Celebrating Monteverdi with Sir John Eliot Gardiner

This week, Bristol has been at the heart of the classical music world.

Celebrating 450 years since the birth of Italian composer Claudio Monteverdi, the most renowned ensembles and performers descended on the Colston Hall to kick start an international tour performing Monteverdi’s operas in a fresh light under the baton of Sir John Eliot Gardiner.

Each of the composer’s three surviving operas will be performed separately in musical hubs like Venice, Berlin, Paris and New York. On Wednesday, however, it was all about Bristol.

Earlier this month, I spoke with Sir John Eliot Gardiner, who has led the drive towards celebrating Monteverdi’s music.

Do you listen to Monteverdi for your own enjoyment, or is your interest purely academic and/or performance based?

“It’s definitely personal, although he is a fascinating character. He’s also the first composer in the history of music that we know quite a lot about as a man. He wrote lots of letters and they reveal somebody who’s very proud, very conscientious, quite temperamental from time to time, he doesn’t take kindly to being patronised or being overworked and he was a very protective husband and father. He becomes a priest late on in life.”

Do you feel that progress in the performance and exploration of Monteverdi’s music is still being made?

“Yes, and I hope it continues to be. In the same way that Shakespeare is now seen as high culture but actually made theatre for the people, Monteverdi manages to combine high and low culture and concerns himself with conveying the whole range of human emotions, down to the most basic. For me it has been a life-long admiration and it has deepened as time has gone. It’s always a joy to come back to his music.”

What is special about Monteverdi’s operas?

“I think he confronts us with emotions that transcend even the most eloquent speech. Consider the moment in his opera L’Orfeo when Orfeo learns of Euridice’s death and his response is a single word, an anguished cry you might say. His ability to use emotion in his music – raw emotion – blazed a trail for composers that came after him.”

What have been the main challenges of putting on performances of all three operas?

“Well there’s an element of personal trepidation! I’ve been dying to conduct Il ritorno d’Ulisse since I was 18 and I now have the opportunity of doing so and it’s a real thrill. The piece is about the Trojan war and Ulysses coming back from that conflict and trying to win back Penelope, who resists because she’s not sure it’s him. He wins in the end but has to go through so many hoops before he does.”

Why did you decide on Bristol for the premiere of the operas?

“I think Bristol has a great culture and a great potential for musical culture. I really admire what Louise Mitchell is doing there; her application for Lottery funding was brilliantly done and the plans for a completely revamped Colston Hall are brilliant and I’m only sorry it’s not in time for our celebrations this year.

“Also I’ve got a personal connection as my family came from Bristol originally two generations ago. My great grandfather was Henry John Gardiner and he was a Bristol draper and cloth merchant who then moved to London. I live within 40 miles of Bristol, to the east in Dorset, and I feel a very strong connection to the city.”

What are you most excited by in terms of the performances?

“Well I’m hoping the audiences will take away a sense of discovery. I want them to meet an inspirational new musician and composer who they haven’t yet assimilated into their lives. I want them to think ‘My God, this is extraordinarily entertaining and uplifting music’.

“To hear these three pieces, which are each extraordinary in their own right, will I hope reinforce the sense that despite the deities present, they are dealing with real, contemporary issues such as morality, sacrifice, corruption and the ways that love can both triumph and disappoint.”

The next performances at the Colston Hall as part of Monteverdi 450 are L’incoronazione di Poppea on May 8 and L’Orfeo on May 28. For more information, visit www.colstonhall.org/shows/monteverdi-450/

Read more: Review: Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria, Colston Hall