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Although he currently lives in London, he increasingly mentions that he would like to settle in Vilnius: he has already started filming his nest here, to which he plans to return more and more frequently after long stays in the most famous opera houses in the world. .
The singer openly says that the pandemic in the music world opened many moral things, and at the same time made him think about the fragility of his profession and learn to enjoy simple things: the opportunity to sing and create.
A conversation with tenor E. Montvidas about the discoveries and losses of quarantine, the advantages and disadvantages of the independent singing profession, the pre-concert rituals and the paths that always lead to the Pažaislis Music Festival.
– You sing at the Pažaislis Music Festival every year. How important and significant is it in your creative biography?
– It already happens in the life of an artist that a theater or festival is very close, as if the house you constantly return to also lives with the people who work there. If artistic tastes and work ethic and details coincide, those places become inseparable from creative biography. There are several of these at Manaus and Pažaislis Music Festival, one of them. I also like it because I am a Kaunas resident, and circumstances sometimes happen when I participate in the festival without planning ahead: this year there were other events in my summer plans, but the pandemic adjusted them. As I will be in Lithuania in the summer, I will participate in the opening concert of the Pažaislis Music Festival and I am very happy about that, because I have great feelings for both Kaunas and the festival itself. It is very important to me that I can always offer my program here, which is a great luxury for the artist: the festival always supports my creative ideas and agrees to implement them, so I invite colleagues from abroad with whom we can make our own repertoire. .
I really like to include opus in the concert shows, which listeners hear less often, so that platform from the Pažaislis Music Festival is really very important to me: I feel at home here, so I feel at home, for of course, without abusing the goodness and the budget of the organizers.
– Perhaps you will announce how special the opening concert of this year’s Pažaislis Music Festival will be?
– In the first part of the concert, pianist Lukas Genius, as planned, will bow to Ludwig van Beethoven, as everyone commemorates the 250th anniversary of his birth. The soloists in the second part were supposed to come from abroad, but this year’s travels are hampered by the pandemic. Given the situation today, I thought it would be very nice to dedicate the second part of the concert to promising music, although we are coming out of the emergency a bit, we are still very tired psychologically, so Richard Strauss’s songs will be very appropriate in this context. Of course, there will also be works of the slightly lighter genre so that the public can also relax. My repertoire with the Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra is very broad, so it was not very difficult to form a program, even without prior planning.
– How does the public accept the lesser-known repertoire? Many artists believe that such a solution is commercially disadvantageous because the public receives much less for making lesser-known works.
– I think it’s wrong to think that. Perhaps the less popular tracks should not be heard throughout the concert program, as audiences like to hear what is already familiar to them. On the other hand, due to the current situation, many theaters will have to choose a well-known repertoire: Carmen by Georges Bizet, Bohemian by Giacomo Puccini and other operational successes, because it will be very important to attract as many audiences as possible after quarantine. But under normal circumstances, there really is no need to be afraid to educate the audience, because when you believe in a job and do it very persuasively, the listener will definitely accept it, even when you first hear it.
I can always offer my program, which is a great luxury for the artist: the festival always supports my creative ideas and agrees to implement them.
At the Pažaislis Music Festival, I have repeatedly performed excerpts from G. Puccini’s opera “Swallow” with my colleagues, which sound really rare in Lithuania, but were well received by the public. I often include lesser-known arias from other operas in my repertoire, then repeat them over and over, and the audience gradually begins to recognize them. Perhaps lesser-known works are easier to do when you’re already a recognized artist and the public believes in you, and even then it’s easier to believe that what you show will be of high quality. In this context, it is important that the interpreter has already grown a certain quality mark, so that there is no shadow next to the last name, that the fan does not like something.
– Your repertoire is really very wide and diverse: you sing works from different periods, styles and composers. Are there roles that have a special place in your creative biography?
– I really couldn’t distinguish between special and less special roles, because one opened many doors, the other helped pay the bank bills, the third became a springboard for the next stage of his career. Perhaps one of the most important that I could name was Lensky from the opera Eugene Onegin by Piotr Tchaikovsky because it was very successful for me: I remember there was a season when I sang and sang, they always shot me, they shot me completely at the end of the season. Any Jules Massenet Verter (from the opera “Verter” – ed. Past.) That I sang in Vilnius, and now I am already invited to sing in France, is also very special to me: it reveals many psychological subtleties and must be very strong vocally.
In the production of Igor Stravinsky’s “Felting Career”, I met the famous British director Sir David McVicar, with whom we later collaborated more than once. Each role gives birth to something new, which gives my vocal and acting palette ever-new colors, so even the smallest ones are very important. At the Hamburg Opera, I sang the part of Boris, the Beloved of Katia, in the opera “Katia Kabanova” by Leos Janáček, the role was staged, but it was the first time that I performed the music of L. Janáček, and it opened a new stimulus to sing more of the works of this composer. The unheard-of shepherd part of Karol Szymanowski’s opera King Roger, which is incredibly beautiful and I sang with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, led the way to Rome and La Scala. All roles are very important and meaningful because you never know where they will take you.
– You talk a lot about roles in the 20th century. in operas in which some vocalists say that they do not like to sing due to the excessive separation between romantic and modern music. Are those differences really that stark?
– Really so. More recently, at the Vienna Opera, I sang a leading role in the world premiere of Cristiano Josto’s Egmont opera. It was the last and most modern piece in my style that I had to sing. I wouldn’t say it was very easy because for an hour and a half I was very focused and kept counting the beats, but the work was a lot of fun. It was also interesting and pleasant to meet C.Josto, whom I would like to invite to Lithuania, perhaps to a contemporary music festival, because he is a very interesting and productive composer, popular in South Korea and Japan. I love singing contemporary music, while studying at LMTA I had to perform works by Onutė Narbutaitė, Raminta Šerkšnytė, Vidmantas Bartulis and other contemporary Lithuanian composers.
– Let’s go back to La Scala. You once said that being on stage in this theater is the culmination of a classical vocalist’s career.
– I used to say that, but in fact I would say the opposite now. Yes, famous theaters are very important, and being invited to sing in them is a kind of recognition. But now, at this point, it is a great fortune to have the opportunity to simply work because everything is suspended in the air and no one knows how many theaters will survive. So now I say: if I can continue singing, creating and surviving my specialty, it will be my greatest happiness. I am very happy that the twenty years of my work have been quite luxurious, I mean theaters, directors, directors and other people with whom I have worked. And legendary theaters are as important to me as they are to any artist; after all, it is also important for an artist that his paintings hang in certain galleries, because it means added value. I am waiting for my debut at La Scala, I really hope it happens, but now nobody is sure of the future, so today the greatest luxury for me is having the opportunity to work in my favorite job.
I couldn’t distinguish between special and less special roles because one opened many doors, another helped pay the bank bills, the third became a springboard for the next stage of my career.
– Famous theaters are not just a sign of luxury and recognition: they have a long history, whose pages contain the names of legendary artists and creators.
– Absolutely like this. Each theater has a different but long history. It is indescribably pleasant to stand on a stage where so many premieres took place. The National Comic Opera Theater in Paris is less known than the Paris National Opera, but the premieres of almost all of the most famous French operas took place there, including the famous Carmen by G. Bizet. Gustav Mahler himself and other legends stood on the stage of a Musikverein, all the most famous vocalists have sung at La Scala. In addition, the famous opera also means a certain quality: it is always known that the orchestra will sound impeccable there. But there are other nuances: working in one theater or another, I hear all kinds of comments. Covent Garden is an incredibly amazing place to work because you always feel like you really care about yourself there. And I hear a bit of a different opinion about La Scala, especially from the costumes of the people who create the sets: they say that this theater is very complex, there is a lot of arrogance in it. Others think it does not matter: it is enough to sing there once and mark it. As it really is, I’ll say it when I sing, but legendary theaters probably won’t become legendary unnecessarily, however they have to maintain a certain level. While the famous Metropolitan Opera Theater closed until the New Year, launching its orchestra and choir without any financial reward. This pandemic has opened up many moral problems.
– The pandemic also posed considerable challenges, especially for people in the cultural world. What did you discover and lose during this period?
– Like all the performing artists, for me it was a great shock because everything happened suddenly. Even before the quarantine was announced, I felt like walking with a knife, because as a freelance performer, I can never know what will happen: it is enough to get sick and miss performances. While you sing, while you work, everything is fine, but suddenly your whole life is suddenly quarantined with an ax. It was very interesting for me to observe my psychology: the entire spectrum of emotions and experiences. At first I didn’t believe what was happening, but upon learning from my agent that both that and that and the third one were canceled, I realized that all the plans were falling apart like a house of cards. Later, I started to realize that I am not alone on this ship, absolutely all my colleagues from all over the world are going through the same thing, and I started looking for a creative way out of the situation, trying my best not to give up on the despair.
The first rational thing about all this confusion was the idea that I couldn’t give up my profession in any way, which is why I sang especially hard, worked with students remotely and it was all worth it. And now everything is returning to its places little by little and timidly, but still nobody knows how it will be. So the profession of independent singer is already very slippery. Now when I talk about my plans, I use a completely different grammatical form: “I should, I do, I sing”, instead of the usual saying “I’m going to go, do, sing”. A pandemic is not only psychological, but also financial for me, because the bank needs to repay the loan, so now I know that I have to be prepared for anything, even though nobody could have dreamed of such a thing. By the way, he had dreamed the same dream many nights before: that for some reason he was locked up in prison. For me, that dream was absolute horror, and in a sense it was prophetic.
– But does the profession of independent singer also have positive characteristics?
– The great advantage is that you are the owner of yourself, you establish your own schedule: you want to work, you do not want to work. Although the last option is unlikely because everyone works very hard, the vocalist’s professional life is longer than that of a ballet dancer, but it is not very long-lived either. On the other hand, that constant mobility preserves youth, less routine in life. But there is a different routine: airports, planes, hotels. You have to build a house in different cities where you may not know anything. He develops certain character traits, learns to adapt, and lives everywhere.
When you travel constantly, it is very important to be able to be with yourself, because it is difficult to create a permanent social circle when you are not at home. At first, it was very difficult for me because I am a communicative person: I feel the need to be among people, but after difficult rehearsals I just want silence and peace, so it is very important to find a certain harmony so that you feel good alone , but also able to focus on work. The profession of an independent singer shapes the way of life.
– Independent singers and, in a sense, they can shape the repertoire themselves. Many people think that in today’s contexts it is very important to discover their niche, which is generally associated with a certain role: this polished and perfected person travels to different opera houses. What do you think of a strategy to build a career?
– A very boring strategy, I would say, because when singing the same thing through the same thing, life becomes very monotonous; after all, we are not talking about a business model, but about creation, art. It is very important for a vocalist to understand where his strength is. I know I will probably never sing Otto Giuseppe Verdi’s “Otele”. This opera is incredibly beautiful to me, but it is better to go see it than to put my nose in a role that is not my strength.
Now it is a great fortune to have the opportunity to work because everything is suspended in the air and nobody knows how many theaters will survive.
It is very important to know not only my technical possibilities, but also other nuances of the voice, whether you prefer French lyricism, bel canto music or Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and perhaps you can already sing a more complex and demanding repertoire. Choosing the repertoire is one of the most important factors in a long career, so you should sing what really suits you. Luciano Pavarotti has never sung German operas, and Plácido Domingo sings absolutely everything, and Richard Wagner. In either case, one or more roles should definitely not be occupied, as flexibility develops the vocalist’s skills.
– What do you like to listen to in your free time, when you want to relax from the world of opera?
– Man is a very complex mechanism with a wide variety of moods, so my playlist changes very often. One day I’m in the mood for American minimalism, the next day I enjoy listening to David Sylvian, and on the third day, Baroque music. I can’t really select my favorite piece, artist, or style, but I’m going back to the French Impressionists or American Minimalists already mentioned. But as far as I can remember, I have always lived certain periods: there was a stage by Giacomo Puccini, when I went to the Kaunas Public Library and listened to all his operas. There was as much the period of Peter Tchaikovsky’s “Poems of Ecstasy” as those of Alexander Scriabin, and many others. My media library is very extensive.
– What do you think of the concerts and virtual performances that lately have tried to change the real ones? Do they have the potential to become an alternative form of cultural diffusion, such as music recordings?
– Virtual concerts will never replace live. During the quarantine period, I tried to see the performances myself, but did not find it very appealing. Sure, it’s better than nothing, but those performances from her kitchen or beauty parlor were more a reminder to the audience that we still miss singing, it’s more a despair than an alternative to concert life. On the other hand, some opera houses also broadcast their performances in cinemas under normal conditions, but then they are played and filmed in a completely different way. Upon arrival at the theater, its scent: all those rituals and the rise of the curtain, the aura that floats in the theater is a big part of our artistic charm, which in a virtual format cannot be felt in any way.
– Rituals before concerts too?
– Probably all artists have them. I really like to wash the floor the day of the concert, because the physical work distracts the thoughts of the next concert, in which I inevitably think: those thoughts are constantly spinning and anxious, so I try to do an action that has nothing to do with music.
– Concerts from the kitchen will probably never look very solid, but music is increasingly invited to listen to unconventional and unexpected spaces, especially during summer festivals. In what most unexpected space did you have to sing?
– The Auschwitz concentration camp comes to mind immediately. The BBC filmed a documentary about the Czech composer Viktor Ullmann, who was imprisoned there and killed. The film was part of a major event to mark the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, and a DVD will also be released. That place surprised me a lot. Of course, I also had to sing in the squares, in the factories, and recently while pedaling on the streets of London, I sang, gathering the support of British doctors. We vocalists seem to be used to performing in open spaces in the summer, but since the pandemic has significantly adjusted not only the plans of all the festivals, but also the possibilities of holding concerts indoors, we will go out to sing even more. Often, so we will have to be flexible and use our creativity. where we want and where we can.
– Roles in different opera houses are inseparable from travel, after which it is important to return home. He is currently returning to London, but always hints that he would like to settle in Lithuania. How do you imagine your life here?
– I imagine in a very simple way, and I have already taken the first step to establish myself here: just before all the quarantine ailments, I bought an apartment in Vilnius and planned to spend the entire spring here, theatrical performances were planned, but I was stuck in London, so I can only enjoy my new home now. Of course, I still plan to travel a lot, my career will not stop, so life in Lithuania will be so fragmented, but having my own place to live, I already feel at home: I have been away for 20 years, so I recently visited him as a guest. By having my own nest, I can return to Vilnius after the introductions, not London. On the other hand, I also have a house in France, so I will have to organize it to be able to stay there too. It may sound strange: houses both there and there, but in reality everything is much simpler. My cabin in the mountains of France is very simple, it can’t even be compared to the lakeside villas, but I dedicate a lot of love and work to it, so you will inevitably have to maneuver between the three countries. This is probably my geography and I will have to travel in a triangle.
WHO? OPENING CONCERT of the Pažaislis Music Festival.
Where? Pažaislis monastery.
When? July 19 7 p.m.
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