"I waited for Vienna out of great respect"

Out of great respect, really. I say that quite openly. I often came to Vienna as an audience member, and perhaps that was part of the problem: in my mind, this house became a destination. A repertoire theater like this demands something very specific from a conductor. You have to know how to work with little rehearsal time and still achieve a very high level immediately. Earlier in my career, I didn't feel I was ready for that. Later, when I had gained this experience, I was also very busy with my years as music director in Lyon, which requires a lot of time if you want to do it properly, and with my work as principal guest conductor at the Bavarian State Opera. So in a way, it had to do with external circumstances, but also with the fact that Vienna has always been something very special for me: a house with an extraordinary history and, of course, this fabulous orchestra and choir. Even now, with all the experiences I've had elsewhere, it still feels like the ultimate challenge.

A lot of things came together. I have a long relationship with French opera, through Paris, Lyon and Aix-en-Provence, and the language and the libretto are very close to my heart. In addition, there was the extraordinary fact that Bizet's opera had never been performed at the Vienna State Opera before, which made the undertaking particularly appealing to me. In a way, it is unusual to debut in Vienna with a new production without having been tested in the repertoire beforehand. But perhaps that was precisely the reason why it appealed to me so much. In any case, I didn't want to come just to prove something. I wanted to come with a piece that demands a certain way of listening and a particular care in music-making.

It doesn't mean being a servant of the stage. It means that the relationship between orchestra and voice is very important to me. For me, the orchestra is not simply there to accompany more quietly while the singers take over the expression. The orchestra can play with the same intensity as the voice, but its sound has to be shaped in relation to the voices you have in front of you. This is the real challenge. Les Pêcheurs de perles is not a demonstrative score for the conductor in the sense of external virtuosity. The difficulty is not primarily of a technical nature. It is about atmosphere, phrasing, elasticity and finding the right color in relation to the stage and the singers. Sometimes the simplest music demands the greatest confidence and the greatest patience.

Quite clearly. The decisive word there is andante, literally: going. People often hear music like this as something floating and therefore take it too slowly. But that can work against the line. When you begin a phrase, you must already feel where it is going, its whole long arc. In this aria, the melody has something circular about it, and if you take the bar lines too strictly, if every beat is marked too clearly, you start to cut the line into pieces. This goes against the style, against the singing and against the beauty of the phrase. Sometimes you have to almost caress the line and even avoid the one in the bar a little so that the movement of the music can unfold naturally.

Yes, absolutely. I share this reading. Nadir has the main line, not only musically, but also acoustically, because the upper voice naturally attracts the ear. Zurga's line is initially more reactive. In the middle section of the duet, the music becomes more agitated and you can already sense that this passion could destroy their friendship. Their response is to renew their vow that Leïla must never come between them. In this sense, the promise they make there echoes until the very end of the opera. What interests me about Zurga is that he is not jealous in the conventional way. He is a man of power, a controlling figure. He wants to be admired by Nadir and later also by Leïla. He wants to remain at the center of the emotional cosmos of both of them. This makes him much more complex than a mere rival.

Yes, very strong. I would even say, perhaps provocatively, that this is one of the scores in the French repertoire that reminds me most strongly of Schubert, in the sense that it looks back on the past with melancholy and nostalgia. There is something like a mild blur in this music, like the soft focus of a cinematic flashback. While the protagonists sing, the audience is drawn into their inner world, into memory as a living force. This is one of the great strengths of the piece. At its core, the opera rests on three central characters, and yet it works because the music draws us so deeply into their thoughts. The atmospheric introductions to the arias achieve a great deal. They don't just prepare a number, but a mental state.

That's a very interesting question, but I think Bizet is smarter than this danger. First of all, the chorus always creates a contrast. It brings rhythmic sparkle, energy, movement, sometimes even violence. Then there are the outbursts of anger and confrontation between the main characters. And structurally, Bizet is very concise. These lyrical, nostalgic moments don't last forever. They are limited. You hear the main idea, then a middle section, then the material returns, and that's the end of the number. That's one of the reasons why this opera works so well on stage. It never becomes sluggish. It keeps moving. And there is far more here than just floating beauty. This opera also contains the ocean, the sun, the feeling of beach and boat, later the storm, the fire, the fear, even a real thirst for blood in the chorus. All of this is also in the score. I would therefore never want to reduce Les Pêcheurs de perles to something merely contemplative. A whole world of elemental forces unfolds in it.

In the end, it remains very French. But Bizet deliberately tries to suggest another world. You can hear this in the orchestration, in the use of percussion, in certain harmonic turns, in the mysterious colors he puts around Leïla when she appears. Even at the very beginning, the choir does not enter as one would expect. There is something unsettling in the harmony, even before it can be described analytically. And later, small details, such as a few dabs in the flutes, are enough to shift the atmosphere and suggest that we are in a different place. Yes, the score reaches for the exotic, but always filtered through Bizet's own language. This is not documentary exoticism, but musical imagination. And that is precisely why I reject the hasty assertion that the libretto is simply weak. It is brief, yes, but that is precisely where it creates space. It contains nature, spectacle, the love story, the tension between community and individual desire and a woman onto whom an entire society projects its needs and fantasies. Much more happens in this play than it is often given credit for.

Of course I believe that. We don't just react to words or outward appearances, but to resonance, aura, vibration. The human voice carries something incredibly profound within it. And in this opera, this idea is inscribed directly into the music. Leïla is recognized by her voice, by her arabesques and melismas, by the way her line moves. She is almost a sorceress, a mythical figure whose singing casts a spell over you. I think Bizet understood that perfectly. My secret hope for this production is that the audience will also be enchanted at precisely these moments, just like the characters themselves.

You're asking an Italian, so I have to be careful. Italian also knows something about love. But yes, even spoken French has something that reaches the heart in a very special way. It has poetry in it. The smoothness of the language changes phrasing, accent and color. It softens the edges. Even when you say something ruthless in French, the language still seems to caress it. I think that's one of the reasons why French opera can be so special in love scenes. Italian is perhaps more openly passionate, with its brighter vowels and stronger consonants. But French has a different kind of seduction: refinement, tenderness and charm.