thought that I would work on an opera only once, but I liked it a lot because I love music. And that is how it began. So I got to the opera through theatre and my education in acting helped me when working with singers because I know what it is like to act.
You have directed many operas, ranging from the Baroque era to pieces from the 20th century, among them five operas by Leoš Janáček, which is a lot given that Janáček only wrote nine of them. What was your first Janáček opera and why did you decide to direct it?
I always loved Janáček. His first opera that I saw was Jenufa at the London's Royal Opera which completely shocked me with its power – both of the music as well as the theatrical interpretation – so I decided to learn more about Janáček. That was at the beginning of a period of renewed interest in Janáček's work in England, where many of his pieces were played, even in Scotland and the English National Opera... I quickly realised that I would love to direct operas of this composer. I started to work for the Flemish Opera in Antwerp and Ghent, I performed a cycle of operas by Puccini together with the artistic director Mark Clémeur and Marc then asked me: "So, what do we do now? And I said: "What about a cycle of Janáček's operas? I would love to do that." So we did it. We started with Jenufa, which we played at many places, and continued with Katya, which was also performed many times and is one of my favourite operas. And we also studied the Cunning Little Vixen. Marc Clémeur then left the Flemish Opera House for the Opéra du Rhin in Strasbourg, where the cycle continued – we rehearsed the Cunning Little Vixen for the second time, The Makropulos Case and From the House of the Dead. And that is how this cycle originated. For me, Janáček is undoubtedly one of the top three opera composers. His dramatic art is so concise and poetic at the same time, it is simply a miracle. I also like that Janáček is just himself. He does not continue any tradition and there was no one like him after him. He is absolutely unique. And his work is, in my opinion, very popular which is totally understandable when you consider the impact of his work and the beauty of his music.
Who are your other two favourite composers?
I am very fond of Gluck and Händel. It may seem strange, but for me there is a certain relationship between Gluck and Janáček – their music is austere and they are not interested in any beautification or artificial or cosmetic issues. Very basic and very true. I really like Gluck.
What is your personal process when you start working on a new opera?
First, I must dive into the world of the given piece, I try to understand what it is about and why the composer wanted to compose it. Artists usually try not to repeat themselves and always want to do something new, therefore it is interesting to discover what the relationship of composers to their libretti and librettists was. Some of them are constantly in conflict, while others are trying to find work that is challenging and exciting for them. The key to the emotional grip of music is to understand what the libretto meant to the composer, why he wanted to create a sound landscape around a particular story. Then, of course, I start to work with a set designer. The story of the opera is not necessarily what is happening in the opera, so if you want to tell a story for a certain place and a certain time, you have to try to find out what it really is about and what it really means. I understand the staging as a bridge between the audience and the performers, so the performance is a way to attract the audience as close to the opera as possible. Directors are storytellers, I try to retell a story that someone else wrote. I am always interested in how to keep the story from becoming something else. Otherwise, I would write my own opera. The audience is like a child and a bedtime story – they know the story but they always want to hear it time and time again to experience the same excitement as the first time, but you have to tell them in a very strong way. This is a big task for the director because he or she must always reinvest everything.
Have you read Ostrovsky's The Storm before you started working on Katya Kabanova?
Yes, I have. And I have also seen it several times. It is not performed too often but it is performed sometimes in North America and Europe and I have seen it twice.
What is the critical point in Katya Kabanova? What did the concept of this production come from?
Some of Janáček's operas are very elemental in their own way. The storm is, of course, one thing but a metaphor of water is also present. Katya wants to kill herself, drown in the river, but there is also the isolation of water, therefore, that it feels so lonely and so unattainable... There is therefore the loneliness of Katya and water is also a symbol of the Jungian concept. And it seemed to me that it would be beautiful to use it during performances. To separate people and unite them. It is another opera story that shows how Janáček, and Verdi in a way, were well aware of the impact of the society and the small-town thinking and the hypocritical condemning morality on people's lives which are not so easy to understand. So – maybe not as strongly as in Jenufa – there are people living inside the social environment and how this environment is assessed. It was therefore important to create a strong world that will represent Kabanica, Tichon and this family, to which Katya was brought, but where no one understands her. Janáček, a bit like Puccini, very well understands the psychology of women for many reasons that we know from his life (Kamila and others). But I am never really interested in finding connection with the life of the author. It is important to know what happened in the life of the author but in my opinion the work of an artist goes beyond their immediate experience. In Katya, we have a very profound poetic state of mind, an emotional being that is so vulnerable and fragile, but has great strength in itself. There is something mysterious that cannot be fully explained or sufficiently clarified without losing any of the Janáček. His libretti are highly concentrated as he crossed out many things from the plays and left only what he thought was necessary. I think you also have to maintain the secret.
What is your interpretation of the character of Boris, with whom Katay falls in love?
It is a bit odd but Boris could be anyone. It is quite clear that Boris is not worthy of love, which Katya gives him, like in the case of the character of Steve in Jenufa. We know that he just wants to have fun and based on how his uncle Dikój treats him, we see that he is a real bum. A spoiled pretty boy who does not have much of a strong character. Simply one of those, who are ready to exploit someone, like Pinkerton... He has no idea what he is getting himself into. The girl is basically throwing herself into his arms and he is too vain to realise that a disaster is imminent. That does not mean he does not love her, in a way, but Katya ends up... She does not drown just because she goes to drown. She stands on something that cannot hold her weight and simply falls through. He is not ready to accept her as a project, live with her... He is the exact opposite of Varvara and Kudryas who flee towards a new life. They leave, but Boris is not ready for it... Actually, he cannot handle her. She frightens him.
What was the reaction of the director of the Flemish Opera House Marc Clémeur when you told him that you wanted to cover the entire stage with water?
That was not a problem. I think they thought it was a good idea. It is a difficult task for the theatre, of course, but it was fine I think. We had to figure out how to do it. The girls are standing in water so we had to warm up and filter the water which is a bit more difficult but we figured it out eventually.
The Czech language is not too common in the world of opera. How do you deal with it when working on Janáček's operas?
I had a literal translation, word for word, inscribed directly into the score, so I knew exactly what each word means. I did it the same way for Rusalka.
How do you work with singers to understand their characters?
It is a shared thing. We discuss it. In some cases, they have played their roles before, so they feel themselves what is right for their characters. And then we work on it together. When working on an opera, you discover a lot of things and you can prepare in advance only to a certain extent. And when you really work on the scenes for the first time, you discover a lot of things, like the interaction of the characters and what some things mean or could mean, and then you build on it. Gradually, while working, you discover more and more about the entire opera and the entire world of the relevant opera.
Many of your performances are played in various theatres around the world. Do you enjoy new productions and do you try to adapt the scene to the given theatre, singers or country? Will Katya Kabanova be the same performance in Brno as in Antwerp or did it change over time and was it different in Madrid and Milan?
Well, no, it depends. First, it is a physical performance... When you take it as a co-production from the beginning, you know exactly, in which theatre it will be played, so you make sure it fits perfectly. But when it comes to a performance taken over by another theatre, or less commonly as in the case of Brno, when we are actually transforming it for the theatre, it is something else. We can prepare it for Brno exactly the way we think is best for Brno, because we start from scratch. When I direct, I usually find that you change things in a new production and in the first two re-stagings, we adapt, adjust what you did not do perfectly the first time, and then the performance is usually okay. It is ready and you know what is best. But things always change a little bit, of course. I cannot come and stay in Brno throughout the preparation because at the time when the decision was made, I already had other commitments. But I have a very good assistant who was there during every staging, so she knows it very well and I therefore know that it would be good. It is very important to bring the performance to Brno, it is very exciting for all of us and we are very happy for that.
Is there any opera by Janáček that you would like to direct?
Do you mean Brouček, Destiny or something like that? Maybe Brouček someday, I do not know. Honestly, I do not know it so well. I hope very much that we will repeat From the House of the Dead because I really like it. And I also really like the Makropulos Case which we only played twice. We have no re-stages From the House of the Dead yet and we played the Makropulos Case in Venice and again last year in Antwerp. Amazing opera. Just great.
What does opera mean to you?
When it works, it is absolutely the most powerful form of live theatre due to its unique ability to combine intellect and emotions. You have the libretto which is a specific intellectual entity, combined with the emotional and abstract nature of music. One of the reasons why Janáček's operas are so powerful is that they satisfy you intellectually and emotionally. They are intellectual pieces when you have to think what they are about and about the way, in which Janáček asks what a human being is and what our desires, losses and frustrations are. Janáček's theatre work raises doubts about what makes us human and how difficult it is to be happy. And of course, his music has great power. It completely absorbs us and has a direct emotional impact on us. That is what opera is to me. This alchemy between two different sides, such as intellect/emotions, abstraction/concreteness, between all possible opposites. And words and music. In opera, it is about opposites in harmony. The word opera captures it all, because it is the plural of the word opus, which means work in Latin, so opera means works. It refers to different things combined together – choreography, lighting, stage, simply all this.
The interview was conducted in collaboration with Týdeník Rozhlas.
