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SEEN
AND HEARD INTERVIEW
”The Formula of Love”:
Göran Forsling
meets the Estonian composer Mari Vihmand after the premiere of her
first full-length opera (GF)
‘Were you satisfied with the performance last night?’ I ask Mari
Vihmand when we walk through drifts of autumn leaves on our way from
The Estonian National Opera for a cup of tea and a chat in a café in
Tallinn’s Old Town. It is the day after the world premiere of her
opera Ar mastuse valem (The Formula of Love
-
see review).
Mari nods and
smiles lightly: ‘Yes, I was very satisfied. Everything went fine.’
Mari is not a friend of big words. She is far from compliant, she
knows what she wants but she is definitely not the breast-beating
kind. She is a fairly tall and slim woman in her early forties, born
in 1967 in Tartu, who studied composition at the Estonian Academy
of Music with Professor Eino Tamberg and later with Professor Lepo
Sumera, receiving her Master’s degree in 1997. She also studied
composition in Lyon, France, with Gilbert Amy and Philippe Manoury.
She has
primarily written chamber music but there are also some orchestral
pieces, including Floreo, which won First Prize at the
UNESCO-sponsored contest ‘International Rostrum of Composers’ in
Paris in 1996 in the category of composers under 30 years of age.
The conductor then, as at the opera premiere yesterday, was Arvo
Volmer. She has also written choir music and children’s songs.
The premiere
of The Formula of Love was the climax of two hectic months of
rehearsals and Mari has been deeply involved. Not only did she write
the music but she also assisted Maimu Berg with the libretto,
arranged, added and cut things. ‘My contribution was maybe ten per
cent’, she says modestly. She also worked out the dramaturgy
together with stage director Liis Kolle and after the rehearsals
started, there had to be adjustments to the score, including some
rewriting of the vocal parts. It was decided a couple of years ago
who would to sing the central roles and Mari worked with the singers
voices in mind and was clear about the need to be flexible with the
singers’ wishes. Composing the music took one year, balancing the
musical craftsmanship with taking care of her two children.
But the actual
process started long before that. More than ten years ago, Paul Mägi,
then Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Estonian National
Opera, asked Mari for a new opera. She had already written a chamber
opera A Story of Glass, which was awarded the Estonian
National Cultural Prize in 1995, so she wasn’t a newcomer to the
genre, but a full-scale opera is something different of course. She
was hesitant at first but the idea was aroused and subconsciously
she searched for suitable material.
One evening,
she saw on TV in Germany, where she has been living for ten years,
an interview with the author Esther Vilar, who talked about
relations between men and women. Somebody then gave Mari the novel
The Mathematics of Nina Gluckstein, and since she was so
fascinated by what she had heard, she read it – and was hooked. She
presented the idea to Paul Mägi who encouraged her and the project
was soon in its stride.
‘It really has
been team work’, Mari says. Transforming the novel to an opera
libretto was no easy task because the book is a strict narration,
actually of two different stories with a common denominator: two
women whose love goes wrong. In the opera the love story of Nina
Gluckstein and Chucho Santelmo becomes the central theme but the
other story, that of the old poet Roberta Gómez Dawson, is
interwoven into it. The novel has little dialogue, so this had to be
created and there were references to Oscar Wilde and Ovid, but no
strict quotations. Mari had to go through their works and find the
original wordings, which were then incorporated in the opera as
choral pieces, sung in their original languages.
During the
work, Paul Mägi left the Estonian National Opera but Arvo Volmer,
who took over, was just as enthusiastic. The opera was scheduled for
premiere some years ago but was postponed several times. This wasn’t
really a disadvantage: ‘It gave me more time to finish my work’,
Mari says.
The whole
thing seems very much a labour of love for Mari, who ended up
translating the whole novel into Estonian. She takes out a copy of
the book from her handbag. The cover is red as blood – or love.
‘It’s a thin
book’, she says, ‘but it contains so much. And there is a lot here
that there wasn’t room for in the opera.’
There is to be
a presentation of the opera and the novel at the Winter Garden of
the Estonian National Opera this same afternoon, where Esther Vilar,
the author of the novel, will be present but unfortunately which I
can’t manage. The book, however, has been a bestseller in Spain,
France and Germany. The central
male character in the opera, Chucho Santelmo, is an Argentine tango
singer but Mari stresses that this is not a tango opera. ‘There is
tango in it, well, kind of – the scene where Nina and Chucho fall in
love, Chucho’s two songs in the second act and the final scene with
two white figures on trapezes – but it was never important to
underline the Argentinean setting. The central theme is universal
and so is the music.
I mention the
accordionist, who has a central role in the opera. ‘Originally I had
intended to have him incorporated in the orchestra but it didn’t
work out very well so instead he became a soloist. I wrote the music
for him but the accordion is very much an instrument for
improvisation and Jaak Lutsoja embellished and amended the music in
his fashion.’
How did she
start the process of composition?
‘I wrote all
the melodic material first and only then did I go on harmonizing and
later orchestrating it. I wanted the song lines to be bel canto.’
‘And the
choral music? It is very important in this opera and at times I got
a feeling of oratorio.’
‘Maybe.’
‘And in the
Ovid chorus there were even echoes of Gregorian chant.’
‘Maybe. I
never thought that way.’
‘Is there any
specific composer that has been influential on you?’
Mari hesitates
but eventually says: ‘Veljo Tormis is a composer I really
appreciate. He writes choral music that goes to the roots of the
Estonian people and is simple and accessible. Another composer who
means a lot to me is György Ligeti.’
The Estonians
are a singing people and Mari admits that choral music is close to
her heart. ‘I have always been a choral singer. In Germany I sing in
a church choir. We are working on Handel’s Messiah and the
Bach Passions.’
‘What else do
you do?’
‘I’m working
with old people. Singing old German folk songs as a kind of
therapeutic activity. I feel that this is very important. Just as my
work with children is, back in Estonia. Colleagues of mine were
working with drama at school and I wrote some music for them. After
the premiere yesterday I got a single rose from a person whose name
I didn’t know but she had been in this group and was so grateful.
This really warmed me.´
And what is
she working on at present?
‘Nothing!’
Mari says plainly.
‘Are there any
plans for a new opera?’ I ask when we walk back through Old Town in
the October chill.
‘No. Well,
maybe in twenty years’, Mari answers with a smile.
I dearly hope
it won’t be that long.