VoxCarnyx

Conductor Martyn Brabbins speaks to Keith Bruce as he makes his career debut in Scotland with Janacek’s The Makropulos Affair

As a mentor to young conductors at the St Magnus Festival and at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, as well as a regular guest conductor with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Martyn Brabbins is a familiar face in Scotland.

South of the border, his most recent full-time contract was as music director of English National Opera, a position from which he resigned in solidarity with his fellow musicians when ENO’s management failed to resist the imposition of strictures on its operations by the Arts Council of England.

At the end of this week, the conductor makes what may seem a belated debut at the Theatre Royal in Glasgow in charge of a main stage Scottish Opera production, directing a work that is a century old but new to him, and for which his enthusiasm is evident.

The circumstances that have allowed Brabbins to work with the company may be less than entirely happy, but England’s loss is assuredly Scotland’s gain. At the end of our conversation, the conductor alluded to the circumstances of his departure from ENO, and it was more in sorrow than anger.

“Having had that bruising end to my time at ENO, it’s wonderful to be here. Scottish Opera seems to be in a healthy way, the rehearsal process has been really smooth and I hope that ENO can get to a similar position.

“It is just not valued by the people in power in the way it should be. The more you diminish arts and culture the more you diminish society, and the arts seem very vulnerable at the moment.”

The invitation to conduct Janacek’s The Makropulos Affair may have sprung from Brabbins’ sudden availability, but it picks up threads from earlier in his career.

“In the 1990s I did a small scale Scottish Opera tour of Mozart’s Il Seraglio, which was a memorable experience. And [stage director] Olivia Fuchs and I were both assistants at ENO on Nick Hytner’s magical production of The Magic Flute, but this is the first time we’ve made a production together.”

This Makropulos Affair is a co-production with Welsh National Opera, who staged it in 2022. But as well as having a fresh cast, with only tenor Mark Le Brocq returning as Vitek, and a different baton, the opera will be sung in an English translation by David Pountney rather than in Czech.

“It’s a really well thought out, attractive and clear production of what is a rather strange piece,” says Brabbins. “Not only has it had a run with WNO in Cardiff, it went to Janacek’s hometown of Brno, and I think the staging really clarifies what is quite a weird tale of this woman who has lived to the age of 329.

“I have had the time of my life getting to know it and it’s been one of the most complex scores I’ve ever had to assimilate. That’s not because it’s complex in the way of the music of Harrison Birtwistle or Pierre Boulez, but because it has to feel very natural despite the bizarre way Janacek deals with musical pulse at times.

“His notation can be misleading until you get inside the piece. It took me a long time and it has taken the orchestra a lot of hard work to get inside the score in order to let the music speak – but I think everyone is having a good time with it.”

Oddly, perhaps, given that singing in English is an essential part of ENO’s mission, Brabbins confesses to ambivalence about the practice.

“I’ve always been in two minds about the wisdom of singing opera in translation. Personally, I don’t like to hear Italian bel canto repertoire in anything other than Italian, but with Wagner, with Mozart, and with Janacek it can work and I think it works well here. It is a bit of a labyrinthine story and doing it in English helps.

“The music is very connected to the Czech text so with David Pountney’s translation, which is very musical itself, sometimes you have to slightly adjust the rhythms so that they match English speech.”

The whole rehearsal process has been a journey of discovery for the conductor.

“It’s a long way from most of Janacek’s other operas. The natural world plays no part in this one while it features heavily in lots of the others.

“There’s something compelling about the main character, Emilia Marty. In terms of opera plot, very little happens. She turns up at a lawyer’s office looking for information about the elixir that has kept her alive, and it is basically a legal tale that unfolds.

“She’s a wonderful operatic diva who has had an incredible existence over her three centuries of life, but she won’t allow herself to be anything other than this cold questing being.

“Each act builds to a wonderful conclusion and the end of the opera as a whole is cataclysmically powerful, but what is unusual about the score, and a little like Wagner, is that it is one long mellifluous recitative. There is one set number in Act 2, but the rest of the piece is through-composed storytelling with no love duets or ensembles as such, like reciting a poem.

“You can’t compare Janacek’s music to anyone else. I’ve been re-reading the poems of Edwin Morgan, who I met many years ago. His poetry is similarly a completely unique take on the use of language and sometimes really quite extreme.

“He reveals things in a different light, and it’s the same with Janacek – the language is familiar, and his tonal orchestral and vocal music is very attractive, but it doesn’t take the turning one expects. That’s what has made it a real journey of discovery for me and I hope it will intoxicate our audience with its heady mixture of drama and music.”

After The Makropulos Affair, the conductor’s return to the opera pit continues at Grange Park, with his old orchestra from ENO playing for David Pountney’s production of Tchaikovsky’s story of wartime in Ukraine, Mazeppa. Brabbins then has two new orchestral appointments to take up, as Chief Conductor of Sweden’s Malmo Symphony and then as Chief Conductor of the Symphony Orchestra of India.

“Malmo is a great orchestra with a wonderful hall and enthusiastic audiences, and I’m hugely looking forward to that. The Indian orchestra is seasonal, with a nucleus of local musicians who work as a chamber orchestra. There’s a joy in the music-making there and it’s a very special environment.”

Brabbins’ describes the BBC Scottish as “a constant friend in my life” and his next project with the SSO is the regular conducting course with students from the UK and overseas in mid-June. Next month sees the release of his premiere recording of Tippett’s New Year with the orchestra, which was performed in concert last year, and reviewed on VoxCarnyx.

Scottish Opera’s The Makropulos Affair opens on Saturday February 15 for three performances at the Theatre Royal, Glasgow, followed by two at Edinburgh’s Festival Theatre.

Production picture of 2022 WNO staging of The Makropulos Affair by Richard Hubert Smith