I have played Gustav Mahler almost all my life, and it makes me very happy to be part of this adventure with Romeo Castellucci, it is quite a unique job. It is a pleasure to return to Buenos Aires for these concerts and the truth is that I really want it to be a success and something that the city will remember for a long time”: Charles Dutoit wants to return to Buenos Aires, a city he knows, and a lot . But this return of the Swiss orchestral director becomes a framework perhaps, for a career as legendary as his, new: Resurrection, the show that opens outside the Teatro Colón, the season of the Teatro Colón and that has him conducting the Symphony No. 2 by Gustav Mahler, turned into an exceptional staging thanks to the work of Romeo Castellucci, a master of the current scene. In the Ocher Pavilion of La Rural, this launch can be seen on Tuesday 7, Wednesday 8 and Thursday 9 March, which also implies a giant step forward in the Columbus cycle in the City, one of the watchwords of Jorge Telerman’s artistic direction. It was Telerman himself who saw the performance of Castellucci at the Aix-en-Provence Festival, who co-produced the event, and it was he who quickly activated to have the essential help of the Italian Embassy in Argentina and the Italian Institute of Culture di Buenos Aires (who will work throughout the year with Colón under the title Divina Italia). Telerman himself has declared that it is also part of the celebration of 40 years of Democracy. But today PROFILE has the luxury of speaking with Dutoit, who recently visited our country to play Maurice Ravel’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in G, together with Martha Argerich, someone very important in his life (they are ex-partners, even , and the story is famous that after signing the divorce both went together to have lunch and to the movies). From Canada, Dutoit talks to PROFILE about the event.
—It is such a particular setting for such a particular piece by Gustav Mahler. So, what has this setting implied when thinking about the interpretation of this piece and how does the planned context alter it?
—The one where we are going to play a very important symphony of the 20th century. It feels current, it always does with Mahler, but it’s important to understand his depth and the questions he asks. It speaks of a resurrection, but not in a biblical sense, not in the sense of Christ being reborn, but it alters that perception of the term. There is talk of an obsession, of Mahler, with life and death. Mahler always questioned a complicated and simple idea at the same time: what is life and what is death? What does life imply and what does death imply? So that leads to understanding many corners of this piece, which, for example, ask questions about even the afterlife: if one doesn’t believe in any kind of afterlife, then what does that death mean? Are our dead our ashes? Mahler questions these ideas a lot. When we all die, I return to Mahler’s ideas, and that are used in the popular imagination, there is no difference between the king and the beggar, we will all be together. There will be no trial. There will only be a great union in love, which is the solution to death, which is the circle of life.
—You said that what Romeo Castellucci does with the staging in this performance is important. Where do you think this importance comes from and why perhaps this importance acquires a different tone in our country?
—I wouldn’t say it’s a concert, I’d say it’s an experience. One that deals with a terrible problem, as a mass grave always is, and which implies, regardless of the moment in the world, and, of course, quite the opposite, understanding the importance and what a mass grave represents at certain moments in the world. So the symphony involves a lot of moments against that idea: a celebration of death, and then as you keep digging, all these bodies turn up, and this is extremely dramatic. In a strange and powerful way, as art often is, Castellucci created his pre-war Ukraine setting. But when I see what it has done, when I see this invasion of the Ukraine, and what it has meant for our existence, and how it disrupted everyday life in the Ukraine, leading to calamities like torture, death, the permanent fear and other things that are born of the war, I cannot help but regret today. So that ascending again, it is very beautiful to listen to this music during this show, because it ends up being tremendously moving but it also connects us with what allows us to define our humanity, that capacity for something to move us and that emotion is born from our connection with what happens and mainly, with the understanding of what has happened.
—You are one of the Mahler interpreters with the most experience with his work. So, what do you think makes his compositions so contemporary and that speaks directly to our present in the world?
—That is precisely because he always had a philosophical approach to his work. You have to understand that when Mahler gets closer to his death, his music very quickly ceases to be a success. It could even be said that his music was forgotten. And he was for many decades. So, at the end of the 40s, and especially during the 60s, his music became popular again, and I also think it has an influence that from that moment it is not difficult to believe that we are living the end of the world. I think that feeling has helped to rescue his work. Mahler was obsessed with those subjects. I think his popularity is due to the fact that his music connects with very, very deep feelings that every human being has, and that not only do not change over time, but also increase: now we have information, supposedly, but the sensation of It derives from not knowing where the world is going, it is absolutely present and completely overwhelming. And it defines an era, not just the individual fears one might have. What is going to happen? How do we continue? Mahler asked himself these questions, questioned himself, and that is why he is still there, ringing. His ideas resonated with World War I, were amplified by World War II, and so on. People need this music, I believe in it. The music, finally, is always fantastic. For example, this morning I was listening to Bach, and it was really wonderful. He gave me hope, he made me believe for a second in another world. He made me believe that the world was headed in the right direction. Only music can elevate you to that place of hope that stages everything you expect from the world, and perhaps make you smile.
The path of a giant
—What do you feel you have discovered about music in your career as a conductor?
— I filled my life with Mahler’s music. Since 1962 she listened to him, and even before. Until before, and I was hearing very hard to find things from him, before he was back in style. I have conducted all of his works, several times, in different parts of the world. All his work. Therefore, beyond what they represent, of course I have a very close bond, a connection, with his work. I have interpreted more than 2000 of his works. It is something that has given me, and this is difficult to explain, a closeness with him, the creator, the feeling that from discovering his music is a journey that allows me to delve into the depths of his being, and that at the same time returns to you, to your body. You realize I had questions that we all had. I am fortunate to continue directing music, and to never have felt anything like nostalgia for the past. Nor, for example, do I feel that it is a good time for the music that I play: without wanting to sound like the age I am, since there is a crossover of experiences. On the one hand, a large amount of stimuli, of things available all the time. But on the other, the absence of patience, almost a cult of impatience. Culture always needs to take root, to live among us, to have depth. That is where modernity, or modern times, or however we want to define this, plays against tradition. I feel the same way that the great pieces have such a forceful way of moving that it is only being in the same space as her to understand her beauty. and human power.
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