Everything went beautifully with Susan Graham. She’s such a complete artist; her voice is magnificent, and she’s an extraordinarly committed tragic actress with a marvellous feeling for the text. In the end we didn’t know who was doing what… I shared stylistic elements and performance ideas with her, and she on the other hand gave me other ideas, and especially her innate stagecraft. She’s really one of the world’s great Didos, simply because she is exactly that character and has that character’s voice. I cast the rest of the opera around her.

You didn’t base your choices on the vocal aspect alone; you made very personal choices.

Dido is a rather mysterious work. Consider the circumstances of the first peformance, for instance. For a long time people thought the premiere was given by young girls in a school. We now more or less know that the work was given at court, although we don’t really know if girls or older musicians took part. The same is true for the orchestra. Nothing is really certain; we’re not sure if the orchestra was small or large. Since there are so many musicological uncertainties, I let myself be inspired by my Dido when planning the rest. When I knew Susan would sing Dido, I chose the magician accordingly, and opted for a larger orchestra that included woodwinds because that would have been possible at the time. There are some rather obscure indications in the score, like “horrible music” and “chaconne”, and we interpreted them the way we thought they should be done.

In any case, you managed to create a very English atmosphere.

Dido is a very English work, and it was important that Susan be a native English speaker, like most of the cast. That made for a familiarity with the language that would have been very difficult to imitate. Language defines musicality to an enormous extent in early music. The same was true for the choir: I wanted a British group there too, and chose The European Voices for their sound and their typically English homogeneity. At first I thought about putting together a French choir, but reckoned it would be too difficult to get the English colour we needed in time. Working with the orchestra was a lot of work in itself. In any case, I eventually intend to found my own choir.

You and Le Concert d’Astrée recently tackled a couple of great choral works – Handel’s Dixit Dominus and Bach’s Magnificat. Up until recently you spent more time on baroque bel canto, didn’t you?

That’s right. We did some short motets from the French repertoire, which is music I really like, very contemplative, very expressive. The next logical step was to take on these big ‘cathedrals’ of sound, real choral music. Our goal is to perform Handel’s great oratorios one day. My personal development played a big role here, especially in terms of Theodora at Glyndebourne. That score showed me an aspect of Handel I hadn’t worked on before; it’s almost as if another composer wrote it. I love early Handel, the Italian Handel whose music is full of inspiration and amazing light. He was a real charmer who picked up Italian in no time. That was the Handel who gave the premiere of Rinaldo in London…an incredible violin solo here, a staggering harpsichord cadenza there, mad arias for extraordinary singers and so on. But at the end of his life, when he wrote Theodora, he had nothing left to prove and that made for a completely different atmosphere… a mystical ambience, long over-arching lines, and a choir which is almost the main character. The personal psychological concerns of opera seria were far behind him; he was on a completely different spiritual quest. It’s almost as if he were saying good-bye to the world, as Theodora herself does in her aria Fond flatt’ring world in the first act. After this production, which was directed by Peter Sellars and was very moving because it was so contemplative - it included the execution of the two martyrs on stage - choosing Dixit Dominus and the Magnificat was a natural next step for me. But I’ll certainly tackle Handel and Bach’s great choral works one day as well.

You’ve been thinking about it for a long time ...

Actually, I’ve always been interested in this music, it’s always going through my head. But you really have to be ready when you approach the B Minor Mass, the Saint Matthew Passion and Bach’s great cantatas. I started in January 2003 with some of the lighter cantatas. The sense of drama in these cantatas and in the Dixit Dominus and the Magnificat isn’t the same as in Bach’s grand choral works and Handel’s mature oratorios. But the Dixit Dominus and the Magnificat are still very difficult scores, first of all because they’re full of terrifying problems for the performers. This is especially true in the Dixit, where everyone has to have incredible technical skill. Even though it’s more flamboyant, it is still a sacred work.

I love early Handel, the Italian Handel whose music is full of inspiration and amazing light. He was a real charmer who picked up Italian in no time. That was the Handel who gave the premiere of Rinaldo in London…an incredible violin solo here, a staggering harpsichord cadenza there, mad arias for extraordinary singers.

Do you think there was a change in Handel’s language toward the end of his life?

I don’t think you can really see a change in his musical expression; it has more to do, simply, with the normal evolution of a person. The young Handel had a desire to please and an amazing facility to do so. In Theodora, on the other hand, the fact that he wrote a work about an abandoned woman’s distress and the concerns of an emperor in relation to power shows he was leaning towards more fundamental matters. It’s striking that the work contains slow movements almost exclusively, from larghetto to largo assai; there are only two allegros, or three if you count the Roman prologue. Theodora wasn’t a success because it made no concessions to the audience. Handel did what he had to do, and that didn’t include flattery. You can almost intuit his premonition that he hadn’t much time left; the performer must feel this as well.

Your work at Glyndebourne, where you conducted Handel’s Rodelinda in 2001 (and which you’re going to revive in 2003) and then Theodora, represents an important step in your way of thinking

I discovered a variety of ways of approaching an audience through the Glyndebourne Touring Opera. Actually, I replaced William Christie at a symposium organised two years ago by a French orchestra federation, where everyone was worried because audiences numbers are way down for symphony concerts set up in the usual way: overture-concerto-symphony. All the big orchestras are wondering how to stop this trend. So real questions do need to be asked about repertoire. But it’s never too late. When Simon Rattle went to Birmingham, the orchestra wasn’t in good shape and there wasn’t a real hall. Rattle worked with incredible tenacity and conviction. As far as I’m concerned, founding my own ensemble has certainly grounded me more in the real world and forced me to think about music’s place in society. The role of artists in society is fundamental, and when everything else falls apart, art remains.

I think early music is going to be part of the future. Listening to the way someone like Gardiner has reinterpreted Berlioz is enough to convince anyone this is true… the way he has the brass section play historic instruments and the texture he gets…it’s nothing like what we’re used to hearing. Gardiner’s work on the French musical heritage was absolutely necessary.

You’re not expressing yourself as an early music performer here, but simply as a musician.

The distinctive thing about me, of course, is that I work in the field of early music. But that doesn’t make my work any less up-to-date than what musicians in contemporary music are doing. Differences in repertoire don’t change a thing. One tends to forget that there are many types of creativity. When competent, talented people take an interest in rare instruments, they must be given the means to do so, because that’s another aspect of creativity. I think early music is going to be part of the future. Listening to the way someone like Gardiner has reinterpreted Berlioz is enough to convince anyone this is true…the way he has the brass section play historic instruments and the texture he gets…it’s nothing like what we’re used to hearing. Gardiner’s work on the French musical heritage was absolutely necessary.

You feel that winning over new audiences is quite important.

The things we’re doing in the baroque repertoire are important for music in general. Make no mistake about it, an in-depth effort needs to be made, not only in France, but all over the world. We must reach out to audiences, meet them, talk to them, and offer attractive programmes too, of course. If the Lille Opera puts its opera house and its ‘satellites’ at our disposal, which they intend to do, Le Concert d’Astrée will have a place to live, rehearse and give chamber music concerts. Then it will be able to encounter audiences, think about establishing a relationship with them, and work on developing their loyalty.

I get the feeling you think of Le Concert d’Astrée as a ‘normal’ orchestra.

We give a lot of thought to our orchestra’s affairs. Despite its specificity, an early music ensemble is also an orchestra at times, depending on the repertoire. The great advantage for musicians who play our repertoire is the more personal relationship they have with the music, and the fact that they alternate more frequently between chamber music – a small group of soloists – and orchestral music. Nevertheless, if you want an orchestra to be lively and active and receive invitations, you have to give things a lot of thought. And that goes for the practical side as well. In my ensemble, the musicians help with administration because they know we don’t have the personnel. They order material and so on…this gives them a perspective of the concrete and commercial sides of the group.

Your English experience was important from that point of view.

The Glyndebourne Touring Opera programme with its system of understudies has been going on a long time. It’s become a real opera school; the understudies have their own performance directed by the assistant conductor and overseen by the assistant director, and it’s a genuine production in its own right. You can just imagine how stimulating that is. The same understudies are responsible for the education programme. When the opera goes to a certain town for a week, the understudies visit the schools and work with the teachers to present the opera and the music. This has been going on for years, and it incites people to become opera goers later on. Opera isn’t all that accessible if you haven’t had some help at the beginning, if you haven’t been given the key. When I was conducting Rodelinda, Bertarido’s understudy, Alberon Prattico, spoke in the schools about his type of voice and sang excerpts with a lutenist; the assistant director told the story, brought costume sketches, and so on. And either before or after the show I went to schools myself to answer the students’ questions – and they were often relevant ones.

That gave you some good ideas!

I’m never short of ideas. I’ve got hundreds of projects that aren’t necessarily new, but are stimulating and interesting, I think. It’s wonderful to be supported by very committed partners like the Lille Opera and the city of Caen, which helps us in its own way from time to time. The Théâtre de Caen invited us for our first productions when that was a real risk, because we weren’t as well known as we are now. The same is true of Michel Franck and Jeanine Roze at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées in Paris. Little by little we’ve developed a support network, and every place we’ve performed is a potential future venue. We gave Orfeo in London, at the Barbican, as our first performance. They were slightly terrified at first because of the budget, although we’d tried everything to reduce it. Now we’re their regular guests and the Barbican has become one of our partners. This allows us to work, to develop musically. It’s essential for an orchestra to travel, whether it’s in the Lille area or to European capitals.

Le Concert d’Astrée performs in the best-known halls all over Europe. Does that mean the ensemble is flourishing?

Things are still difficult. We still have money problems. The French government can’t seem to make up its mind to sponsor us, and luckily we’ve got the France Télécom Foundation. We’re going to begin our residency at the Lille Opera, which means we’ll be giving an opera and several concerts (including chamber music programmes) each year. Government sponsorship is only a tiny part of our budget, which is completely unjustified because Le Concert d’Astrée fills an important cultural role at both the regional and national levels. We’re prisoners of our own success. Since we’ve been so successful as a small group, why should we get more support? It doesn’t make sense. We’re undeniably an important part of French culture, and the group is made up mostly of French musicians.

Government sponsorship is very unusual in other countries, especially for early music.

That’s true. Most English groups, for instance, are private. This isn’t very common in France, although things are changing now. But even hiring one person to look seriously for sponsors is very complicated.

In the midst of all these concerns connected to the fact you’re a conductor, how do you see your mission in terms of early music? Do you consider yourself a pioneer alongs the lines of Harnoncourt and Leonhardt thirty years ago?

I don’t feel like a real pioneer because so many musicians have made so much progress over the last thirty years. Musicians of my generation wouldn’t be where they are today without them. In their day they faced different problems. When someone like Wieland Kuijken began to explore the gamba repertoire, he was rather isolated. Now you can study with a gamba teacher who’ll save you an enormous amount of time, help you explore the repertoire, etc. Today it’s common to see ten year-olds playing the gamba, which was impossible twenty years ago. This means that my generation automatically has a different approach to early music.

I don’t feel like a real pioneer because so many musicians have made so much progress over the last thirty years. Musicians of my generation wouldn’t be where they are today without them. In their day they faced different problems.

And this is a concrete thing for you, of course.

The result is quite obvious in Le Concert d’Astrée. There’s also much less resistance today to one person playing both modern and early instruments, or even playing several early instruments. But when we recorded Orfeo at A=465, we were practically the first to do so, and of course we had a lot of problems with instrument building – or rather with the fact that things hadn’t advanced in that area. The work still to be done needs to be addressed jointly by instrument builders, musicologists, and musicians, and in order for that to happen we must come up with funding. Without it, I’m afraid things will die down because people will have worn themselves out.

Is your repertoire ever a handicap for you?

The fact that I come from early music has sometimes hampered things, it’s true. When I went to see local authorities about funding, they’d say, “We already have such and such a modern orchestra in our area; why don’t you conduct them?” But it’s very important to realise that musically these aren’t the same people; they don’t have the same abilities or the same practical experience. Playing early instruments is a specific thing, even though more and more people play both early and modern instruments. This is especially true for strings, including in Le Concert d’Astrée. Our string players often have a diploma in modern violin, an early music diploma, another one in early chamber music, etc. Some have done even more. Take, for example, someone like Atsushi Sakaï, who’s a member of Le Concert d’Astrée but also appears with Les Talens Lyriques and Jordi Savall and plays the gamba and the cello, too. This implies longer and more difficult studies, and requires a special interest in the repertoire…it really calls for a particular type of person. I wouldn’t hesitate to say there are some exceptional people in Le Concert d’Astrée.

Playing both modern and early instruments isn’t all that widespread in modern orchestras, though.

Sometimes people do both, but it’s still rare, and it’s certainly impossible for wind instruments. That would be a bit like asking a pianist to become a harpsichordist, or vice versa. It’s easier for brass instruments, but take the oboe, for instance: the bore is completely different and so is the pressure on the reed. The same is true of the flute and the baroque traverso. Muscle use is so different for pianists and harpsichordists; the latter must have a much finer musculature! It’s more feasible for stringed instruments players because after a few days of adaptation they can switch back and forth. It’s interesting to conduct symphony orchestras for all these reasons, of course…not every orchestra, naturally, and above all to build up my personal experience…but my core activity is what I do with my musicians at Le Concert d’Astrée.

Do you think early musicians still have a specific attitude?

They have a different attitude, of course. This comes in part from playing chamber music. As a harpsichordist, I often play with other instruments – with colleagues, rather – and this type of musical experience naturally changes our relationship. Much of the repertoire also includes singers, and the ensemble musicians establish certain relationships with them as well. The result, because of the repertoire and the forces it calls for, is a specifically early music attitude. Another factor is that not everything is written in the scores, which changes the way people act, too. For example, we never decide to place a certain bowing or to phrase in a particular way until I’ve talked things over with the singers. But this is true of all baroque ensembles, I think. I’m certain we achieve a degree of detail and refinement that isn’t always possible in large symphonic groups, simply because of the amount of time we have. Symphony orchestras have very scanty rehearsal schedules.

Do you agree with people who think the current generation of early musicians is better prepared than people were twenty years ago?

I wouldn’t say instrumental musicians are better prepared than they were twenty years ago. They’ve been helped by the fact that others have gone before them, though, and because they’ve had more exposure to instruments and repertoire. And they don’t have to face the scorn of modern players like early musicians did in the past.

What about singers?

The same is true of singers. I wouldn’t say they’re necessarily better prepared today. In the beginning all sorts of singers were trying the baroque repertoire. They had greater or lesser technical capacities, but they all had in common great intellectual curiosity about the repertoire. Now the music is better known and there’s a greater demand in conservatories than before, with people studying major roles like the great Handel heroines. In the past there were collections, of course, like the Arie Antiche, which gave singers a way to approach early music. Today a singer who studies in Paris, for example, will never be a stranger to Rameau. It’s easier today to find singers who have the technique to take on the great Handel roles, and this is music that calls for a terrifying technical range! Today there are wonderful singers with a real interest in the repertoire.

But there are still stylistic risks… someone like Renée Fleming in Alcina doesn’t go down well with everyone ...

Renée’s had genuine experience in jazz, so she knows about improvisation. Besides that, she has such a great harmonic sense that I wouldn’t hesitate a moment if someone suggested her for a baroque production. She has colours that not every singer can come up with. Nathalie Dessay has the same ability to improvise, which is wonderful. I’m a firm believer in absorbing style through the repertoire, through the environment the orchestra creates. If you sing with just a lute, you sing differently.

When you’re casting a work, what is your first reaction when you hear a voice?

I immediately identify a voice with the repertoire that’s best adapted to it. Or rather with a variety of repertoires, in early music terms, even if the person is singing Mozart or Rossini. And I’m not the only one who does this; links between repertoires have become clear today. One thing leads to another for singers who are also good ‘rhetoricians’; they’ll be involved in a lot of French music…Lully, Rameau and Debussy. There’s sometimes a little romanticism around the edges, of course, but it’s absolutely possible to associate Massenet’s heroines and the heroines of tragédie lyrique. Rameau’s Italianate ariettas were already going in that direction.

What about Handel, whose music you’ve often performed?

Technically speaking, Handel calls first and foremost for beautiful tone. Most of the time every audience member, even if he or she a complete novice, will be sensitive to this. But of course it takes an enormous number of qualities to make a singer…apart from timbre there’s intelligence, musicality, the ability to act…a singer is firstly an actor, especially in baroque music. But if someone has a beautiful voice in Handel, people generally approve.

Do you ever encounter casting problems?

I’ve never had any problem with singers who aren’t actors, because I simply don’t work with them! I cast our productions myself, and when I’m invited to conduct in other opera houses, I work in tandem with their musical teams. So far there’s never been any difficulty.

Are there artists you’d enjoy working with?

Lots and lots! Ildebrando d’Arcangelo, for example, has one of the most interesting colours for Handel. There’s also Dorothea Röschmann, and many others. But voices change depending on the repertoire. It’s a pity when certain voices are cut off from a particular repertoire. I’d like to develop a programme in Lille with singers based on the Glyndebourne Touring Opera. As a professor, I’ve met singers who’ve never worked on madrigals because they only know Mimi, etc. We studied madrigals for six months and it was a marvellous experience both for them and for me.

It’s often said that there aren’t enough opera troupes in France. Is that one of your projects?

There’s already a sort of opera troupe surrounding me! I’m very faithful to my singers…I’m thinking of people like Jaël Azzaretti and Laura Claycomb, who weren’t very familiar with early music in the beginning, and who’ve sung an enormous amount of it since. I work with a group of around twenty singers, and I’m gradually enlarging it, in a natural way. And that’s not taking into account the younger singers with whom I’ve been working on appropriate repertoire… the same is true of orchestral musicians, too.

Casting a tragédie lyrique is very different from casting an opera seria. Is French music more difficult in this respect?

Nothing is more difficult than casting a Handel opera. Tragédie lyrique obviously doesn’t require the same qualities; you have to take time to listen to the singers in order to have a wide enough variety. But the talent is out there, I’m sure of it. In any event, younger singers of the French school like Stéphane Degout and Mireille Delunsch have done the early repertoire as well as the more traditional lyric works. Patricia Petibon studied early music at the conservatory, just as Sandrine Piau did; we were at the conservatory together. Others came to early music later, like Anna Maria Panzarelle, who worked incredibly hard when she sang Aricie with William Christie at the Opéra de Paris. But that hasn’t stopped her from widening her repertoire more and more, which has allowed her to increase her knowledge. There are several ways of doing things. Look at someone like Ian Bostridge, who sang in Orfeo. When I first met him, I told him he should absolutely sing the title role. He didn’t know anything about the score, but he had more than enough ability to do it – the vocal ability, naturally, but also the intellectual capacity in relation to the text. His example shows that musicians can build up special relationships with the baroque repertoire if they’re given the opportunity to study it in depth at some point in their careers, and my role is to help them to do it.

When I begin work on a score, I like to know who performed it at the premiere and what happened before, during and after it was composed. After that it’s a personal matter between the score and me, and between the score and the people involved in the project.

Then there aren’t any boundaries in baroque singing?

“Cross over” singers existed in the past, too. Handel, for instance, had French and English singers in the midst of his Italians, and they all sang in some of his English oratorios. Felicity Lott sings remarkably well both in English and in French; Ian Bostridge and Susan Graham sing very well in French, too. The quality of diction and the care the singer takes over it is what counts. I heard the English tenor Ryland Davis work on French music with a group. He gave wonderful technical reference points to help the singers place the nasal sounds correctly, as well as many other sounds. Sometimes it’s very hard to understand singers in their native language. Having said that, in Italian operas I always try to include a few Italians, because their presence suddenly changes the rhythm of the recitative, and gives it that extra vivacity only Italians can create. They’re a real driving force. But I’ve also been astounded many times at how good the French of non-French singers can be in a tragédie lyrique.

How important is stylistic knowledge? Not everyone has studied Tosi’s treaty ...

In-depth knowledge of texts isn’t necessarily helpful. There are texts that describe, analyse and dissect French ornaments. I’ve worked with a lot of singers on this music, and regularly meet people who can naturally do the ornaments, while others have to work enormously hard to acquire them. And don’t forget that even when you have instructions, you must be careful not to misinterpret them. The Italian trillo, for example, was so widely misunderstood that interpretations became grotesque.

You place a lot of emphasis on the individual and on interpretation.

When I begin work on a score, I like to know who performed it at the premiere and what happened before, during and after it was composed. After that it’s a personal matter between the score and me, and between the score and the people involved in the project. YUTHA TEP