Jordan de Souza returns to direct in Quebec. It will be Wednesday, for his first concert with the OSM. As part of’a first portrait erected in 2016, we nicknamed him “the 100,000 volt gentleman of the classic”. Since then, the tension has not diminished, but the topics of reflection have changed.
“Our life in music is always on the edge of order and chaos. We navigate in it and failure may be necessary. You should never deprive yourself of a good crisis: all crises are life lessons. »
You would think Jordan de Souza in full existential questioning – and yet, everything smiles on him. At the time of this interview, he had just returned from conducting his first Wagner opera, The ghost shipin Mannheim, Germany, where Wilhelm Furtwängler once worked, and stayed in Glyndebourne, in the British countryside, where he prepares The Bohemia : “It’s magnificent: the London Philharmonic, the singers, the campaign, the festival spirit, the team creation…”
Eighteen performances will bring Jordan de Souza to Glyndebourne between June 11 and August 14. And, on July 26, at the Proms, he will conduct the BBC Symphony Orchestra in the 4and Symphony by Tchaikovsky.
From base to summit in 12 years
If making music with Jordan de Souza is like talking to him, musicians won’t be bored. The interview is like a carousel from La Ronde: we jump from anecdotes to philosophical reflections, passing from French to German, with bits in English. But we want more because Jordan de Souza is complete.
The purpose of the interview was to take stock of his career before seeing him again in Quebec. “Where am I in my career?” Oh ! I mostly think about what I’m going to do tomorrow. “Let’s sum up all the same: Jordan de Souza left the Berlin Comic Opera in July 2020 where, since 2017, he was conductor, then first conductor (eKapellmeister).
His journey is amazing. His parents, who came to Montreal from India in the 1970s, moved to Toronto in the 1980s. He was born there in 1988. The de Souzas have eight children. Jordan moved to Montreal at age 17 to train in music. Who could have thought that a young man who, by his own admission, then knew nothing about opera would find himself 12 years later conducting 50 performances a year in Berlin in an institution run by the now famous troublemaker of the opera world Barrie? Kosky?
“My heart is still there,” admits Jordan de Souza. “I am at home in an opera house. Teamwork is very important, as is family life in a city without having to travel all the time. »
But the chef saw the July 2020 change as a “necessity, after two or three years of procrastinating and turning down a lot of guest chef invitations”. “Being a young artist is like being on a hamster wheel! he observes.
As such, the pandemic has not harmed him. The 2020 break was even salutary. “I didn’t feel slowed down or stopped. I have always worked, I have had more time with the family, we had a second child in December 2020, a son”, he rejoices. “Psychologically, we also have to talk about it: music, the most beautiful art, is also a profession that is sometimes hateful. Seeing yourself taking a break to reflect, exactly at the moment of career take-off is not unwelcome. »
The successful musician faces a real danger of overheating, admits Jordan de Souza: “You have to face the question very early in your career: ‘What am I doing?’ »
Savor the disasters
During the pandemic, Jordan de Souza gambled on (at least) one point. Had he made a mistake by refusing an invitation from the prestigious Bavarian State Opera? “I said to myself: ‘What have I done here? I said no to the Bayerische Staatsoper!” And, at that time, they invited me back. Needless to say I accepted. Being too careful is sometimes a mistake: the only way to know is to take the risk. »
The pandemic eclipse was short for Jordan de Souza. After the more or less reopening of the opera in Munich, in September 2020, things happened fairly quickly. In the summer of 2021 he conducted the Philharmonia Orchestra of London in a Knight of the Rose by Strauss at the Garsington Festival. The Philharmonia immediately invited him for a symphonic concert, which he will give in the fall of 2022 with, on the program, Don Quixote, of Strauss, and the 4and Symphony of Brahms.
The Canadian conductor, who wishes to balance lyrical and symphonic repertoire, does not have words strong enough to praise the achievements of the experience of Kapellmeister night after night at the opera which was, for decades, the natural path to fame (Karajan, Böhm, Szell, etc.).
“What I like about opera is having time. It is possible to work on all facets of conducting. I think you’re not really a conductor until you’ve really faced a catastrophe in front of you in an orchestra pit. In this regard, for Jordan de Souza the end of the end — or the passing test, if you prefer — in the face of the said catastrophe is “not only to think about surviving, but to have learned in a way to savor it a little”. “Here, we start to become a chef and it’s beautiful! he concludes.
So, compared to the life of an opera conductor, “giving symphonic concerts becomes not a vacation, but a luxury”. A symphonic engagement is “three days of focusing on the music and not thinking about everyone being together on a stage”. The coexistence between symphonic and lyrical in Jordan de Souza’s career will be “important “, and the dosage, “difficult”, he agrees.
Jealous of the public
Thinking about his responsibilities in the orchestra pit, the conductor envies the relationship that others can have with the music. “The audience has a different relationship to music than those on stage. In fact, I’m jealous of this candid relationship. »
He sees his work as a form of therapy, too. “Music is a mirror. I learn a lot about myself. When something doesn’t work on rehearsal, is it the idea itself or is it me? If I presented the same idea differently, if I embodied it differently, could I convince? »
In this perspective, Jordan de Souza attributes a “magic” to his job: “The eternal restart; the new permanent chance… Every morning we can start again from the lessons of the day before. »
The chef, who lives in Berlin, does not know what he is aiming for now: “I’m in the fast lane and sometimes I can’t even jump on the train. For four months, I haven’t had a free day. When he happens to sit down and reflect, he finds that he is “not looking for a job”, but a “way of life”. In the future equations, we feel that the separation from his family is a new fact that weighs on him: “We are sacrificing his life. It’s nice to sacrifice it for the music, but it takes a lot, especially from the family. »
In the coming months, Jordan de Souza will direct Carmen at the Netherlands Opera, then Tristan and Isolda in Seattle and La Perrichole of Offenbach at the Theater an der Wien, around Christmas. In 2023, he will make his debut at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin, a welcome invitation to finally return for some time to his family.
“I am also invited back to the Orchester symphonique de Québec in November 2022: it is a very good orchestra with a spirit of camaraderie and a joie de vivre in sound. It’s like coming home,” he rejoices.
In Montreal, Jordan de Souza will lead the 31and Symphony of Mozart, the Concerto in G by Ravel, a creation by Simon Bertrand and the 9and Symphony by Shostakovich. “The OSM played a big role in my musical development, in terms of embodying the orchestral sound, with this virtuosity and this transparent and sensitive sound. In the 9and of Shostakovich, there are the woodwind solos and this sarcastic spirit that mixes creativity and a touch of rebellion, a spirit that I found in Berlin and that I had in Montreal. I think I felt good in Berlin because I had spent 10 years in Montreal. The 9and by Shostakovich is really the perfect piece for our first meeting. »