At the moment, Sir Andrew Davis admits, it’s hard to stay focused because so bloody many things keep intruding on his attention.
It is a fine spring day in March, and Tchaikovsky’s “The Queen of Spades,” the opera that will mark his debut as music director of Lyric Opera of Chicago, doesn’t open for six months. But the way operas are planned, produced, marketed and sold in today’s world, a half-year from today is, in effect, yesterday. The British conductor and the other members of the Lyric’s administrative troika, general director William Mason and artistic director Matthew Epstein, have just spent the morning discussing repertory and castings for the operas the company will be presenting three, four and five seasons down the road.
There is barely time to grab a late-afternoon sandwich as Davis chats with a visitor in Lyric’s executive offices on the eighth floor of the Civic Opera House. He excuses himself for eating while talking, but he has gone non-stop all day without breakfast or lunch. He has had non-operatic matters to deal with, too. He and his wife, the American opera soprano Gianna Rolandi, are busy deciding what shades of paint will go best in the dining room and living room of their new Gold Coast co-op apartment. But they weren’t able to settle into their lakeside digs until late summer because of his final commitments as music director of the Glyndebourne Festival Opera and chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra back in England. Having already sold their former home in the Sussex countryside, south of London, they lived as squatters for part of the summer before they could move into their new home in Chicago just weeks before the opening of the Lyric season in late September.
So here he sits, bestriding two homes, two countries, two cultures. Davis is outwardly cheerful despite nagging doubts that their old furniture from England and new furniture from Philadelphia will arrive when it is supposed to. It’s plain the Davises–Andrew, Gianna and their Nintendo-loving son Edward, 11–regard their move from bucolic Sussex to bustling Chicago as an excellent adventure.
“Just after we moved in we found a little alcove in the breakfast room with shelves and a cabinet,” says Davis. “We decided we didn’t like it so we pulled it out. What did we find behind it? A window!” His triumphant expression turns to a frown. “But it was bricked up, so it has to be replaced.”
The music world considered it a coup for Lyric Opera to engage the 56-year-old Davis, one of the most sought-after conductors in operatic and symphonic music. He comes to Chicago with a notable record of success, including a dozen years at Glyndebourne and 11 seasons with the BBC Symphony, where he was known particularly for his steadfast championing of new music and British composers, an effort that led to his being dubbed Sir Andrew Davis last year.
Davis insists he is leaving England with no feeling whatsoever that any staleness had crept into his work. “I simply felt it was probably the right time to move on,” he says, with a tobacco-cured accent that can be traced to his native Hertfordshire in east central England.
Certainly the timing could not have been better. In 1997, at the very moment that Davis was contemplating a major career move, who should come calling but William Mason, Lyric’s general director. Would he be interested in taking over as music director from Bruno Bartoletti, who was retiring? Davis needed only a day or so to mull the offer before enthusiastically accepting.
“Having directed the Toronto Symphony for 13 years, I had always felt comfortable with the musical life of North America. And I love Lyric Opera. One of the primary reasons I took the job was the fact that I’d had such great experiences [guest conducting] here, both personal and musical. It was always a good relationship with the orchestra, which I’ve always found very responsive and disciplined.”
But Davis also believes fate brought him to the Lyric’s doorstep. Son Edward entered the world in the fall of 1989 while Davis was conducting Mozart’s “La Clemenza di Tito” at Lyric; the Civic Opera House was the first opera theater in which the toddler set foot; and–the clincher–daddy’s birth date, 2-2-44, also happens to be the final four digits of Lyric’s phone number. “I’m a great believer in fate,” he observes.
When you meet him, Davis exudes charm, wit, intelligence and an avuncular warmth tempered by a degree of British reserve. He’s not one to open up right away to a stranger, as is wife Gianna, a naturally outgoing Southerner. He’s more earth than air–a man of action, not philosophy–and, generally speaking, most of the thoughts he shares do not betray a deeply reflective sensibility. At the same time, a sense of professional duty–another recognizably English trait–undergirds his observations about music and the making of music.
“To me the most important thing in life, professionally speaking, is to be in a situation where I can do my best work and have it appreciated,” he says. “Chicago very definitely is a big change in my life. But, then, changes are good. We all need them now and then.”
We are in the orchestra pit at the Opera House. It is early September, the morning of Davis’ first orchestra rehearsal for “Queen of Spades.” Three nights earlier he bade farewell to the BBC Symphony, conducting a sentiment-drenched “Last Night at the Proms” concert in London’s Royal Albert Hall. Just yesterday the Lyric orchestra musicians welcomed him with a roar of applause when he dropped in on one of the rehearsals for “The Great Gatsby,” the second opera on the Lyric’s season schedule, which someone else was conducting.
Wearing a T-shirt the orchestra had made up for him that says “Property of Lyric Opera” on one side, “Davis 1” on the other, the conductor greets his players. “Good morning. Let’s play a little Tchaikovsky.” The orchestra begins the prelude to the opera, minus the chorus and principal singers, whose musical lines Davis supplies in a pleasant, plausible baritone. His manner is cordial but businesslike, relaxed but focused. His keen ear misses nothing, including a misprint in the clarinet part. One comes away impressed that he can hold the orchestra’s attention and keep the intensity high through long stretches of music in which the orchestra does nothing but accompany.
Most conductors, if they are worthy of their exalted rank, make a few enemies among orchestral players–it’s inevitable in a world of sensitive artists and passionate opinions. One remarkable thing about Davis is how universally respected and admired he appears to be; you can look far and wide and not turn up a discouraging word about him.
Says Lyric assistant conductor James Johnson: “Andrew has very strong ideas about what he wants to do musically [and] he has a pretty close to perfect conducting technique. He has to say very little because the musicians and the singers only need watch him to know exactly what he wants. He is an incredibly warm and communicative person. In a very gentle way he can get [results] other conductors would be jumping up and down screaming to get.”
I remark to concertmaster Everett Zlatoff-Mirsky how improved the orchestra sounds over the end of the previous season–richer in sound, cleaner in ensemble. “A lot of that I really attribute to the maestro,” he replies. “When he’s on the podium, he leads with tremendous authority, with a beat that is a textbook model of clarity and body language, that tells you exactly what the music says.
“One of the things I like about him so much is there’s no artifice; he’s such a real person. With him at the wheel, you feel like you’re in this luxurious sedan coasting down the highway.”
IT’S THE AFTERNOON of the Sitzprobe–literally, “sitting rehearsal”–of “Queen of Spades,” at which the singers, chorus and orchestra merge what they have rehearsed separately into the glorious and risky totality that is opera. Opening night, Sept. 23, is only eight days away. The tension that invariably accompanies the start of an opera season is palpable.
Davis is on the go once more, dashing in and out of meetings, conferring with singers and members of the orchestra and chorus. There is barely a second to sneak a smoke outside the stage entrance on Wacker Drive, but today he manages one quick cigarette. Passersby do not seem to recognize him, but that should change before long. Lyric’s marketing department is doing its part to sell Sir Andrew to the opera public. Just down the block from where he is puffing his cigarette, passersby are greeted by two large brass display cases, each containing a Victor Skrebneski portrait of the maestro. The Chicago photographer has posed him in white tie and black tails, eyes closed, baton vibrating over his head like an electric halo. It’s pure Skrebneski chic and it grabs people’s attention as they rush to their offices or into the theater. It’s hard to imagine Glyndebourne selling its music director in such a manner. Welcome to America, Sir Andrew, where art must be marketed as thoroughly as every other commodity if it is to pay its way.
By its very nature–the bending of 100 players to the will of a single stick-waving musician–conducting is rooted in instinct, like the gift of generalship. Beating time in front of an orchestra can be taught, but the heart and soul of conducting are something of a mystery. So is the question of why one conductor can draw magic from an orchestra while another, working with the same musicians, can draw only notes. Armed with comprehensive musical knowledge and inner power, a good conductor can mold an orchestra entirely to his wishes. But it may take years before each is attuned to the other’s idiosyncrasies.
“The quintessential thing is that the conductor must have a very strong idea of how he wants the music to sound,” Davis says as he indulges in an ice cream bar in his dressing room. “It’s partly intellectual, partly emotional, partly spiritual–and entirely hard to define. You can’t say it has to do with stick technique particularly, because we’ve all seen conductors with weird stick techniques. But orchestras can cope with all sorts of strange things as long as the intention is absolutely clear.”
I point out that orchestras naturally expect the person fronting them to have digested the music more thoroughly than any of them possibly could. “That’s right,” Davis replies. “When you are young it can be particularly difficult to convince orchestra players, many of whom are twice your age, that you know more about that Beethoven symphony than they.” He recalls rehearsing Stravinsky’s “Firebird” Suite with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic in a 1969 seminar for young British conductors. “It was one of the first orchestras I ever conducted. Toward the end of the Infernal Dance I stopped and said to the trombones, ‘You’re playing a little too loud there, because you’re drowning out the rest of the orchestra.’ The bass trombone player rose up and, in a wonderful Northern accent, said, ‘Young man, I played this piece with Mr. Stravinsky, and he thought it was just fine!’ “
Davis says that coming to Chicago was “very much a conscious decision” to limit the conducting he will do elsewhere in the foreseeable future. “I didn’t want to come here and just be a drive-by music director, a guy who flies in and out for a modicum of rehearsals and performances. I find it much more rewarding to be associated with a particular artistic institution and really put a stamp on things.”
That the music director is conducting three of the season’s eight operas here–the others are Janacek’s “Jenufa” in November and December, and Wagner’s “The Flying Dutchman” in February and March–increasing his load to four operas in 2001-02, means that his presence will be felt for virtually the entire season. The Florence-based Bartoletti, now artistic director emeritus, also spent the bulk of each season in Chicago.
But Davis’ appointment brings with it an even greater range of responsibility, and he clearly is regarded as the great hope to revitalize the company and take it in exciting new directions.
Just which directions are difficult to pry from Davis, his reticence no doubt stemming from his status as the new kid on Lyric’s block. A look at his conducting schedule for the next few years features Richard Wagner most prominently.
Next season will bring “Parsifal,” followed by the Mt. Everest of opera–the four music dramas that make up “Der Ring des Nibelungen,” a first for Davis. Moreover, three of his favorite composers–Michael Tippett, Richard Strauss and Leos Janacek—will figure in his long-term Lyric plan.
Mezzo-soprano Felicity Palmer, who is singing the pivotal role of the old Countess in “Queen of Spades,” has known Davis since the time 30 years ago in Britain when he played organ and harpsichord and accompanied the choral societies in which she sang. She says she was always impressed by the “marvelous empathy” he had with singers. “He feels the music and the text in every bone of his body.”
Davis’ keen musical mind owes partly to natural gifts, partly to circumstances, according to Palmer. “We musicians who grew up with the British choral tradition were forced to be incredibly quick, [since] you had to put a concert together on one rehearsal, or even less. That depended on absolutely razor-sharp musicianship, which Andrew developed to a remarkable degree.”
Davis’ musical gift was apparent at an early age. His parents were amateur musicians, his father singing in a church choir, his mother playing piano. Young Andrew began playing the piano when he was 5 and, like his dad, he sang in the church choir. “When my voice broke, the organist asked me if I wanted to be his assistant, so that’s how I started.”
From age 11 through his teens, he went to the Royal Academy of Music in London on Saturday mornings to take piano and music theory lessons. “My second instrument was the oboe, which I never was very good at.” He credits his harmony teacher for getting him “fired up” about 20th Century music at age 13. “As soon as I got home [from one of his lessons] I ran to the local record store and bought the first recording of 20th Century music I could find–the Alban Berg Violin Concerto, which I instantly fell in love with.”
His taking up the baton, Davis explains, wasn’t quite accidental, but neither was it a burning ambition carried over from childhood. Although he attended some symphonic concerts while living at home, it wasn’t until his university studies as an organ scholar at King’s College, Cambridge, that he was bitten by the conducting bug.
“I went there expecting I’d end up [playing organ] at some cathedral. I really did not have any conducting aspirations until they needed somebody to conduct a Haydn divertimento with the university music society orchestra. I found it kind of fun, so I did a couple more things. I’ve always loved the sound of an orchestra. It’s the ultimate instrument, in terms of color and expressiveness.”
By 23, he was hooked. “I thought this was a way to express myself in music that I seemed to have a talent for, and it gave me tremendous satisfaction.”
To develop his craft, Davis spent eight months in Rome studying with conductor Franco Ferrara. He returned to Britain for stints with the BBC Scottish Symphony in Glasgow and London’s New Philharmonia Orchestra before he landed his first full-time podium post, music director of the Toronto Symphony, in 1975. He remained there until 1988, putting a once-provincial ensemble on the international map. He has since been named the orchestra’s conductor laureate, returning to Toronto each season to conduct a few concerts.
He and Gianna met and fell in love during the late 1980s when he conducted and she sang Zerbinetta in Richard Strauss’ “Ariadne auf Naxos” at the Metropolitan Opera. They were married in 1989.
After Edward was born, Rolandi unofficially retired from singing to concentrate on being a mother, running the household and being, in her husband’s words, “my most valued critic.” As Edward makes his operatic debut in a minor role in Puccini’s “Tosca,” opening Saturday, Gianna jokes, “Already I’m the stage mother from hell.”
Of the great conductors active during his apprenticeship, Davis says he was most influenced by Sir John Barbirolli and Otto Klemperer. “Barbirolli was master of the loving detail, Klemperer the master of structure. I met Barbirolli once. He was a real character. I was introduced to him as a young man who was planning to be a conductor. He raised his bushy eyebrows and exclaimed, ‘You must be mad!’ ” says Davis, imitating Barbirolli’s raspy growl.
He traces his love of singers and singing to his teenage years when he heard an old 78-r.p.m. recording of the peerless Swedish tenor Jussi Bjoerling singing the Flower Song from “Carmen.” So enthralled was he with the emotional immediacy of Bjoerling’s singing that he wore out the shellac disc.
Davis made his operatic debut at the 1973 Glyndebourne Festival conducting Strauss’ “Capriccio,” which he later conducted in Chicago.
His early successes at Glyndebourne, the blue-chip summer opera festival at a country estate south of London, no doubt weighed heavily in the festival’s decision to name him music director in 1988. There he served as part of a triumvirate not unlike the administrative team to which he now belongs at the Lyric.
“I was always interested in new music and love to plan interesting programs,” he says, citing the long list of 20th Century composers he has brought to the attention of British audiences. “We developed a new, younger audience that is open to adventure in programming.”
At Davis’ departure, the orchestra named him conductor laureate, the first in the ensemble’s 70-year history. He considers it a blessing to jump from two renowned British arts institutions to one of the premier U.S. opera companies. “You wanna pinch yourself,” as Gianna says in her melodious Carolina twang.
“QUEEN OF SPADES” has opened with audience and, later, the press united in their admiration of the performance and production. Davis comes in for a storm of applause as he takes his curtain calls and motions for the orchestra players in the pit to rise and share in the ovation. The orchestra responds to him as it has responded to few other conductors; one day into the new season, it already sounds like his orchestra.
More than a week later, I stop by the Davises’ apartment. The maestro looks more relaxed than I have seen him since his arrival in Chicago. The fatigue of the past couple of weeks is gone from his ruddy, bearded face. He leans back on the sofa, contemplating a silk flower–a welcoming gift from Bartoletti–that is displayed by the fireplace.
The apartment, with its lake view, is stunning. Having lived for 12 years in a country house atop a hill surrounded by woods and commanding a distant view of the English Channel, Andrew and Gianna were determined their next residence also would afford them contact with nature. Here, he says, surveying the view from their fifth-floor aerie, “we can see trees from our window, which is nice. And I love getting up in the morning and looking at the lake, because it’s always different.”
I ask Davis how it feels to have survived opening night. “Obviously, I’m relieved. It was the final hurdle of an entire series of hurdles that began in late summer with my saying goodbye to my musical life in England. But I didn’t allow myself to collapse until about a week after that first ‘Queen of Spades’ here!” he says, laughing.
Now that the Davises have relocated to Chicago, their priorities for leisure time activity are clear: the Art Institute, Spiaggia and Sue the T-rex. The mention of Spiaggia prompts Andrew to observe, with great glee, that having “Sir” before his name means they no longer have any trouble getting a good table at any restaurant in the city.
So what do they like best about living in Chicago? “I love the energy here,” he says. “That is evident all the time, yet it’s not the frenetic [energy] of New York. They always talk of the Midwest work ethic, and it’s true. But it’s done with a great deal of flair and enjoyment and commitment to doing the best work you can; that, too, is very much a part of the ethos of Chicago. I hope to play my part in that.
“Besides,” he adds, sounding a note of triumph, “when we were living in the Sussex countryside, we couldn’t have pizza delivered!”
