I could have gone on there; we were performing works that were very complementary to productions I do elsewhere. We were mainly performing romantic operas and symphonies, but I didn’t have enough power, and felt there wasn’t enough confidence in me. It’s often true in opera houses that the musical director is just a pawn, someone who beats time and keeps the orchestra going. But what I’m interested in is keeping music going in the orchestra! My passion for the theater is just as strong as my passion for music, and makes me want to direct my own theater with complete freedom, both in terms of the music and the mise en scène. I don’t plan to give up this dream, and I know how to wait. I’m almost as much at home on stage as I am with a score. Drama and music should merge as one in order to be convincing to the public and lead it to the heart of the music.

The dramatic structure of opera fascinates you as much as the musical composition. The two aspects cannot be dissociated. Did you experience this cohesiveness when you directed La Belle Hélène at the Théâtre du Chatelet in Paris last autumn?

I enjoyed Offenbach’s opera buffa immensely. It was a new production with Laurent Pelly, my favorite producer. We had already worked together on Orphée aux Enfers and Rameau’s Platée. We’re a real team. He deals with the music and I deal with the mise en scène—we’re always minding each other’s business! He has such a sense of comedy, a sense of humor that’s not vulgar in any way. An opera producer has to trust the music and turn its theatrical nature to his advantage. And Offenbach is really my cup of tea: what an incredible guy! It’s time people understood—Tales of Hoffmann aside —that he wasn’t a composer who didn’t orchestrate his works, who wrote pianos scores that had to be rewritten and arranged for orchestra. He really was the “Mozart of the Champs Elysées”, as he was known. He wrote for a delicious little orchestra, a handful of chamber musicians. The problem is that he was badly edited, badly served. Orchestral scores full of mistakes were around for years. Bären-reiter, who published Mozart and Glück, have decided to bring out a nearly complete edition with help from a serious musicologist. This will make it easier to see his refined orchestral writing. Offenbach was the musical director at the Comédie française, and there are parodies of Lully’s music in Orphée aux Enfers. In a way he was a baroque composer.

Your eclectic choices have taken you away from the baroque aesthetic. Your curiosity and wish to discover other musical continents have incited you to perform contemporary works in your concerts. Even if 20th century music has been preoccupied with intellectual research and dry technique, don’t you think today’s composers have become aware of the human dimensions music can aspire to?