‘Dvořák is a vision’: Festival director on legacy, new music and young talent
The 19th edition of the Dvořák Prague International Music Festival gets under way this Saturday at the Rudolfinum, bringing together leading orchestras, soloists and conductors from around the world. I spoke to festival director Jan Simon about this year’s programme and what audiences can look forward to, starting with the curtain raiser.
“The Filarmonica della Scala is the orchestra that is going to open the festival under the baton of the very famous conductor Ricardo Chailly, and the soloist will be cellist Julia Hagen.
“She is the daughter of a very famous member of the Hagen Quartet, so there is a family tradition. We have our standard programme for the opening.
“There will be Dvořák's Cello Concerto in B minor, featuring Julia Hagen, and in the second half, Dvořák's Ninth Symphony, the New World Symphony.
One of the highlights of this year's festival is the concert performance of Dvořák's The Jacobin. What makes this project particularly special?
“Over the years, we have brought early operas by Dvořák onto the festival stage, like Alfred and King and Collier. Three years ago, we also staged Rusalka, which is one of the highlights of his operatic works. In this case, we are presenting The Jacobin in concert, with the focus on the music and the singers rather than a full theatrical production.
“I asked the conductor of the project, Tomáš Netopil, which opera marks the break between the period when Dvořák was searching for his musical language and his mature music. He noted that The Jacobin is exactly the point when Dvořák became a major opera composer.
“Performing an opera in concert is a completely different experience compared with the opera house because the audience is totally focused on the music. You are not distracted or stimulated by the visual part of the performance, so you can just listen to the music and really enjoy its quality. And The Jacobin is the very first opera where you can notice all the attributes of Dvořák's musical language.”
Among the other highlights is the world premiere of Jan Kučera's Double Concerto for Violin, Cello and Orchestra, commissioned by your festival. What can you tell us about this new work?
“The Dvořák Prague Festival is dedicated to his legacy. But this is not only about performing all the pieces by Dvořák. It is also about stimulating new pieces coming onto the stage.
“Dvořák is a vision, but we have to think about the future. We would like to bring new pieces which will stay on stages for the next 10 or 20 years and become part of the repertoire. That's why we commission new works for the festival each year.
“There is another point: the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra celebrates 100 years of its existence. They mostly perform standard repertoire, and I wanted the orchestra to show its development and its vision for the future.
“There will be one part featuring pieces by Debussy and Ravel, but also some quite seldom-performed pieces, like Schulhoff's Second Symphony, and a commissioned work with young performers.
“One of the soloists, Daniel Matejča, is the first-prize winner of the Concertino Praga competition. The other is a very young cellist, Sakura Toba, a Japanese musician who studies in Berlin.
“I invited both of them. When we commissioned the work, I told Jan Kučera that these two young performers were going to be part of the concert and that he should dedicate his work to them.”
Is there anything else you would like to mention? Anything that you are particularly looking forward to in this year's programme?
“As a pianist, I'm always very curious about the pianists I've invited to the festival. I'm glad that we can welcome Yun-Chan Lim, who is really a star of the world's stages. There was a generation of Lang Lang, and he's the next. He will appear with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra on the stage under the baton of Semyon Bychkov in Ravel Concerto.
“I'm also looking forward to Rafał Blechacz, the first-prize winner of the Chopin Competition in 2010. Then we have Alexander Malofeev as the soloist of the second concert of Filarmonica della Scala with Ricardo Chailly.
“I'm also very pleased that we succeeded in inviting Kirill Gerstein together with Grammy Award winner Brad Mehldau, the jazz pianist. They will lead a dialogue on stage between composed music and improvised music, between classical and jazz.
“And this is also the way we would like to attract a new audience to concerts in standard spaces, but also outside them.”
And finally, as we said, the festival starts on Saturday. Are there still any tickets left? And if not, are there any other ways to follow the concerts, such as live streams?
“Over 90 percent of the tickets have been sold, and there are definitely some concerts where you cannot get any tickets anymore. However, the opening concert will be transmitted by Czech Television. There will also be a live transmission on Czech Radio of the concert with the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra.
“And because of the 60th anniversary of the Concertino Praga competition, both final evenings of the competition will be transmitted not only by radio, but also streamed on the Concertino Praga YouTube channel.
“But I wouldn't lose hope. If you check the website of the Dvořák Prague Festival, you might be lucky and get some tickets for some nice concerts.”
