BBC Radio 3 In Tune, 29 June 2010 with Sean Rafferty.

Gerald Finley and Julius Drake perform live in the studio, and Jonathan Kent joins us from Glyndebourne

SR: Singing live for us with Julius Drake at the piano, the great Gerald Finley and his burnished voice. Here they are together with their latest recording and it’s of music by Benjamin Britten, various settings of William Blake, and this with words by Ronald Duncan who did the libretto for his opera The Rape of Lucretia, it’s Morning…

Music: Benjamin Britten, Morning, recording from CD. Click cover for details

Morning, a setting by Benjamin Britten of Ronald Duncan, and that’s Gerald Finley and Julius Drake’s latest recording. Gerry Finley and Julius Drake performing live for us in the studio very shortly…

SR: Now, Glyndebourne comes to In Tune next, Don Giovanni the great opera by Mozart opens this Sunday, a new production by Jonathan Kent with Gerald Finley in the title role. Well Jonathan we’ll be talking to in a moment at Glyndebourne, Gerry Finley is right here in the studio right now with Julius Drake performing especially for us, I have to say his voice never been better, his last performance with Julius Drake was nothing short of sensational. Before we plunge into the dark world of amoral womanising with the obviously irrisistable Don Giovanni, Gerald and Julius with a setting by Benjamin Britten of Greensleeves

Live: Benjamin Britten — Greensleeves

SR: Thank you very much, Gerald Finley and Julius Drake live in the studio. Britten’s setting of Greensleeves, was it by Henry VIII, people I don’t know if they want to claim that or not any more. Thank you very much indeed Gerald come and join us, thank you. This is the latest passion we should say briefly, the settings of Benjamin Britten do you really love them?

GF: They’re all extraordinary, this comes from a most recently published collection of songs, which I’m very glad to say the publishers have collected all in one edition, the complete folksongs of Benjamin Britten

SR: Erm, lovely piano parts as well he does, but he does caress the words as well doesn’t he, loves his words

GF: Well Britten was always one who, through obviously his relationship with Peter Pears as a singer, and completely inspired by the texts and the beauty of the language, the English language, and he’s set the modern standard I think for song setting

SR: Well we move on to beauty of a different sort now, the dark, seductive Don Giovanni by Mozart his view of the Don Juan legend I suppose, Jonathan Kent will be joining us from Glyndebourne shortly.[Click photo for details of the Glyndebourne Don Giovanni]

SR: Well what do we say, Don Giovanni, dissolute, amoral climbs his way through women of all ranks inflicting casual violence and refusing the chance of redemption through penitence and at the end sent to Hell by the statue of the Commendatore the man he killed after seducing his daughter. On the face of it this isn’t a very loveable character to be playing is it

GF: Oh he’s great to play [laughs] he’s perhaps not great to watch or provide an example for the youth of today, but eh… no Mozart and Da Ponte have created one of history’s great figures

SR: Well I think it’s your eighth Don Giovanni, you’ve done them around the world, you’ve taken them around the globe, and now opening at Glyndebourne this Sunday, and we’ll hear what it’s going to be like from Jonathan as well in a moment but before that it’s the overture to Don Giovanni, Roger Norrington conducting the London Classical Players, now you’re particularly keen on this?

GF: It was my, I have to say my first venture into this opera, it was my debut in the recording studio, I sang Masetto, and when I heard the overture played by the London Classical Players it suddenly made so much sense as to what this opera was about, the dark colours, the energy, and the shear imminent catastrophe, that’s kind of presented, it’s all there in the overture

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart — Don Giovanni K527 – Overture:  London Classical Players Performer: Roger Norrington (conductor). Click cover for details

SR: And suddenly we’re in the extraordinary world of Don Giovanni the overture to Mozart’s opera with the London Classical Players and Sir Roger Norrington. Gerald Finley’s first exposure to the great opera and he’s now worked his way up to the Don and has been eight times. He’s sung for us already, but waiting patiently in the wings at Glyndebourne is the man who’s put all this together, the director Jonathan Kent who gave us a magical Faery Queen of Purcell last year, and a wonderfully innovative Turn of the Screw by Benjamin Britten a couple of years ago, just to establish his credentials. Good evening Jonathan, thank you for being there…

JK: Hi, good evening

SR: So what take do you have on Don Giovanni, a fairly straightforward tale of this dissolute man punished at the end for his wrong doings?

JK: Yes, to a degree, I mean I think you of course have to tell the story, but I think what’s interesting about him is his recognition from the moment that he kills is that he’s living on borrowed time, and how he spends those last 36 hours of his life, and I think he goes to Hell not because he sleeps with lots of women, but because he has killed, and he knows that, and it’s then not a question of “if” but of “when” and I think that gives it a tension and an immediacy

SR: Well Mozart’s great music and of course the libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte who talks about being this character being an adventurer, a wine lover, a womaniser without scruple but not without the fear of divine vengeance, and it’s not that far from Da Ponte’s own libertine life is it

JK: No. Well that was the most extraordinary life, he ended up didn’t he as a greengrocer in New York…

SR: Yes, and also became a professor at Columbia [laughter]…

JK: It’s a journey…

SR: It is a journey… does that influence you in the way you tell the tale? That there was a very strong connection between the librettist and what he is writing about?

JK: Yes to a degree, and I think you know that although it pays lip service to being in Spain it is quintessentially an Italian opera, it feels Italian… it would be pointless to… a lot of castanets would not help the evening at all, so I think it’s very much an Italian opera

SR: So we don’t have to be in Seville or anywhere like that do we, with orange trees [JK: No]. Well if you’d like to know what it looks like we have a couple of pictures on the website… Maybe you could tell us Jonathan, what does it look like? Do we recognise a period piece or not?

JK: Well yes, I mean as you know it was written on the sort of watershed between the Age of Enlightenment and the beginning of Romanticism, and what we’ve looked for is another period that has that same sense of a great European cultural shift, we’ve not done it purely 18^th century, but erm… we have changed the period…

SR: Of course you did that to Tosca at the Royal Opera didn’t you, you moved it on a little bit

JK: Only very little actually, very little, but this we’ve moved perhaps a little more radically

SR: Well indeed, Gerald Finley has probably had more different vistas, I should think, from his dissolute character as Don Giovanni than anyone else, number eight we’re on now, what do you feel about the Glyndebourne Don?

GF: Well what’s been wonderful is the luxury of having the time to talk about what the development of the character and the characters in the opera, they’ve all got very good back stories and they’ve all got very clear pursuits in the opera, either as vengeful victims, or indeed moving on for… causing the Don to get onto what fate awaits him

SR: Yes indeed. Well I think you’ve said before, it’s a wonderful line, he’s enchanted by his own bravura

GF: Completely. I mean he doesn’t consider there’s anyone else to be either in his way, and in fact the journey I like to feel he’s making is that there’s nothing that he isn’t necessary afraid of but that he thirsts so much after what is beyond, what is beyond life indeed in this case

SR: Well, going, looking for the ideal which is unobtainable but he certainly doesn’t give up on it. Well you’ve made a great journey as well, you talked about hearing the London Classical Players with Roger Norrington, the overture which gave you an idea of the drama of this, and here you in that recording as Masetto, a smaller role, you’re really a dogsbody aren’t you, you’re supposed to be engaged to Zerlina but of course the Don would like to have his wicked way with her as well and tells you to get lost, and you have to say “oh yes of course I will Sir” but you’re really giving her the evil eye

GF: Absolutely, this is why I think it follows on Figaro very quickly, the servant class the lower class is suddenly given voice to the deep dissatisfaction, disaffection they have with the nobility and what presumed rights they have, and this is Masetto voicing absolutely his ironic contempt to the Don

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart — Don Giovanni K527 (Act 1: No.6, Aria Ho capito, signor, si!), : Gerald Finley (Masetto), London Classical Players, Roger Norrington (conductor).

SR: Gerald Finley as Masetto tilting his nose towards the authority of Don Giovanni and of course as you might say giving his finger to his fiancé for being potentially really rather badly behaved, from Mozart’s great opera  and that recording with Roger Norrington. Well Gerry Finley has moved of course up to be the Don, listening to that recording Gerry you said you’d never heard that.

GF: I tend not… to be too critical… of my past efforts [laughs]

SR: But it’s, the change in the voice is extraordinary, there’s a lightness there, your voice has certainly darkened and deepened

GF: Yeah, I think like good wine, maybe that’s what er, that’s what voices need to do to be at their prime

SR: Well it’s quite a journey, but we should say at Glyndebourne about the Don number eight, that’s where you started operatically, you started in the chorus didn’t you? [GF: yeah absolutely] you’re a Glyndebourne baby…

GF: Oh I’m a perfect product of the system there beginning with the chorus and working through smaller roles until..

SR: All right, but you know your voice is such an extraordinary pitch and a wonderful pitch at the moment, you’ve been very careful in the way you’ve progressed haven’t you. You’ve watched it

GF: Well I’ve only ever taken opportunities that seemed you know er available and sensible, I don’t think I’ve ever been offered anything silly, but anything silly I have turned down

SR: I hope Jonathan Kent appreciates the quality you’ve got. You’ve got a great cast Jonathan haven’t you, which of course is the raw material, it’s very different, or is it very different from directing people in a play?

JK: Yes. Yes. Of course it is. But what’s great about this cast and actually now about most operatic casts now is that they are actors and they are interested in acting and developing character, and I think particularly with this cast there’s a real depth to their characterisations, which is great

SR: there’s so much you can squeeze into an opera of course which you can’t into a play, you’ve got this extraordinary music and you get maybe a quartet or a quintet where there are four or five conflicting emotions that fit into four minutes which is extraordinary

JK: Sure, a sort of compression, they are different animals in lots of ways but in lots of ways they’re not. They’re all about telling stories, they are all about developing character, they are all about people’s connections and their emotions, but the thing about theatre is that you have to create your own rhythms and music whereas of course in opera that’s a given, and it’s how you flesh those out and how you give them meaning and depth

SR: Mm. The original title of Don Giovanni was Il Disoluto Punito, which is the dissolute man punished in the end, is that too simplistic of Don Giovanni or any of the Don Juan figures?

JK: Well yes, I think he’s more complicated than that. I think he’s driven by a sort of intellectual curiosity, he’s a, this one in particular is a figure of the Enlightenment. He knows what he’s doing, and that’s why you may not admire him but you certainly have to admire his courage, he goes down with all flags flying, he only… he doesn’t give up, he doesn’t repent. He earns our respect if not our admiration.

SR: Goodness, this is an opera buffo and it’s hard to put it in that category, Gerry Finley, isn’t it in a way as there’s such searing reality as well

GF: There is, but you know even the most serious and deathly terrifying situations we are able to find humour in life, and of course that’s the great craft of Da Ponte and Mozart to develop the or to relieve the tension and relieve the dramatic terror with comedy, and I

JK: I must say in the way that Shakespeare does [GF: Hm] in the middle of Lear you get comic scenes

SR: Well it promises I trust to be a wonderful occasion and dare we ask, you said before in a year or two that maybe that’s the end of your Donning, your bad behaviour, are you going to leave him behind?

GF: Well, eventually. I’m pleased to say there are at least another four or five, variously, I can’t leave him alone for too long in the short term, but perhaps at the end of that, who knows maybe Commendatore is waiting [laughter]

SR: Well before that of course Hans Sachs in Der Meistersinger by Wagner is waiting next year, that’s a significant gear change isn’t it?

GF: To a certain extent…

SR: Or a natural progression?

GF: …I think of course one of the baritone’s repertoire, it is the greatest baritone role I think for someone like me who enjoys the theatricality of opera very much, I mean his character is one of a man searching for trying to be dealing with the issues of life, and I think for me as a singer it’s the right time for me to be investigating that

SR: Well there is another singer doing Meistersinger at the moment, I’m afraid we’ve booked them for the first week of the Proms and we’ll have to wait for your debut

GF: I’m, I’m full of admiration for anyone who takes it on

SR: Thank you very much indeed. Jonathan thank you for this and I hope all is well at Glyndebourne [JK: Thanks yeah] Thank you very much indeed for joining us, in a rare moment of quietude before the curtain goes up or whatever device you have for bringing it into this world, and Gerry Finley thank you very much for being with us, and Julius is still here and you’re going to give us a final little chat up line from Don Giovanni, we’ve got to imagine you are using your poor servant Leporello to deceive Donna Elvira who’s sort of panting with excitement up on the balcony, and you’re hiding in the shadows aren’t you

GF: That’s it, and Julius is going to assume the mantle of the mandolin player now, and he’s been such a great partner of mine throughout my career so I hope it should be fitting for him to accompany me on this [laughter] little invitation to Elvira

SR: I’m sure if you ring him up when you’re doing a chat up line under a balcony he’ll be happy to oblige [laughter in the background]. Thank you very much indeed, Gerald Finley and Julius Drake, the little canzonetta from act 2 of Don Giovanni

Live: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart — Don Giovanni (Act 2: Canzonetta no.16: Deh Vieni alla Finestra).

SR: Thank you very much indeed, how could you resist. The little canzonetta from Don Giovanni Act 2, Gerald Finley and Julius Drake at the piano thank you for being with us. Well Gerry starts at Glyndebourne this Sunday as Don Giovanni, in Mozart’s great opera, Jonathan Kent’s new production, thanks to him too, Vladimir Jurowsky conducts, 17 performances until 27^th August, and their latest disc, Gerald and Julius, Songs and Proverbs of William Blake and others set by Benjamin Britten, is out now. So thank you very much indeed for being with us and good speed to Glyndebourne.