Emmanuelle Haïm celebrates the 20th anniversary of her ensemble Le Concert d’Astrée

As a harpsichordist, she trained with William Christie at Les Arts Florissants, one of the most sought-after Baroque dubs. Stripes confirmed with Daniel Harding and Claudio Abbado before Simon Rattle persuaded her to become a conductor in her turn. Excuse a bit. And she will be called upon to direct the most prestigious modern phalanxes, such as the Berliner Philharmoniker or the Wiener Staatsoper.

But it is the 20th anniversary of her own ensemble, the Concert d’Astrée, that Emmanuelle Haïm is celebrating today, and with it the loyalty to a repertoire, to the instrumentalists, and to the singers who have come in large numbers to feed her productions. The program of festivities, spread over several months, is an illustration of this. Started in Lille (where the ensemble is in residence) with Idomenee by André Campra, continued with Dido and Aeneas by Henry Purcell, and a “20th anniversary gala” in Berlin and at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, it ends in this same Parisian opera with a new production by Cosi Fan Tutte of Mozart directed by Laurent Pelly which starts on Wednesday 9 March. A CD of 20 years A baroque party, vol.2 (Erato) will crown the ensemble in April. We met Emmanuelle Haïm to discuss this anniversary at length with her.

Franceinfo Culture: During the twenty-year gala, the joy displayed by both the star singers and the musicians of the orchestra was striking…
Emmanuelle Haim: That, without a doubt! Of course, music is a celebration. And we perceive it all the more when we have been deprived precisely of this “community” thing. Because celebrating among ourselves is nice, but celebrating with others, with the public, is even better. We need this back and forth with the spectators. And so yes, at the gala, the musicians of the orchestra, the singers of the choir and our guests really came in this spirit of sharing.

Guests in the image of what your ensemble has been for twenty years. Among the singers, we were able to listen – quite exceptionally – one of your lifelong accomplices, Natalie Dessay…
Yes, because Natalie has decided to take the vocals to a minimum, although she still sings. Natalie is a good friend and she supports all causes. She accepted last June a concert to help the creation of the foundation of the Concert of Astrée. There it was joyful, the public was happy to find her. How happy he was to discover lesser-known singers like Anicio Zorzi Giustiniani, a young tenor whom I find wonderful, or Carlo Vistoli or Michael Timonchenko, a young Russian bass baritone who is also wonderful.

The idea was to mix generations, with singers like Rolando Villazon or Emöke Barat, who have been with us for many years, and those who have done more recent projects, or haven’t had a project at all (laughter) because there have been so many cancellations due to covid!

Let’s go back to the Concert d’Astrée: how does an ensemble evolve in twenty years?
There are several things, there is the musical part, but there is also a somewhat entrepreneurial part, which we do not measure when starting an ensemble. When the Concert d’Astrée was born, I certainly didn’t measure it, I only thought of music. I would say that there was on my part both the ardor, the enthusiasm and also the lack of realism. But this one allowed us to do a lot of things, because if we had really measured the risks, we wouldn’t have done anything at all. Besides, we were told: do less. But no, why would we do less? That’s not the idea!

And today, have you evolved to that level?
No, we’re all the same… We didn’t learn anything (laughs).

But you plan your projects with more confidence…
Maybe, but let’s say I’m a very stubborn person, despite the difficulties. Because they exist, that’s perhaps what troubles me a little: after twenty years, I would have thought that the difficulties would be less great. Actually no. Beyond this particular moment of the pandemic, which weakens everyone in culture, we are not at the Concert d’Astrée in an institution that is so supported. In reality, we play poker all day. But hey, we still embark on projects that are close to our hearts with faith.

Let’s talk about music. Where does your visceral link to the Baroque come from?
There are several reasons, the first is related to my instrument, the harpsichord. As a child, I played the piano, then the organ, and my first teachers – including my aunt – made me play Bach a lot: all the time, throughout my apprenticeship. I would say that Bach was really the gateway. And afterwards, when I entered the conservatory in writing classes with the fantastic Jean-Claude Reynaud, who has just passed away, we had created a group (it was called BWV) with which we only did Bach cantatas . We got together, students and teachers – which is quite unusual – in a very informal way every Sunday, just for fun: we were alternately at the harpsichord, in the choir, or… in the kitchen. Naturally, I arrived at the harpsichord and obviously the instrument opened the doors of a repertoire to me.

And you remained attached to the Baroque…
At the start, I didn’t know much about French Baroque or early Italian Baroque, which requires knowledge in very different fields, in language, poetry… It’s absolutely infinite, the areas of competence that one should have. There are people who spend their lives in Italy between 1630 and 1650! So when we say “baroque”, it’s gigantic. In French Baroque, for example, you know the tip of the iceberg and then there’s everything else, so it takes time. And the more you dig and the more interesting it is, the more you discover things and the more exciting it is.

This repertoire, you really defend it with the Concert d’Astrée…
Of course, I also really like later music, the first half of the 20th century, but also romantic music… Some directors
on stage find that access to romantic operas, for example, would be easier, and the public sometimes may think that. And I think the opposite. I don’t think this repertoire is particularly elitist or particularly specialized, in my opinion there is great accessibility. And I find it important to defend that. Me it speaks to me very directly, and it would be a pleasure for others to see this beauty which seems obvious to me.

How has your direction changed in twenty years?
During one of the first operas I conducted, at the Glyndebourne Festival, I said to myself: Handel was conducting from the harpsichord, so it would be nonsense to do it otherwise. And if it’s doable like that, it’s because the music demands it like that. Moreover, if we look at the ramist pits (by Jean-Philippe Rameau, editor’s note), the conductor directs in another way: he directs his set and the orchestra follows the set, that’s another thought, he is really a vector, “conductor” as we say in English.

What do you finally think today?
Of course, conducting has evolved between Monteverdi, Mozart and Bruckner, this must be taken into account. We are not in the reconstitution in formalin because we live today. There are scenic proposals, for example, which make a connection with people, with the public, with today’s issues, which sometimes require adaptation. In any case, if we talk about vocal repertoire, it is a repertoire where the orchestra and the singers should not be separated. The orchestra is not a sound carpet on which the singers surf, not at all. I am thinking of one of the pieces from the arias of Beauty (in Il trionfo del tempo e del disinganno by Handel), which we played at the gala: the solo violin is very much in keeping with the singer. If the two don’t get along, it’s just not doable. So there is sometimes a very enlarged notion of chamber music, shall we say.

And between you and the orchestra? The great Abbado, with whom you worked, made this German expression his own: “zusammen musikieren”, “making music together”. How do you relate to that?
It’s really very collaborative. Because there are people who have been there since the start in the orchestra, there are people who stayed for about ten years and then had different projects… With these musicians, it’s long moments spent together, it’s hand in hand, we read books together, we think about bowing together, for example. Because you can’t know the string instrument better than with a string player (laughs). But the same can be said of certain particular instruments such as the “lirone” (also called “lira da gamba”), within the continuo (a set of basso continuo instruments in baroque music, editor’s note). More broadly, when we have a reflection on the continuo, we need the word to be quite free because it is an improvising group to which we must leave a certain creativity. We are then rather a guide in a collective improvisation. Another example: with my percussionist who has been there for more than fifteen years. Again, nothing is written. So we need an exchange, to leave the proposals open, to examine the score together. The baroque is a musical domain where the written thing is not so important, so necessarily it is together that it is worked. And so here it is, after a while spent with these musicians, a family was created. We are very confident. The longer this collaboration is, the richer and more interesting it is.

“Così fan tutte” by Mozart at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, from March 9 to 20. Direction: Emmanuelle Haim. Director: Laurent Pelly