The doyen of ballet conductors, Jon Lanchbery, tells
Tara Werner why it is such a challenge.
Time seems to be a precious commodity for conductor John Lanchbery. He answers the telephone exactly on cue, saying matter-of-factly, "Good, you're two minutes early."
Then, 10 minutes later, the interview is promptly over since he has to leave for his next appointment.
Hectic schedules appear to be a fact of life for this Melbourne-based musician, who tends to talk as staccato-like as his busy timetable - even more so when it's about a subject as close to his heart as classical ballet.
Lanchbery has a reputation for being the doyen of the highly specialist art of ballet conducting. He has been invited to Auckland to conduct the Auckland Philharmonia for the Australian Ballet's production of Manon at the Aotea Centre.
The list of people he has worked with over his long career reads like a veritable Who's Who in the ballet world, including famous names like choreographers Kenneth MacMillian and Frederick Ashton, or dancers Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev.
All were familiar figures in the 12 years he spent as principal conductor with the Royal Ballet in the 1960s. He still has close connections with the Royal Ballet in London and appears regularly as ballet conductor with many of the world's leading opera houses.
So why is ballet conducting different?
"Well," he says, "the first hurdle is that you have to do two things at once: look at the orchestra and the stage. The music, therefore, must be in your head first, since there's often no time to look at the score. You must maintain eye contact with the musicians yet concentrate on the dancers as well."
He is diplomatic about the score for Manon, which is somewhat unusual in that arrangers decided that they would avoid using music from Jules Massenet's famous opera by the same name, electing to draw on other selections by the composer.
"It's not up to me to comment about the music arrangement. But it's been done before. For instance, when John Cranko choreographed Onegin for the Stuttgart Ballet he deliberately avoided Tchai-kovsky's music for the opera," Lanchbery says.
Working with dancers and choreographers is often a collaborative effort, he feels, although on the night it is the conductor who directs the performance.
"In every single performance the conductor needs to be boss, but you must also accommodate the dancers. You have to make sure the tempo is right, for example. Some dancers are better when they are driven, others like to follow the tempo. You have to make them look their best, especially in the pas de deux."
Lanchbery has a wealth of anecdotes to tell about his experiences with artists such as Nureyev, with whom he worked closely on many ballets. He admires the dancer's depth of knowledge about music and what he tried to achieve in his choreography.
"I was with him in 1966 on Don Quixote, which he created for the Vienna State Opera. We went through the entire score together and he had an old piano copy that he had marked up in detail. But he was quite clear what he wanted for the music arrangements, what was to be altered or left," he says.
The conductor's own career as arranger-composer is significant and he particularly enjoys working with choreographers such as Ben Stevenson, arranging Liszt's music for Stevenson's phenomenally successful Dracula.
But conducting is obviously his first love: "Every performance is different, since people are different. Sometimes dancers could be having an off night, or they are really on form.
"The fact that every night is a separate event is the greatest argument against taped music. There is nothing like live music to make each performance a wonderful drama. The point of ballet is that it is drama, and tells a story. As a conductor I consider myself lucky to be part of it all."
Who: John Lanchbery, conductor
What: The Australian Ballet's Manon
Where: Aotea Centre
When: Tomorrow, Friday, Saturday and Sunday
There's more to it than just keeping time
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