Composer Detlev Glanert on opera and artistic collaboration

Composer Detlev Glanert compares opera to complicated architecture and is committed to artistic collaboration on an equal footing. "I'm a team player, I can't imagine opera any other way," the 63-year-old told the German Press Agency in Dresden. Opera is a composite art of words, images, music and sometimes dance. "It's a wonderful invention that relies on teamwork. I like working with others and incorporating good ideas from others." "Dictators" among directors and conductors have long since fallen out of fashion. "You get a lot further when you practice teamwork."

The multi-award-winning Glanert is one of the most renowned opera composers of our time. On February 10, he will present his twelfth opera, "Die Jüdin von Toledo", at the Semperoper in Dresden. Musical theater remains a special challenge for him: "Opera requires precise construction work, precise pre-planning. It's like the architecture of a very complicated building. You have to precisely balance the load-bearing capacity, the statics. The scenario is the decisive factor: Where are the highlights, who appears when, who meets whom. Where are the exciting, where are the lyrical elements?" As a rule, he composes his pieces one work at a time. However, he can also take a break during an opera, take a deep breath and perhaps write a short viola sonata in between.

By his own admission, Glanert often draws inspiration for his works from literature, but also from everyday situations. "A great hobby of mine is observing people. Observing how they react and behave, what gestures they use and what rhetoric they employ. All my singing voices come from rhetoric, whether it's reproach, hatred, cynicism, sarcasm, wit or irony. Observing people gives me many tones, even if no connection can be established for outsiders. I'm interested in what goes on between people." He can never imagine opera without thinking about a large audience: "That's why I'm not a person who would do well in a night studio."

According to Glanert, the coronavirus pandemic has led to the postponement of many projects. "There are now a lot of world premieres coming up." In January, a new cello concerto with soloist Johannes Moser was released in Luxembourg and Cologne. This will be followed in the summer by a new orchestral piece commissioned by Sir Donald Runnicles. "I wrote a violin concerto for Midori, which she now plays often." He finds the often years-long advance planning of opera houses problematic. With a planning lead time of seven years, a new Mozart would no longer be possible: "He would die before he was even received."