Passing in front of Palazzo Donn’Anna in Posillipo, the superintendent Stéphane Lissner he is eager to tell the legend of the princess who, here, received a different lover every night who she then killed at dawn, having him thrown from the windows overlooking the rocks. She swears that he would have accepted that invitation for one night, of course: «Do you want to give the thrill of a love encounter without knowing what will become of you the next morning?». Arriving at San Carlo, Lissner, who turned 71 on January 23, jumps over a hole with a hop: «Certain sidewalks in this city are a total disaster. I don’t tell you to carry my son around in the stroller…”. His fourth son from his fourth wife is eleven months old. Lissner explains that, on their walks, he talks to him like an adult. For example, he explains his works to him. I ask if he explained it to him Turandot, which has just been staged. Him: «Nooo. I’ve never understood Turandot either.” Then, he puffs air towards the sky. He goes, “Pufff.” And he laughs. In his theatre, Lissner is not the superintendent, he is not the artistic director, he is an elf who, going up to his offices, has a pat on the back and a greeting for every worker he passes. Meanwhile, he talks about how his fatherhood has rejuvenated him. The last straw for someone who, in the meantime, was removed from office because a law decree established that 70 years is too long to manage a theatre. After that, the court accepted his appeal, he was reinstated and here he is, fresh from the success of the
Mona Lisahis last staging among the hundreds staged in the ten years in which he was Superintendent at La Scala in Milan, in the five in which he was at the Opéra de Paris and, in general, in 52 years of career lived, it seems to intuit, with great fun.
Lissner, what did you think when you learned of the Decree that forced you to stay at home?
«That it was a law valid only for one, a political decision to capture a position for Carlo Fuortes who left RAI and that Fuortes was wrong to hope for it. My colleagues abroad were amazed: no one had ever seen a decree made to put someone else in their place.”
Abroad, does politics interfere less with culture?
«In all the countries in which I have worked, if a politician belongs to a party, you know his position because you know his ideologies and values; not in Italy, politicians’ positions depend on the circumstances. And perhaps, in Naples, this is worth a little more. Here, we have the governor Vincenzo De Luca and the mayor Gaetano Manfredi who are from the same party and never get along. Sometimes, we have a left-wing mayor who gets along better with the right-wing government than with the left-wing governor.”
And what does it mean to be a superintendent with such fluid politics?
«My work with the orchestra, choir, stagehands and audience is going well: the theater is full every day, whereas before it wasn’t like that; guided tours recorded more than 60 percent; international artists are happy to come, so much so that for The Gioconda I had three of the greatest singers in the world, the soprano Anna Netrebko, the tenor Jonas Kaufmann and the baritone Ludovic Tézier. The problem is outside the theatre: you think you have a contribution of five million from the Region and, instead, from one day to the next, you lose it.”
What did he do wrong to lose millions?
«In two years I lost about ten just because De Luca doesn’t agree with me: he doesn’t agree with the management, with the general director’s salary, with anything. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that Naples, which shuns stability, is a city that when things go well has to tear them down.”
However, am I wrong or do you really like Naples?
«Very much and I feel at home. Having already lived in Milan, I thought I knew everything, but Naples is not Italy: it is a city apart, it has a unique personality, immune to globalisation. Here it is important to go on foot, to discover the views, the architecture, the people.”
Della Scala, what good memories do you have?
«I remember the first Christmas concert, in 2005, with Daniel Barenboim conducting Beethoven’s ninth, saving my first season and starting his feeling with the orchestra with which he will come to work. I arrived in May and there was nothing, not even on December 7th… For the premiere, Daniel Harding came, who had started with me when he was twenty, and what’s more, Riccardo Muti had made sure that the singers refused my invitations.”
I exclude that the master would confirm.
«He resigned as musical director after orchestra members, artists and workers had disheartened him, I understand that he was hurt. The day I arrived, he was conducting the Vienna Philharmonic. I asked if I could say hello and the answer was: nothing. I invited him several times to conduct at La Scala and he never responded.”
Muti said she never called him.
“But it’s not true. I made him tell me that I couldn’t open the Verdi year except with him and he didn’t answer me. I wrote him a letter when he was sick and he didn’t answer me. Alright, let’s forget about it. The second best memory I have is when I convinced Claudio Abbado to return to La Scala and he conducted Barenboim the pianist. The saddest memory is the day of his death: Barenboim played the funeral march with an empty hall and open doors. I had a strong relationship with the teacher. As a self-taught person, I learned a lot by setting up the Don Giovannime, him and Peter Brook, in Aix en Provence, in ’98.”
How does one become a superintendent and director at the Paris Opera or La Scala as a self-taught person?
«I liked theatre, I liked opera so-so. My life has been theater and music, which put together, at a certain point, led me to opera. I understand those who tell me: you are not an actor, you are not a director, you have not studied at the conservatory, you are not a musician, but my vocation was to be a theater director, to build culture and skills to choose a conductor or a director and understand what I wanted to do with a work.”
First stop on this journey?
«My mother claims that at 14 I said: I will be a theater director. I don’t remember it, but I know that, when I was seventeen, I left Paris to see Giorgio Strehler’s shows in Milan. At 18, I didn’t want to go to college. My father wasn’t happy about it and he put me out of the house.”
Did you want to become an actor?
«Yes, but I saw myself twice at the cinema and said: it’s not for me. At 19, I opened the Théâtre Mécanique in Paris; at 25, I already knew that I wanted to dedicate my life to artists. Then, they called me to direct the Center Dramatique in Nice for three months, I stayed for 15 years. So, I did eight years at the Aix-en-Provence Festival.”
At La Scala, she arrived and they called her the “passing superintendent” but she stayed for ten years, how was that possible?
«My appointment had surprised everyone, because I was the first foreigner, I didn’t speak Italian and I didn’t have much experience of opera. Everyone thought I would stop just long enough to stop Muti’s exit. Not me, I went with the idea of staying.”
Why does he laugh?
«Because they have been ten wonderful years. And I brought Barenboim with me, I knew him but working with him every day is something else.”
When did you cry listening to your music?
«For a third act of Lohengrin with Jonas Kaufmann, on December 7th. Kaufmann sang in a way that was impossible to explain, but I think the whole theater had the feeling of witnessing a historic musical moment.”
How did you manage to learn Italian in three months upon your arrival?
«Reading Lto Divine Comedy. But the truth is that after twenty years I speak it the same as then.”
Recently for the Don Giovanni by Mario Martone, a banner with the words “ceasefire” was unfurled on stage. For you, there is no culture without politics?
«This is a non-negotiable belief of mine. I can’t imagine a 19th century work without updating it. The theater is a living place, not a museum where you see the Nabucco. If you just want entertainment, you listen to a record.”
Today, his fourth wife is journalist Anna Sigalevitch. How did you meet her?
«When I arrived at the Opéra, I put on a scene Moses and Aaron by Arnold Schönberg, a difficult work, chosen to indicate a new course. Afterwards, I listen to an intelligent, well-worded radio review on France Culture. I ask to meet the journalist. For almost a year, we talked for hours and hours about theater and music. Considering our ages, 63 and 33, I thought I had no hope, however, it happened. But she had someone and I had someone.”
A complicated story, therefore.
“Very. But I’m not the double life type and she was brave.”
So, after three grown children, he is a father again.
«My wife had no children, I love her and it was right like this».
What is it like being a father at your age?
«Well… 50 years ago, fathers didn’t change diapers or prepare baby food, things that I rarely do even now, however, compared to before, I play with my son Yasha, I go for walks, I take him to the theater and I like talking to him, even if he obviously doesn’t answer. I tell him theater stories. The other day, The Traviata».
How do you explain it The Traviata to a baby?
“I told him: there is a woman in love with a man who is not in love with her, he only wants to be with the most beautiful, the woman that all Paris is talking about.”
Do you ever think that by the time your son is a boy you might no longer be there?
“Safe. Becoming a father at my age makes you think more about death, but it also gives you strong energy, because you have to be careful: he wakes up at night or is hungry or cries and you don’t know why. Then, eleven kilos weigh more now than at 40 years old, but the more I pick him up, the more strength I have to do it.”
What will you do after San Carlo?
«Up until now, I have worked without stopping and now I think that, if there isn’t a festival or something else in which I can put my best foot forward, I can always read, travel, be a husband and father».
Tags: son explain Traviata Mute answers
