Rosalind Appleby

Hamburg has been home to Simone Young for a year now. The port city with its well dressed citizens and tree lined canals is known as the Venice of the north. Theatres and concert halls sit alongside cafes and the red light district and at the hub is the Hamburg Staatsoper, with Australian conductor Simone Young at the helm.

Young has become one of Hamburg's artistically and politically most powerful people. We meet at the Vier Jahreszeiten, one of Hamburg's ritiziest hotels, but her hearty laugh and relaxed Australian friendliness is refreshingly informal.

Young is both Intendant (General Manager) and General Musical Director of the Hamburg Staatsoper, which puts her in charge of the orchestra both in the opera house and on the concert stage.

"It's basically three jobs,' Young says with a laugh. "I think it's hard for people to imagine that it is possible to do the intensity of work we do in these houses. Just last week we opened L'Upupa, I also conducted a Cosi, a Figaro and the company performed Titos as well. The diversity is staggering. Two weeks after that we record Bruckner Three together with Brett Dean's clarinet concerto. There's a tremendous vitality and variety in the repertoire and it suits me very much. I love doing Mozart one day and Messiaen the next. That's my idea of bliss.'

The hard work is paying off; Young has just been nominated Conductor of the Year in the prestigious Opernwelt magazine. It's great publicity for the Staatsoper so Young is pleased. But it's also a sign that Young has been completely embraced by the European audience, which wasn't always the case. Initially the public found Young difficult to swallow: she was young, female, Australian and a mother.

"That's all passed,' Young says. "Now I am the conductor, and it's really nice to have got there."

It has been a groundbreaking journey. Young was the protégé of Daniel Barenboim and became the first female to conduct the Vienna Philharmonic, Vienna Staatsoper and the Paris Opera. Last year she was awarded the Goethe Medaille Weimar, and was the subject of a German documentary by Ralf Pleger for the television channel "arte'. Prior to the Hamburg position Young was Principal Conductor of Norway's Bergen Philharmonic and Music Director of Opera Australia.

Young admits her career hasn't been without struggle. "Artistic careers are full of lots of bumps; the road is very curvy and twisty because there are so many things that are beyond one's control.'

It's a lot of water under the bridge now but the controversy with Opera Australia that led to Young's departure from her homeland is still a sore spot on the Australian consciousness. Young's perspective from Europe is more philosophical.

"My principal is just to go for the best artistic work I can possibly manage at any given time and that that will show its own worth eventually. I started doing big repertoire in 1990-91, so the last 15 years or so have been a fantastic time, and it has gone very fast.'

Simone Young remains a favourite on the conducting circuit with Australian orchestras, and she still returns every July for a family holiday.

Differences between Countries

Straddling both continents give Young a unique perspective. What stands out most to her about the differences between the Australian and German opera scenes is the relative youth of opera in Australia.

"Telemann was one of the first conductors in Hamburg so you are going back a history of nearly 300 years,' Young says. "Whereas Opera Australia is celebrating their 50^th anniversary, and they've had a home in the Opera House for barely 30 years.

"The strength of that is all the energy and the vibrancy and the excitement generated by something that is young and still being built. The negative side is that there are so many givens that are required for an opera company that are simply not givens in a company that is that young, that has grown out of that environment. Here (in Hamburg) there is just so much that is given. All the stuff I've always talked about: size of the orchestra, size of the company, size of the chorus, diversity of the repertoire, it's just taken for granted.

"Australia is also handicapped by the huge costs involved in importing major foreign artists. And the industry itself is quite small in Australia so there is a limited amount of work available for resident artists. The industry faces a great many difficulties in Australia that simply don't exist here.'

Despite the constraints on the Australian scene Young is adamant we shouldn't underestimate the quality of Australian productions.

"There have been some wonderful productions and memorable performances. I think of Neil Armfield's Janacek cycle, I think of Lulu. The company has done some truly extraordinary work over the last decades. Each decade has had something special to offer, and that's very exciting.

"But,' she adds with increasing animation, "Australia is handicapped by major financial issues. Sure we have to deal with financial issues too but it's just at a different level. Artistic independence comes with financial independence. It is a rare work that is of great artistic significance in terms of the direction or the whole package, and is also a financial success. It's very, very rare. If you manage it one year you can't possibly manage to replicate it the following.'

The most notable difference Young describes between the two countries is the role of culture.

"It's hard to imagine but opera houses, theatres, this sort of thing, we actually have a really significant political voice in the city,' she says. The most obvious is the recent scandal in Berlin where an Idomeneo production was banned by the Deutsch Oper because of fears it would provoke Muslim terrorists.

"The situation in Berlin is intensely complicated. This business with Idomeneo, who knows what one would do placed in a similar situation. You have a political role, which is why the press is so interested in what was going on in Berlin. Can you imagine if something similar happened in Australia? It would be news for a day and then it would be all over.

"In Australia we put art under entertainment whereas here it falls under culture which is very different. It's culture with a capital "C" which is about quality of life and education and mental stimulation, as necessary for the creative processes involved in running huge corporations and so on require. Culture has a huge place in Hamburg. It's essentially a merchant city, yet count the number of galleries, the number of theatres; the cultural life here is incredibly diverse. It is simply accepted that culture is an essential part of life, it is not a luxury extra. And that is just a different mind set that comes from being part of the fabric of life for three hundred years. It is simply part of the way of life over here.'

We muse whether Australia, with its blue skies and sparkling beaches will ever develop this degree of artistic appreciation.

Young chuckles: "I don't know, maybe it's the weather! There's something about the short dark days (in Germany) that inspires you to sit reading by the fireside and expanding your intellectual capacity! And grappling with dark issues and being very introspective about these things. It goes with the weather.'

Golden Australian Beginnings

Despite her frustrations with her homeland, Young says her years working as a repetiteur (from 1983) with Opera Australia was the best training ground she could have got.

"It was a fantastic time for someone starting out. There were four great conductors working regularly with the company: Charlie Mackerras, Richard Bonynge, Carlo Felice Cillario and a young Australian named Stuart Challender. These four men each were experts in their own repertoire so it was like going to the best school. You could have spent a couple of years in New York and not had the same intensity of input that those four men were putting into the company in those days. There was an amazing richness of repertoire particularly in the bel canto and French early 19^th century repertoire, which was fantastic and kind of only hit the rest of the world about 15 years later. They were very exciting and satisfying years and I learnt a huge amount. I worked like a demon but I enjoyed every minute of it.'

New Directions for Hamburg

The hard work continues now in Hamburg. Rumour has it Young never sleeps. She admits she is an unceasing perfectionist and it is clear that she loves her work. Her vision for Hamburg is to leave the company stronger than when she arrived.

"I'm very aware of what I inherited and what I want to leave behind,' she says. "I want to leave behind a company that is artistically and, particularly on the musical side, stronger than it was when I arrived. This is not a criticism of my predecessors; it is simply a different focus, a diversification in the repertoire. For my taste there is too little Slavic repertoire, too little French repertoire present. I want to expand the baroque repertoire; I want to continue first German performances of major new works. And I'm interested in taking the house in a slightly more human direction; an intellectual but also a more emotional response to the works we're now dealing with.'

For a long time Hamburg was been the home of very progressive theatre direction and there were fears Young would be too conservative. So far her choice of directors and repertoire has been unerringly strong.

"I look for directors who are both intellectually and emotionally connected to the work, that's what interests me. I'm worried by directors who say "this bit of the piece doesn't work so we have to change it." My inclination is to say if it doesn't fit the concept then there's something wrong with the concept. It's very much a musician's point of view, but I have no problems with defending that point of view because it's a point of view I can then artistically work with as well.

"There's been a bit of a tradition in theatre in the last 15 years or so for one to be thumped over the head with a specific concept. You're not here to think, you're just here to see how I think. And that's not really my style. Because I think for art to have a meaning the audience has to participate actively. That means you have to engage with what's on the stage and you have to be involved by it, otherwise it does fall into the column of entertainment.'

Young describes the Hamburg Staatsoper's recent production of Verdi's Simon Boccanegra, directed by Claus Guth, as an example of an enlightening production. "It had a very poetic design that clarified the core issues, didn't work too hard to tell the story, but worked hard to tell us about the emotional state of the characters. And in a piece that is essentially a political story, it was inspired. Not one note of the music was changed, not one piece of the text was changed, but the audience was left in no doubt that this was a work about a great figure of humanity. Boccanegra was an extraordinary character and Verdi clothed him in some of the most fabulous music that he ever wrote. And that came through the production.'

Thoughts on Conducting

It's not just opera that consumes Young's time; she also loves concert performances and chooses to split her conducting load equally between the two.

"They are so interlinked. I cannot imagine conducting Fidelio without having conducted Beethoven Nine, just as I can't imagine conducting Beethoven Nine without knowing every single note of Fidelio. I can't imagine how anyone can conduct a Bruckner Symphony without having done at least one Wagner opera. And how do you conduct the prelude of Tristan if you haven't done the slow movement of Bruckner Six?'

She goes on, drawing links between Wagner and the lieder of Schubert and Schumann. "There are long stretches of (Wagner's) declamatory recitative that draw their basis out of lied. As a conductor I can't imagine conducting Dutchman without having played lots of Schumann and Schubert lieder. All those artistic experiences go together.'

In terms of technique Young describes conducting as carrying sound through time and space.

"To me sound is an element that has weight and has substance. It's about taking something you see on the page in two dimensions and thinking about it as a 3D substance, which means I'm thinking architecturally. As a building has foundation, wiring, support, structure and a roof, for me a sound has colours. The beauty of sound is that it is defined not only by itself but by what immediately preceded it and what follows. So you're constantly building. It is something you are bringing into life each moment. That is the process I find completely engrossing, challenging, defeating, impossible, intoxicating" all those things.

"What an orchestra offers you is just so special. They are sitting there giving you the benefit of their talent and training and experience. And you have the huge privilege to take all these little ingredients and shape them into something. It's a pretty magical career.'

Young's enthusiasm increases as she describes a recent Figaro performance.

"It was the first performance for me this season where I've gone "Yes that's how it's supposed to be". I had the most phenomenal cast on the stage that night. There is no other word for it, they were just superb. The orchestra were in fantastic form, sitting up nice and high in the pit so the musical interaction between stage and pit was like making chamber music. And it was funny. It was one of these shows where we sold lots of tickets cheaply and there was an atmosphere like a rock concert. They're such exciting moments when they happen; I'm still kinda glowing about it.'

Enough to Write a Book

As an afterthought at the end of the interview Young adds, "You know there's a book coming out about me?'

A book - what next? Simone Young – Die Dirigentin, A Portrait was launched at the Oktober Book Fair, based around the information Ralf Pleger collected for his documentary on Young.

"Pleger was so fascinated by all the conversations he had with people,' Young explains. "He talked to Baremboim, Domingo, Lisa Gasteen, my concert master, he travelled to Australia, and he had such a lot of material he decided to do a book.'

There is certainly a lot to leaf through already in Young's life, despite her relative youth.

"As a conductor at my age you're really still quite young which is rather nice,' Young agrees. "There aren't too many professions where you're young at 45. But I've been in the profession since I was 20 - more than half my life - so it doesn't feel like it's been quick or anything.'

Simone Young – Die Dirigentin is published by Europäische Verlagsanstalt. For information, contact Stefanie Leimsner at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Music Forum thanks www.theoperacritic.com , on which this article was originally published.

Rosalind Appleby is a Perth-based music journalist. Mob: 0412 855 658