FILMMAKING #13 - WITH GERGIEV, Diary of a Documentary - CHAPTER V

Gergiev visits his boyhood town: August, 2007

Valery Gergiev was born on May 2, 1953, in Moscow, where his father was stationed as a soldier. When he was six years old the family moved to the town of Vladikavkaz in the province of Ossetia. His father, about whom Gergiev still speaks with great intensity, died when Gergiev was 14 years old. 

Vladikavkaz is the capital city of North Ossetia, at the foot of the Caucasus Mountains. The downtown area is bustling, but there are also quiet neighborhoods marked off in wide, park-like avenues. On one such street the Gergiev family had its apartment, and there is still a cousin in Vladikavkaz whom Gergiev sees when he returns for visits. 

Gergiev still feels a strong allegiance to his home town. He has set up a company there that makes opera costumes for the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, more than thirteen hundred miles away. An arts center, featuring a concert hall and an exhibition pavilion, is being built with Gergiev’s financial help. 

At the age of seven Valery Gergiev already showed great talent as a pianist. But he was much more interested in sports, he says, and escaped whenever possible to play soccer or tennis with his friends. He memorized the name of every professional soccer player in Russia, and to this day he continues to follow soccer avidly. Gradually he began to spend more time with music,. As his piano studies progressed, his teachers saw in him not only a prodigious musical ability, but the qualities of energy and self-confidence that a conductor must have to hold an orchestra’s attention.

*     *     *

Valery Gergiev from our film interview, 2008:

I think the role of a man who stands in front of a big orchestra is to keep the orchestra involved and interested, or even more, to make the musicians feel much more motivated and even excited about what they do together.

My first piano teacher started to talk about conducting when I was maybe eight or nine years old. I don’t know why. She was a wonderful woman. She spent basically all her life in Ossetia. Then comes my first conducting teacher. And again, he believed that when he heard me play piano there seemed to be some promise that I will become a conductor. I can’t tell you why, what it was. I was totally naïve about conducting. If you had told me some forty years ago that I wanted to become a conductor, it would sound like the funniest thing I could hear, because I would rather hear that someone wanted me to become a tennis player or a soccer player. That was the most desired of my future activities. And watching tennis or soccer made me very emotional. I just couldn’t stay calm. It was so exciting.

*     *     *

Gergiev had some free time in June, 2007, and he promised to meet us in Vladikavkaz for three days of filming in his home town. He also agreed to take us into the mountains and show us his favorite boyhood haunts. We travelled to Vladikavkaz a few days before his arrival to scout out the town, and we spent one day filming in the mountains, collecting background shots of the snow-covered peaks. We also visited the shell of the school at Beslan, about forty-five minutes south of Vladikavkaz, where three hundred sixty-five children had been killed in a terrorist attack in September, 2002. At the time of that tragic event, Gergiev had appeared on television to appeal for calm in the face of cries for revenge, and had also conducted a widely broadcast memorial concert for the families of the victims. 

We toured the bombed-out school, where pictures of the murdered children were attached to what remained of the walls. Then we walked through the cemetery, which was laid out in an open field a few blocks from the school. On one long row of graves after another, the birth dates carved into the tombstones were different for each child; the dates of death were the same for all. 
 
We received word that Gergiev’s arrival in Vladikavkaz would be delayed for a day. Instead of flying directly from his concert in Vienna, he had made a long detour to Switzerland for a meeting with potential Mariinsky Theater donors. While waiting for him, we spent the day filming in the town, and rewarded ourselves with a good dinner accompanied by many shots of the local vodka. When Gergiev finally arrived, later that night, we had another dinner with him, and many more shots. The level of conviviality was such that nobody got drunk—or maybe we just didn’t notice.

*     *     *

From our Gergiev interview:

The only impression of conducting, or of conductors I had when I was ten, eleven or twelve years old was from a local figure, a chief conductor of the local orchestra in Ossetia. He was rather a short man. And he used platform shoes. He was both a very exciting man, and very funny. 

I immediately realized that something new had entered my life: something bigger than what I thought was big—something more powerful, more dramatic, more dangerous, certainly more mysterious, much more difficult than anything I knew before. 

He demanded that I know as much as possible of the piece I had learned, that I keep the tempo and the rhythm very clear, and the dynamics very expressive and very contrasting. So if it’s big, it had to be really impressively big. If it’s quiet, be careful, it had to be really quiet. It was very impressive and scary and also exciting. I was in a small provincial city, but for me he was a huge authority and when you start to recognize somebody’s authority, then you grow.

*     *     *

On our second day in Vladikavkaz Gergiev did not go to the mountains with us as planned; he wanted to participate in the annual Beslan commemoration. He told us to go ahead and scout the filming locations—he would join us in a few hours. Our Producer Margie Smilow decided to stay behind and bring him to our filming location as soon as possible. We had started to worry that we might lose the best afternoon sunlight if he delayed too long. The camera crew and I left for the mountains.  We drove half an hour through the countryside, past villages and open farm country. Bee keepers were selling honey from hives piled in boxes along the side of the road. Soon the level ground turned into rolling foothills, with snow-covered peaks looming behind them. The air was clear and the sun at just the right height for filming—diffused light without too many shadows. Having filmed Gergiev and his orchestra in so many indoor concert halls, we were looking forward to seeing him in this striking outdoor setting. While we were waiting, we scouted  around for some interesting shots of the area. We filmed a farmer guiding his horse-drawn cart along a narrow path, past the window of a weather-worn cabin, where an old woman set up a vase of flowers in the sunlight. Jean Marc Froment, our cameraman, had found a stream rushing downhill over sharp-edged rocks. While waiting for Gergiev, Froment provided the world with an encyclopedia of busy-mountainside-stream-reflecting-the-light shots. 

The sun was going down. We were about to end up with an album of standard postcard views without Gergiev in the scene. At that moment Margie Smilow called us to say that she was having no success hurrying Gergiev along. We told her that we were losing the light to the shadows, and our whole trip to the Caucasus might be for nothing. There was nothing she could do, she said. After some further searching, we found a large meadow that was open enough to be free from the advancing mountain shadows for a while longer. When Margie phoned us again to say that she and Gergiev were at last about to leave, we heard his voice interrupt her: he had decided to stop off at a friend’s house to pay his respects for a recent death in the family. This would mean a further delay of at least thirty minutes and we despaired. By the time he arrived it would be too dark to film.

*     *     *

From our Gergiev interview:

My conducting teacher told me that the only place he wanted me to go was the conservatory in St. Petersburg. So I applied for entrance.

The conductors’ entrance test into the conservatory offered one spot to 17 or 18 contenders. There was no way I was even theoretically hoping I would get it. So I was completely free to just jump at the opportunity. There was an orchestra waiting for the contestants. I was younger than the others; most probably I was the youngest. And they were more experienced.

What I remember very well was I had to conduct the beginning of the opera “Carmen,” the famous overture. I remember there was a certain excitement around me. Needless to say I was excited. I was sweating completely and yet, for one reason or another, feeling very healthy. Maybe I had eaten well. I was gesticulating with my hands very energetically, trying to excite this orchestra. And I can’t tell you what in detail was happening, but somehow I felt I gained friends immediately. 

I got this spot, I was the only one. And what’s shocking was that it was not what I expected. It was difficult, somehow, to swallow this—the feeling of being selected. No one had told me I was unique, so it was unusual to see so many of my colleagues left behind.

I was alone, entering this new age of my life.

*     *     *

When Gergiev finally arrived in the mountains, the light had become border-line satisfactory. Yet he did not even then go directly to our filming location; he paused to have lunch with some friends at an outdoor restaurant a few hundred feet from where we were waiting. When Margie phoned to explain where he was, I rushed down a narrow footpath and found him still at the table, dozing in his chair. After an agonizing twenty minutes he said he was ready. We hurried him along to the open slope where we had set up the camera. 

We placed him at a point just under a ridge and fastened a radio mike to his shirt. He was to walk toward us, describe his boyhood visits to the Caucasus, and reflect on any feelings he might continue to have for these mountains. Since we had set up the camera a good distance away from him, we couldn’t get close enough to him to have a conversation as he walked. We had to stay out of the shot and rely on him to speak in an uninterrupted monologue. This was going to be a one-take scene. 

We rolled the camera and cued him. He walked slowly, turning occasionally to look at the huge mountain ranges behind him. I had seen Gergiev harried or distracted before a performance—holding last-minute meetings, making phone calls, talking to his staff—and as I watched, see his focus change dramatically when he arrived in the wings before a concert. When the orchestra had tuned, he would walk onstage, bow to the audience, and turn to the musicians, completely concentrated. His look focussed the players as well. When Gergiev saw that, he would begin the music.

Now, in the mountains, he looked restless and distracted by all the events of the last two days: the detour to Switzerland the night before, the memorial in Beslan and the visit to his friends in mourning. But as he walked slowly across the meadow, we saw his concentrated performance face take over. He proceeded to give us a vivid portrait of himself as a boy making regular visits to his favorite mountain spots, some of them bordered by dangerous rocky ravines. He talked of the history of the Caucasus, describing the wild Scythian tribes that had once lived there, and he compared the sense of permanence he looked for in music to the solidity of this mountain range, massive, yet subject to devastating avalanches. 

When Froment turned off the camera, we were silent for a moment; it had been a moving performance. I thanked him and we walked back to our car. Now he was cordial and relaxed, perhaps because he had fulfilled his promise to us and the burden of this scene was behind him. I reminded him that to complete our shooting plan we still needed to film him in a few important locations in Vladikavkaz: his family’s house and his first music school, for instance. He agreed to be available, but said he would go ahead in his own car and meet us at our hotel. 

When we arrived in town, he had already checked out of the hotel and gone to the airport. And that was that.

*    *    *

Next - WITH GERGIEV Chapter VI. Final filming - St. Petersburg, Moscow for a day, and back to St. Petersburg; putting the film together.

FILMMAKING #12 - WITH GERGIEV, DIARY OF A DOCUMENTARY - CHAPTER IV

Gergiev on Tour: Moscow and Eastern Russia 

In April, 2007, Gergiev brought the Mariinsky Orchestra to Moscow. Every year since 2002, he had taken the orchestra from its home base in St. Petersburg to Russia’s capital, and from there to a different set of eastern Russian cities, traveling in some years as far as Siberia. This performance would be the first in an annual tour that Gergiev called his Moscow Easter Festival. 

Because the orchestra performs in so many cities, each location can receive a visit only every four or five years; this makes each concert a special event for the local population. Gergiev is very dedicated to these audiences, and keeps the orchestra playing at its best. He often gives the city two concerts on the same day—one in the afternoon and another, for a different audience, a short time later. His programs include Russian favorites as well as important works from the classic German and French repertoire. In a concert in Nizhny Novgorod, the orchestra performed Debussy’s “Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun,” Stravinsky’s “Symphony in C,” and Rimsky Korsakov’s “Suite from Scheherazade.” The second program consisted of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, a particularly difficult work lasting over seventy minutes. I can’t imagine any western musicians’ union permitting a schedule of two such demanding concerts in a single day, with only a short interval of rest for the orchestra. Yet Gergiev and his musicians played every concert on the tour with full energy and concentration.

A couple of days before the Moscow concert that inaugurated the tour,  the producer, Margie Smilow, and I spent a couple of days scouting sites that would convey the atmosphere of the city for our film. When we turned into Red Square, I was not prepared for the shock of recognition: St. Basil’s striped cathedral, and the Kremlin presiding over the huge open square that still serves as a military parade ground.  Looking across to the reviewing stand on the wall above Lenin’s tomb, I imagined I could still see Stalin and Molotov, or Brezhnev and Gromyko, scowling in the old newsreels.

On Easter Sunday, at Gergiev’s suggestion, we took our crew to the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, with its three golden onion domes gleaming alongside the Moscow River. As we arrived, the cathedral’s high-pitched bells and deep-throated gongs were just announcing the noonday service. The original cathedral had been compleed in 1861 to commemorate Napoleon’s defeat. In 1931 Stalin ordered it to be destroyed, to make way for a new Supreme Soviet meeting hall. Soon after the Communist regime fell, the Cathedral was rebuilt on the same site and was dedicated in 2000. 

Ten minutes after our arrival, we asked the church officials for permission to send a crew up into the bell tower. They surprised us by immediately agreeing, though we had no special credentials. Our camera- and soundman strapped on their equipment and began the long climb up the interior stone stairway as the congregation was filing in far below. From a corner in the belfry they got some dramatic shots of the bells and the three young bell ringers, pulling their ropes and banging their hammers.

*     *     *

We set out to meet Gergiev at a downtown hotel on Tverskaya Ulitsa, Moscow’s main thoroughfare, and found him at a meeting with a group of businessmen. Gergiev is very good at maintaining contact with influential people in Russia, even with President Vladimir Putin. This helps him extend his fund raising network for the Mariinsky Theater. Gergiev was so well thought of by the powers that be in Moscow. He had been invited to become the director of the Bolshoi Theater. He declined, saying that he would never leave the Mariinsky for the Bolshoi, and to be in charge of both would probably kill him. After more friendly banter, the meeting adjourned to the hotel's rooftop cafel, with a view of Red Square directly over the railing.

A few days later, as the rehearsal began for the first Moscow concert, Gergiev had much to accomplish in a limited amount of time. He was under pressure, and the musicians felt it.  Suddenly, in the middle of Stravinsky’s “Petrouchka,” he stopped the musicians and spoke angrily to them. “I know we’ve played this piece many times,” he told them. “But there’s no excuse for lackadaisical playing. We must rehearse as though we were performing.” No one moved. Gergiev seemed to look each musician in the eye. Then he started again. For the rest of the rehearsal, the sound was extra crisp and expressive.

The concert that evening was introduced by Yury Luzhkov, the mayor of Moscow. An old friend of Gergiev’s, Luzhkov had helped him raise money for a new concert hall in St. Petersburg. He spoke effusively about the maestro’s great talent as a conductor and his dedication to Russian musical life. The mayor was followed by the Minister of Culture, who said the same thing. Then Patriarch Alexy II, the Primate of the Orthodox Russian Church, strode ceremoniously onstage and offered his blessing, ending with a call and response in which the entire audience participated. Apparently they had not forgotten the text during the long Communist hiatus. 

* * * * *

Usually, to film a symphony orchestra, and provide the necessary coverage of the conductor and all the instruments, you need anywhere from five to ten cameras, and many microphone locations. But such a crew would be much too cumbersome when you're trying to keep up with an orchestra on tour. For flexibility—and for obvious budgetary reasons—our crew consisted of one cameraman and one soundman.

On arriving at a new location, the stagehands—regulars from the Mariinsky Theater, who always travel with the group—immediately set up for rehearsal. The film crew has to work quickly to find a position for the camera on stage: once the music starts, there’s no opportunity to find a new location. Our soundman, Gergely Hornos, found an ingenious way to use only one multi-directional microphone, which he set up on the floor in front of the orchestra—a location that made the orchestra sound full and well balanced. The camera usually ended up on one side of the stage for the first half of a rehearsal or concert, and on the other side for the second half. But from neither position could visual interest be sustained for very long.

To solve the problem of providing visual interest with only one camera, I decided to make “a stepping stone out of a stumbling block,” as Albert Schweitzer once said. (He was referring to the way Bach devised endings to his fugues that were all the more brilliant because they unified the individual voices that he had made independent of one another.) I decided to make a montage out of the tour and concert shots. I would begin with a short episode from the first concert, sustain it as long as possible, then cut to a traveling shot of the orchestra on the train, to shots of the next eastern city, and then to the next concert. 

In Moscow I started with about a minute of the “Petrouchka” performance. Then I cut away to a shot of the countryside from the train window to indicate that the tour was under-way. Then a shot of the train pulling into the station at Nizhny Novgorod, 250 miles from Moscow. After a series of shots of the cold, snowy city, and a look at Gergiev and the orchestra performing Rimsky Korsakov’s “Scheherazade,” I cut to the musicians in the frozen dark, boarding the train to Ulyanovsk. 

* * * * *

Three of our filmmaking team were with me on the tour—the cameraman, the soundman, and the production manager, Sergei Beck. Sergei and I shared a sleeping compartment in which the two daytime benches, covered with a sheet and a blanket, served as beds. Some of the compartments had four beds, with upper and lower berths opposite each other. In both arrangements, the violinists and wind players were crowded in with their instruments and luggage; the larger instruments were packed in a baggage car along with cases full of orchestral parts. There was a bathroom at the end of each car, and a room for a watchful attendant who made tea in the morning.

Early the next day, as the train began to slow down for our arrival in Ulyanovsk, the crew filmed the musicians dozing in their compartments, or quietly talking, or just staring out the window. They never spoiled our filming by looking up at the camera or smiling at us; they acted as though we weren’t there. When we followed a trumpet player through several cars to the baggage room, he, too, completely ignored us, even when we had trouble squeezing the camera through the doors. We silently thanked him for not offering to help.
 
In Ulyanovsk, the birthplace of Lenin, we filmed exteriors in the city while the musicians rested before the evening concert. Outside Lenin’s house, we came upon a group of protesters with red banners and balloons chanting for better schools. Apparently such political activism was no longer dangerous in central Russia. We found a late-afternoon view of the Volga River, and from there cut to a concert shot of Gergiev conducting Rimsky’s “Easter Overture.” 

As in Moscow, before any of the tour concerts began, there were speeches and presentations onstage in which Gergiev would accept a token of the community’s appreciation for his visit—a commemorative plaque, a silver cup, or a sample of local craftwork. With the town officials smiling proudly, Gergiev would make a warm speech of thanks. 

After the Ulyanovsk concert, a crowd of well wishers, mostly young students, clamored for his autograph. He asked them what instrument they were studying. (It was amusing to see some of them videotaping their conversations with him on their phones.) During the official dinner that followed, Gergiev finally allowed himself to relax and enjoy a few drinks.

When we returned to the train, we found Gergiev in a compartment with several orchestra members, joking and laughing. Later one of the musicians told me he had seldom seen this kind of easy camaraderie between Gergiev and the musicians. But when we joined a group of wind players in the dining car, and Gergiev and the musicians swapped funny stories, the cordial atmosphere seemed comletely natural.

Our filming ended in Samara, where the Volga becomes the widest river in the world; boats on the far shore are practically invisible. Samara was the alternate capital of Russia during World War II, complete with an emergency bunker for Stalin. After the war, it  became a center of the aerospace industry, and in half-empty lots amid fading advertising billboards there are still models of three-story rockets ready for takeoff. 

At the Samara concert that evening, the whole program consisted of a performance of Act I from Wagner’s “Siegfried,” sung in the original German, and lasting well over an hour. The orchestra was back onstage barely an hour later for a second concert, this time with a performance of Mahler’s tumultuous Fifth Symphony. The Samara audiences listened to both of these programs in concentrated silence.

The music was still ringing in my ears the next morning as the film crew and I waited at the airport for the plane back to Moscow. There was still another concert on the tour—in Ufa, 260 miles farther east from  Samara, but we were not scheduled to film there. We arranged to meet up with Gergiev when he arrived back in Moscow the next day. There was to be a final performance in the famed Tchaikovsky Hall, and since this concert was also outside our shooting plan, we looked forward to the rare treat of hearing the orchestra perform without the task of filming it. 

Tchaikovsky Hall

Unfortunately, when we arrived at the hall before the concert, we found Gergiev and the musicians  standing around waiting; the music stands and heavy instruments had not yet been delivered from Ufa. The train that was to carry them had stalled, and a replacement train did not have enough room for everything. A van was hired to carry the remaining instruments, but it had been held up in heavy traffic. During the delay, a Moscow television station had plenty of time to complete an elaborate multi-camera setup in preparation for a special live transmission of the concert. To offset the musicians’ black and white formal clothes, the TV producers decorated the stage and the music stands with garlands of lights tinted in blue and rose. It looked like a Christmas window at Saks Fifth Avenue.

When the instruments finally arrived, the stagehands set up the chairs and music stands in record time. The musicians had only a few minutes to go over some of the difficult passages with Gergiev before the audience was admitted to the hall; the concert was now an hour late. In spite of all these delays and a frantic last-minute mini-rehearsal, the orchestra’s playing was superb. I found myself applauding at the end as enthusiastically as anyone in the hall. 

The next day we began to plan our June visit to Ossetia, Gergiev’s birthplace in the foothills of the Caucasus mountains.

* * * * *  

NEXT - 
V. St. Petersburg, Ossetia (The Caucasus), and back to St. Petersburg

 

PROGRAMS OF THE MARIINSKY ORCHESTRA’S PARTICIPATION
IN THE MOSCOW EASTER FESTIVAL 2007

8th APRIL, 19.00, Sunday — Moscow, Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatoire

Tchaikovsky

Violin Concerto—Soloist: Leonidas Kavakos, violin

Stravinsky

‘Petrushka’

9th APRIL, 18.00, Monday — Nizhniy Novgorod, Kremlin Concert Hall

Debussy

Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune

Stravinsky

Symphony in C

Rimsky-Korsakov

‘Scheherazade’      

9th APRIL, 20.30, Monday — Nizhniy Novgorod, Kremlin Concert Hall

Mahler

Symphony No. 5

10th APRIL, 19.00, Tuesday — Ulyanovsk, Culture and Concert Center of Lenin Memorial        

Rimsky-Korsakov

Russian Easter Festival Overture

Debussy

Nocturnes (I, II)
‘Le Martyre de Saint Sébastien’

Rimsky-Korsakov

‘Scheherazade’      

11th APRIL, 18.00, Wednesday — Samara, Concert Hall of the Samara State Philharmonic Society

Wagner

Siegfried, I act (concert)

11th APRIL, 20.30, Wednesday — Samara, Concert Hall of the Samara State Philharmonic Society

Rimsky-Korsakov

Russian Easter Festival Overture

Borodin

Symphony No. 2

Stravinsky

‘The Firebird’

12th APRIL, 18.00, Thursday — Ufa, Bashkir State Opera and Ballet Theatre

Wagner

‘Die Walkürie’, III act (concert)

12th APRIL, 20.30, Thursday — Ufa, Bashkir State Opera and Ballet Theatre

Rimsky-Korsakov

Russian Easter Festival Overture

Stravinsky

‘Jeu de cartes’

Stravinsky

Symphony in Three Movements

Ravel

Bolero

13th APRIL, 19.00, Friday — Moscow, Tchaikovsky Concert Hall

Debussy

Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune

Stravinsky

Symphony in Three Movements

Stravinsky

Symphony in C

Debussy

‘La Mer’

14th APRIL, 15.00, Saturday — Moscow, Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatoire

Beethoven

Piano Concerto No. 4
Soloist: Alexei Volodin, piano

Mahler

Symphony No. 5

23rd APRIL, 19.00, Monday — Moscow, Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatoire

Stravinsky

Cantata ‘The King of the Stars’

Debussy

‘Le Martyre de Saint Sébastien’

Stravinsky

‘Oedipus Rex’

24th APRIL, 19.00, Tuesday — St. Petersburg, Mariinsky Concert Hall

Mahler

Symphony No. 4

8th MAY, 19.00, Tuesday — Moscow, Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Musical Theatre

Prokofiev

‘Love for Three Oranges’ (staged)

9th MAY, 13.00, Wednesday — Moscow, Poklonnaya Gora

Gala Concert for the Victory Day

9th MAY, 19.00, Wednesday — Moscow, Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatoire

Stravinsky

‘Les Noces’
Symphony of Wind Instruments
‘The Rite of Spring’

FILMMAKING #11 - WITH GERGIEV, DIARY OF A DOCUMENTARY - CHAPTER III

The London Symphony Orchestra, January-March, 2007

Valery Gergiev had recently been appointed Principal Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra. He would continue the gigantic task of running the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, while retaining his other positions, including Director of the Gergiev Festival Mikkeli in Finland, Principal Conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, and Principal Guest Conductor at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

To prepare for the LSO segment of our film on Gergiev, we traveled to London in January, 2007. Our first task was to survey the space in St. Luke’s Church where the orchestra holds its preliminary rehearsals. Then we would have a look at the Barbican Centre, a performing arts complex in the City of London, where the final rehearsals and the concert would take place. We had to know how the orchestra would be set up in each location, in order to choose the best camera angles and microphone placements, and see if additional lighting would be necessary.

At the Barbican, the strings closest to the conductor sit on the stage floor, while those further back are placed on raised platforms. The winds and brass also sit on a series of risers, ascending one above the other to a row of percussion instruments along the back wall. That way all the musicians can see the conductor and their sound is projected over the players in front of them.

Four or five automatically-controlled cameras connected to an upstairs control room are permanently mounted on the side walls of the stage. The Barbican gave us permission to record rehearsal and concert footage using these cameras. We would later combine this material with the footage from the camera we had brought with us. Nyika Jansco, our cameraman, set up his tripod on a riser next to the basses, a location which gave us various views of the orchestra and a zoom-in shot of Gergiev on the podium. To complete the coverage, the Barbican placed several additional manned cameras of their own at various locations in the hall. (After early objections, audiences have learned to accept the presence of these intruders, as long as they and their operators are dressed in black, and are quiet during performances.)

Our scouting trip complete, we flew back to New York to assemble the rest of the crew and to order the equipment. We returned to London late in March. We had scheduled our shoot to coincide with Gergiev’s concert performance of Stravinsky’s ballet, “The Rite of Spring.”

* * *

In 1913 the Paris premiere of “The Rite,” choreographed and danced by Nijinsky, created a sensation. The work begins with a solo bassoon, straining in its highest register—an eerie sound never before heard in an orchestral work. Stravinsky reported that at the beginning of the ballet a storm broke out when “the curtain opened on a group of knock-kneed and long-braided Lolitas jumping up and down.” As the ballet continued, jeers and catcalls filled the hall. From the balcony came a call: “Un docteur!” Then another: “Un dentiste!” And a third: “Deux dentistes!” In the riot that followed a man “beat rhythmically with his fists on the head of the man in front of him,” and an argument between two men seated in adjacent boxes led to a duel the next morning. Top hats were thrown into the orchestra, but conductor Pierre Monteux, Nijinsky, and the ballet corps persevered through it all.

Gergiev had conducted “The Rite” as a ballet and in its concert version many times during the course of his career. His recording of the work came about almost by accident.

In 2001, Gergiev had just completed recording Scriabin’s “The Poem of Ecstasy,” which required many hours of correcting and rerecording. Finding that there was still a chunk of time left over, Gergiev proposed taking a look at “The Rite of Spring.” The music was distributed, and they recorded it straight through. That version of “The Rite” proved to be so good that it was combined with the Scriabin in the CD and featured on the cover as the main work. It became one of Gergiev’s most successful recordings. Now we were going to see him present this work to the LSO and prepare it for a live concert performance.

* * *

At the start of his first rehearsal of “The Rite” in St. Luke’s Church, Gergiev played through the entire piece, stopping only to repeat difficult passages. These musicians had played “The Rite” many times before, but it's a very tricky piece, with continually shifting meters. (At one place a measure in 5/8 is followed by 2/8, 4/8, 5/8, and 6/8.) In these church rehearsals, Gergiev did not focus on blend and dynamic contrasts. That would wait until he heard the orchestra in the acoustics of the concert hall.

After the orchestra moved from the church to the Barbican, Gergiev began working on the orchestral colors Stravinsky had created with his unusual combinations of instruments. (One example: flutes and muted trumpets sounding together with a trilling clarinet, combined with a sustained trill in the violas and soft pizzicatos from the cellos and basses.) Throughout the rehearsal Gergiev emphasized the surprises Stravinsky created through sudden changes of dynamics and tempo. Gergiev reminded the musicians that this was a theatrical piece—a ballet with a dramatic story—that the main task of a concert performance of “The Rite” was to capture the theatricality of the work.

During the rehearsal intermission, Gergiev agreed to a filmed interview. There was a grand piano in the reception area outside his dressing room, presumably placed there for soloists to warm up before going onstage, and we seated Gergiev on the piano bench. I was hoping that he would demonstrate his celebrated ability to reduce complicated orchestra scores to a version for two hands on the piano. I had brought along a full score of “The Rite of Spring,” for that purpose. Without asking, I opened it on the piano stand in front of him.

Gergiev began with some remarks about the difficulties Stravinsky presents in “The Rite,” both for the conductor and the orchestra, but each time I hinted that it would help if he illustrated his points on the piano, he resisted. Finally I asked him directly: “Maestro, would you please play some of ‘The Rite of Spring’ on the piano?” He was still unwilling, but he did play some short rhythmic chords from the piece, perhaps to get me to stop asking. I thought that maybe he didn’t want to feel like a trained seal performing his tricks. He said that in fact this ability was not so extraordinary—it was part of every conductor’s training. But to read an orchestral score as complicated as “The Rite Of Spring” and simultaneously play it on the piano was surely an achievement few could match.

Igor Stravinsky, "The Rite of Spring"
sample page from the full score

*  *  *

As the rehearsal continued, I looked over to see how the automatic cameras on the wall were panning around the orchestra, but they weren’t moving. I raced up two flights of stairs and knocked on the studio door. Two men were sitting in front of the control panels, eating sandwiches and chatting; the television monitors for the automatic cameras were dark. Turn on the cameras, I begged. We’re filming the rehearsal. That surprised them—they normally recorded only the concerts. But they cheerfully agreed, and turned on the switches. Thank God they didn’t have to make several phone calls to get permission. When I returned to the stage, I was relieved to see that we had lost only five minutes or so of the rehearsal.

As the final rehearsal proceeded, Gergiev asked the LSO not to hold back, not to save themselves for the concert. That way they would feel confident that all the difficulties in the work had been solved, thus allowing them to feel free to respond to any small variations he might make in the excitement of the performance.

Gergiev ended the session with a run-through of “The Rite” with no interruptions. He did not speak, conveying the music through gestures and facial expressions, and the musicians did not hold back: they gave him everything he asked for. Gergiev did become impatient at one point. He wanted a rounded tone from the trombones, but they kept playing with a hard-edged attack. Several times he asked them: “Please play ‘da-da-da,’ not ‘ta-ta-ta.’” When the trombones still didn’t give him what he asked for, Gergiev stopped the orchestra one last time. “Tomorrow, with another conductor, you can play ‘ta-ta-ta,’” he said. “Now it should be ‘da-da-da.’ Please do it.”

We filmed the concert that evening in front of an enthusiastic audience. Gergiev was at the top of his dramatic form, and “The Rite” sizzled. We got great shots of the orchestra in groups and close-up singles, and, most important, of Gergiev at his most intense. I was not sure whether he was finally satisfied with the trombones that evening, but I later heard that at the end of the season two of them had been replaced.

We left London for our next filming dates in Moscow and eastern Russia. Everything in London had gone so well. My only regret was that I’d left my new digital electric razor in the hotel room.

* * *

VALERY GERGIEV COMMENTS ON CONDUCTING “THE RITE OF SPRING,” from our interview in New York, Feb., 2007

“I happen to think that music written for the theater has to have an even stronger theatrical message when played in the concert hall. If it’s in the opera house and there is a ballet company dancing to the music of ‘The Rite of Spring,’ then you are helped by the costumes and the people jumping on stage. But when you are alone with an orchestra you have to be theatrical—you have to be a storyteller. You have to learn how to play that role and provide the magic for the audience. Because you ask yourself: why at eight o’clock should someone who lives at 98th Street travel to Carnegie Hall?. What’s down there? At home there is food in the refrigerator, maybe even a bottle of wine. Maybe there are some wonderful family members, children, a wife, grandparents, maybe neighbors and friends. Why leave all this and go to the concert hall? Because people still believe in the magic of theatrical life. So the conductor has a responsibility, and the responsibility is great. You feel disappointed when you don’t perform well.

But if you come close to this great excitement and great atmosphere, you feel it, you just feel with your back that people are sharing with you a moment of the striking, uplifting power of music—striking colors, striking rhythms— you feel it, you feel it.

ARTICLE BY GARRETH DAVIES, PRINCIPAL FLUTE OF THE LSO

In 2014 Gergiev left the London Symphony Orchestra, and accepted the position of Music Director of the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra. As a farewell from London, Garreth Davies, the principal flutist of the LSO wrote the following tribute, published in the LSO Magazine, October, 2015.

“He (Gergiev) said to me once in an interview, that there are times when he is deliberately unclear to the players in his gestures; he likes to create tension and a sense of reinvention – certainly I don’t recall ever giving the same performance twice with him in charge. I think what he does is not only create a theatrical atmosphere of anticipation, danger and unpredictability for the audience, but also crucially for the orchestra. At the end of ‘The Rite’ there is a distinctive pause before the final scream of the piece. Most conductors wait awhile, but nobody else ever waits quite as long as Valery–every single person in the hall waits and watches. The pause isn’t in the score, but as he stands unmoving for what seems like forever before suddenly clawing the final primal sounds from the orchestra, once again, the theatre is there for all to see.

“This response is easy to justify in the ‘theatrical’ works. It’s simple to draw parallels with the moves of a dancer and a conductor; we can all make comparisons with the way a conductor spreads his arms wide like the wings of Stravinsky’s ‘Firebird.’ What separates Gergiev is that he brings this same approach to the purely orchestral works too...When you hear the Bartók Dance Suite or the Concerto for Orchestra, close your eyes and in Gergiev’s hands you can still see the dancers.”

WITH GERGIEV
Diary of a Documentary

1. St. Petersburg, first visit
II. The Metropolitan Opera, New York
III. the London Symphony Orchestra

next -
IV. Moscow and Eastern Russia
V. St. Petersburg, Ossetia (The Caucasus), and back to St. Petersburg

FILMMAKING #10 - WITH GERGIEV, DIARY OF A DOCUMENTARY - CHAPTER II

AT THE METROPOLITAN OPERA IN NEW YORK

In February, 2007, Valery Gergiev had been engaged to conduct several performances of Tchaikovsky's opera, “Eugene Onegin,” at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. As part of our film on Gergiev, we were eager to observe him at work in one of the major opera houses in the world.

Negotiations for permission to bring our documentary equipment into the Met took a couple of months, as we had to sign a number of detailed agreements. We were liable for the protection of Met property, we had to comply with the regulations of the several performing and production unions, the Met had to approve the list of our equipment, and we were told we could not bring a camera or a microphone onstage during rehearsals. Finally, though we were granted permission to shoot for several days, we were only allowed to use twelve minutes of Met material in our Gergiev documentary.

Gergiev had been Principal Guest Conductor of the Met for ten years and had developed a good rapport with the musicians; the first orchestral rehearsal went smoothly. At the second rehearsal the soloists were brought in and seated on a raised platform behind the orchestra. Gergiev's plan was to sing through the entire opera, stopping to adjust tempos and balances. He was looking forward to working again with his longtime colleagues and friends: ­Renee Fleming, singing the role of Tatyana, and Dmitri Hvorostovsky, the Onegin.

Before the rehearsal began, Renee Fleming informed me that I could photograph her face but was not to record her singing — she didn't feel she was in good enough voice. She must have known that it was impossible to lift the singing of one character out of the complete recorded sound. But she was adamant, so we were limited to recording duets and trios from scenes where Tatyana was not present.

During the following days we shot production activities—set construction, costume fittings, and makeup sessions. We filmed interviews with some of the orchestra musicians, and Fleming did allow us to film a conversation between herself and Dmitri Hvorostovsky about the frustrated love between Tatyana and Onegin.

On the day of the final dress rehearsal, as the cast assembled on stage, Fleming decided she did not want to be filmed at all, because her hair dresser had not completed the final touches to her satisfaction. No amount of begging from us or from the Met staff could budge her. A frantic call upstairs to the office of general manager Peter Gelb, brought him down to the auditorium. He went on stage and had a few quiet words with Fleming, and she acquiesced.

The climax of the opera comes at the end, when Tatyana leaves Onegin for the last time. Though she has always loved him, she must honor her marriage to a wealthy general. The lovers embrace, but Tatyana struggles to pull away as Onegin tries desperately to hold on to her. Cameraman Don Lenzer, shooting from the first row of the audience, kept them in a close two-shot for the entire scene; no shots of Gergiev. Then, as Tatyana finally tears herself away from Onegin and dashes offstage, Lenzer opened the lens, showing Onegin on an empty set, alone and desolate.  Great camera work.

We planned to intercut the dress rehearsal shots of the the two soloists with close-ups of Gergiev conducting in a performance, but the Met would not allow cameras in the hall. We explained that we only wanted to set up against the back wall of the orchestra pit, well out of sight of the audience. Our Producer, Margie Smilow, finally obtained permission, but only for the last fifteen minutes of the opera. We pretended to be disappointed at this restriction, while rejoicing that we would get precisely the shots of Gergiev we wanted during the climactic finale.

First, before the evening performance began, we took the camera inside Gergiev's dressing room. As Gergiev was ending a telephone conversation with someone in Cincinnati, the soprano Anna Netrebko rushed into his room and gave him a big hug. During her early days at the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, Gergiev had been Netrebko's mentor, and had given her her first major operatic roles. They sat down together, and were chatting amiably when the gong sounded for the beginning of the opera. Netrebko jumped up. “Let's talk some more after the performance,” she said, and with a girlish cry danced out of the room. Gergiev stared after her for a moment, then checked his tie in the full length mirror and went out to conduct.

During the intermission before the last act, we moved the camera into the back of the orchestra pit, and waited. At the start of the final scene, Lenzer slowly zoomed in on Gergiev. What he saw was the drama between Tatyana and Onegin playing out in the expressions on Gergiev's face, conveying to the orchestra the tumultuous emotions in the music.

Later, in the editing room, we intercut the shots of the two singers from the afternoon dress rehearsal with the conducting shots of Gergiev in the performance. This gave us the powerful finale we were hoping for.

* * *

A few weeks later I ran into Renee Fleming as I was bringing a copy of our edited tape to the Met for approval. A screening had been set up for general manager Peter Gelb, and Fleming had been invited. As we walked thought the empty hall to the lobby and took the elevator to the fourth floor, Fleming remained silent. I don't think she was angry, but she had no small talk for me.

Gelb and Fleming approved our tape.

* * *

APPENDIX

1. Excerpts of an interview with Sarah Billinghurst, former Artistic Manager of the Met, Feb., 2007

“I am the Assistant Manager in charge of artistic matters...I've known Valery Gergiev since 1989, when he made his operatic debut in America, during Prokofiev's opera, ‘War and Peace’ at the San Francisco Opera. We first met in Hamburg, to discuss casting, and he was late, which was not unusual. We liked each other immensely then and we've been very close colleagues and friends ever since, which is seventeen years now.

“Then I came to the Met and he became Principal Guest Conductor here. He does at least one, often two operas every year.

“That means I am involved with coping with the absolutely crazy schedule that he imposes on himself. For instance, in the time that he is doing ‘Eugene Onegin’ he's also travels to Washington to conduct Rossini's ‘Il Viaggio a Rheims.’ He is also conducting performances of ‘Falstaff.’ And he was commuting back and forth to the Kennedy Center in Washington. Every morning we would sit here anxiously waiting for the plane to land so that he would be here for the 11 o'clock rehearsal, which he somehow did — every morning. During an eight-to ten-day period, between performances of ‘Onegin’ at the Met, he's going to conduct the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Pittsburgh Orchestra and his own Mariinsky orchestra in Toronto and other places in Canada. So he is very hard to pin down. Even when he is so busy, when he gets on the podium and the music starts, he is totally concentrated. He's transformed. And he transforms the orchestra as well.

“He's got a very unusual conducting style. And I said to one of the musicians, ‘How do you follow Valery when he is, you know, beating time, but he also has one hand over to the side, fluttering as he so often does?’ And he said, ‘well, actually he's quite easy to follow, we look at his eyes. That's where the music comes from.’ ”

2. An interview meeting with Janet Klavatir, a prompter.

During rehearsals and performance she sits under a little covered box at the center of the stage, peering out at the singers, calling out the words a beat or two before they are to be sung.

JANET KLAVATIR: I think of the prompter as an extension of the conductor's arms. We're here to help keep the singers on track get things back on track, and if they get off, help them get back. The prompter gives the first few words of every line to everyone in the production, chorus and soloists.

Q: And can you easily be heard?

KLAVATIR: Oh yes. I talk like this, sometimes I yell, sometimes I'll clap my hands if things are off musically. I snap my fingers. Sometimes I’ve been asked to give pitches. The music usually covers me.

Q: So have there ever been any disasters?

KLAVATIR: Throughout my years of prompting, yes. Prompting is a two way street. If a prompter yells “stop” or “watch me,” and the singer ignores it, it's very hard to get things back on track. But prompters are well liked by the singers, and singers who know how to use us pay attention to us, because they know we're there to help them to make the performance better.

Q: How about this little box you're in?

KLAVATIR: It's my home away from home. It has lights on a dimmer switch. There are two monitors, one on either side, that show the conductor, and the prompter's box has speakers, two of them, that shoot the orchestra sound into the box because these walls are cement and several inches thick. I'm on a chair that raises and lowers, and there's a little ladder to get in here. There’s also a telephone in case of an emergency.

Q: And does a prompter have to be a trained musician?

KLAVATIR: A very well-trained musician.

* * *

For some good shots of Gergiev conducting, see this trailer.

filmmaking #9 - WITH GERGIEV, Diary of a Documentary - Chapter I

ST. PETERSBURG - JUNE, 2006

We filmed conductor Valery Gergiev in several ten-to-fifteen-day periods from 2006 to 2008. Our cameras were present at rehearsals and concerts in St. Petersburg, London, New York, and Moscow. and we traveled with him to concerts in three eastern cities along the Volga River — Nizhny Novgorod, Ulyanovsk, and Samara. Everywhere we went, we filmed his conversations and meetings in offices, dressing rooms, and on stage during orchestra intermissions. We rode with him in taxis and trains. When he made a quick visit to Vladikavkaz, his home town in the Caucasus, we went with him.

On our first visit to St. Petersburg, in late June, when daylight lasts for twenty-four hours, we captured some of the famous White Nights activities: fireworks and dancing along the Neva River and up and down the avenues and side streets. The whole city, it seemed, was wildly celebrating.

Valery Gergiev had lived in St. Petersburg since his student days. For the last twenty years, he had been Artistic and General Director of the Mariinsky Theater, and had built a vast repertory of opera, ballet, and orchestral music. Thanks to critical and popular success at home and guest appearances around the world, at the age of 53 Gergiev had become one of the most highly regarded musicians of his day. 

* * *

Home since 1860 to ballet, opera, and symphonic performances, the Mariinsky Theater was named in honor of Empress Maria Alexandrovna. The U-shaped auditorium, rising through four lavishly gilded balconies, seats 1625. The Royal Box still retains the aura of elegance that once attracted the Imperial family, and then the leading Communist bureaucrats. Today, those seats are taken by business moguls in designer suits.

Inside the Mariinsky we filmed a wide range of artistic and administrative activities: ballet classes, dueling lessons, opera stage rehearsals, set construction, costume sewing, and casting meetings for coming opera seasons.  We filmed Gergiev presiding at a press conference promoting a Parisian jewelry company that had lent precious gems for performances of Balanchine's ballet, “Jewels.” And in a small, private office, we found two assistants compiling an urgent list of matters for Gergiev to resolve before the end of the day. 

One of the reasons Gergiev gave us free run of the theater, and allowed us to follow him so closely everywhere he traveled, was the easy working relationship he formed with our producer Margie Smilow. She was responsible for getting permission for us to shoot in various locations in a busy theater, and for making sure that the crew and equipment were set up on time. That Gergiev gave us free run of the Mairiinsky was ultimately due to his trust in Margie's friendly professionalism.  In no time he called her Margie and he was Valery to her. 

Gergiev and the Mariinsky Orchestra

Our first opportunity to film Gergiev conducting was a rehearsal on the stage of the Mariinsky Theater; pianist Yefim Bronfman was playing the Rachmaninoff's Concerto no. 3. 
At first we kept our camera at a distance to avoid distracting Gergiev. As he became used to us, we slowly moved in closer. But we noticed that the microphone, fastened to the end of a moving boom above his head, annoyed him. To eliminate the problem we fastened a wireless mike just below his collar, passing the cable under his shirt to a transmission pack in his pants pocket. I worried that he would become impatient with this complicated procedure. But after a few days, when we marched up to him with the apparatus, he quickly unbuttoned his shirt and raised his arms, like a child who sees a parent approaching with a sweater.

As the musicians tuned their instruments, cameraman Nyika Jancso set up behind the orchestra. This afforded him a wide shot of either side of the group and a head-on portrait of Gergiev. I had worked on several films with Nyika and we had become good friends. He had great instincts in filming music: how long to hold a shot, and how to let the music tell him where to find the next one. 

The auditorium lights had been turned on for us, creating a background that lent depth to our pictures. Gergiev walked on stage and the tuning quieted down. Before he could begin, a violinist half-way back in the section, stood up and complained: “Maestro, that light up there is in our eyes.” From other parts of the orchestra came murmurs of agreement. Gergiev asked me to lower the lights. Sometimes when we set up for an orchestra we make the lights purposely too bright. We wait for someone to complain, then we bring them down to the level we wanted in the first place. But not this time: we were embarked on a long project and did not want to risk any bad will at the very beginning. Nyika and his crew lowered the light — a little. 

This rehearsal provided us with two usable scenes. One involved a string passage in which the violas had played a phrase in two separate sections. Gergiev sang it for them as one long, smooth melody, at the same time reminding them not to be too expressive — it should only be a calm background. He turned to the first violins. “Here you must all be soloists,” he told them. He sang the passage and we could hear a much warmer expression in the violins when they played it back to him. Nyika had anticipated this change and panned across the whole violin section. Off to the side, I saw some of the violas smiling in admiration of what the violins had done, but with our single camera we missed that shot. Nyika now zoomed in on Gergiev as he so clearly conveyed the rise and fall of the music, phrase after phrase. It was a fair trade.

In another spot, Gergiev wanted a more rounded tone from the trumpets: he imitated their rough sound with an ugly, humorous squawk: “Yark yark yark.” The trumpets pretended to take offense, then gave him the beautiful quality he wanted. We saved filming the bravura playing of Yefim Bronfman for the concert, when we would have a better camera angle from a box Gergiev had reserved for us. We now had five minutes of gold out of a two-hour session.

A few days later we filmed a rehearsal of Gergiev and soprano Renee Fleming preparing for a gala fund raising concert of favorite operatic arias. Fleming sang with her usual creamy tone and sense of authority, and the two of them worked beautifully together. I was astonished when during a short pause in the rehearsal, several members of the orchestra stood up boldly and complained to Gergiev that they had too many programs to rehearse — they were being worked too hard. Gergiev replied sympathetically that they had a point, which quite caught them off guard, especially when he urged them to send a group to meet with him and work out a more comfortable weekly schedule. 

After the rehearsal Fleming gave us permission to film a conversation between her and Gergiev in his office. Gergiev did most of the talking, on the subject of the need to modernize the Mariinsky. All the technical equipment was outmoded, but the biggest problem was the lack of backstage space for scenery. For daytime opera rehearsals, the sets had to be trucked in from another building, then dismantled and returned to storage in time to set up for a different opera performance that evening.

In the end, we only used a small part of this conversation: Gergiev's heartfelt insistence on preserving the historically important features of the Mariinsky in any plans for renovation. And nothing of the rehearsal with Fleming was included in the film. The arias were too long to make interesting with our single camera shooting from the side. 

* * *

A Scene with Gergiev and the Prima Ballerina

We are at the ready – camera, microphone and one light, in what has become our every-day staging area: the corridor outside Gergiev's office in the Mariinsky Theater. Gergiev might arrive from any of several directions, and we must be ready for him. He often falls behind in his planned schedule, and he is famous for extending his meetings, or suddenly adding an appointment in the city. But we have learned to wait. Meanwhile we are talking to Ulyana Lopatkina, one of the theater's great ballerinas. She tells us she wants to protest to Gergiev about a choreographer who is changing one of her dances to make it more “up-to-date.” Tall and erect, she is dressed in a long, dark, shirt-dress, open at the collar, her chiseled face punctuated by a thin stripe of red lipstick. The end of a multi-colored bandana, wrapped around her head, falls down her back to her waist. She wears pearl drop earrings and an old fashioned, delicately-jeweled silver necklace: Ulyana Lopatkina, the star in elegant casual. 

Gergiev arrives. We roll the camera; he pretends not to notice, a signal that he is giving us permission to continue. Filmmakers fool themselves when they claim that they are invisible, merely observing events without influencing them, but I know that our presence shapes those events and the behavior of our subjects. Regardless of what takes place in front of our cameras, the reality that ends up on the screen is the one we construct to tell our story. 

Gergiev beckons Lopatkina into his office. I follow, pushing Nyika and the sound man ahead of me. Gergiev sits at his desk and turns to the dancer. I can barely contain myself with the thrill of this opportunity, and I crouch over Nyika like a baseball umpire behind the catcher. I am certainly surprised that Lopatkina raises no objection to our presence. She is taking a big chance going over the head of the choreographer to the boss of the theater. But she is not going to lose this opportunity. She forges ahead.

In the corner of the office a television set is showing a semi-final World-Cup soccer match. The sound is turned down, but definitely audible. During the next fifteen minutes Lopatkina pleads her case while Gergiev watches the game, looking away from the screen from time to time to ask her a few questions. I gently push Nyika closer to Gergiev. We need as many camera angles as possible and Gergiev seems to be giving us complete freedom. Lopatkina never glances our way — she ignores everything in the room, concentrating on Gergiev. In fact he has been listening carefully to her in spite of the soccer match. He shows genuine concern for his leading ballerina. As Artistic and General Director of the Mariinsky Theater he must deal with this issue. He telephones his secretary and asks her to arrange a meeting with Lopatkina, the choreographer, and himself. She thanks him as we quietly back out of the room. We refrain from high fives.

Addendum: Some time later, the choreographer, who was also head of the Mariinsky's ballet company, was dismissed.

*   *   *

APPENDIX - Gergiev on a train, October, 2006

Four months later Maestro Gergiev agreed to let us bring a camera along on a train ride from New York City to Washington D.C. Here are two excerpts:

GERGIEV:
1. “There is a rapport between an orchestra and a conductor when they've worked together for many years, like Levine at the Met or Muti at La Scala. And that is the story of the Mariinsky. Even if I make changes in a performance, the musicians will understand what I want, and will respond. It is important to remember that when I work with the Mariinsky six times a week, I rely on our cooperation over twenty years and on rehearsals we had maybe one year ago, maybe seven years ago. There’s a large list of symphonies and operas which could be more or less easy for us to perform with a ten-minute rehearsal. So sometimes I can make short rehearsals — not because I don’t like to rehearse. Everyone knows I like to work. That’s not a secret.” 

2. “A conductor must be very well prepared for a particular piece of music. He must also be in a good mood and share this mood with everyone else. Imagine that you are conducting music of Beethoven, or music of Prokofiev, and a hundred or more people are involved in the same story, just playing music of a great composer. The conductor has to know how to make this a very, very important thing for the people who are involved.”

* * *

WITH GERGIEV
Diary of a Documentary

Chapters to come:

II. The Metropolitan Opera
III. The London Symphony Orchestra
IV. Moscow and Eastern Russia
V. Ossetia (The Caucasus), and back to St. Petersburg

Filmmaking #8 - Pursuing Valery Gergiev

I first saw Valery Gergiev conduct in March, 1995, when he led the New York Philharmonic at Lincoln Center. The program included works of Liadov and Berlioz, and concluded with Tchaikovsky's Sixth Symphony. Gergiev's performance of this familiar piece gave it a dramatic shape I had not heard before. The virtuoso winds and brass played with an unusual variety of colors, and there was a newly acquired urgency and warmth in the sound of the strings.

Orchestra players will tell you of the rare conductor whose gestures and facial expressions convey a deep, personal involvement in the music. Somehow, the musicians understand what the conductor is showing them, and by an inexplicable kind of magic they embody it in their playing and convey it to the audience.

At the Lincoln Center concert in 1995 Gergiev's face was not visible from my seat in the side balcony. But once, when he turned his head in profile to ask for a crescendo from the viola section, I saw his expression, and the phrase he drew from the violas told me they had seen it too. 

I decided to make a film that would try to show how Gergiev connects with an orchestra.

* * * * 

I spent the next eight or nine years pursuing him. I went to several of his concerts but could not get backstage to be introduced. I wrote a couple of letters that were not answered. In the meantime I read about his career and watched many of the videos made about him, some biographical, some centered on a particular piece of music. His life was certainly well documented, but none of the films I saw dealt with his mesmerizing qualities as a conductor.

To be sure, I was busy during those years. I went to China to make a film about Zhao Jiping, a composer who wrote music for major Chinese movies. Among other documentaries I made “Small Wonders” (nominated for an Oscar), about violin teacher Roberta Tzavaras; “Fiddling for the Future,” with Itzhak Perlman; “The Turandot Project,” the Puccini opera staged in Beijing; and “Seven Beethoven Master Classes,” a TV series featuring Daniel Barenboim. All the while I kept trying to talk to Gergiev.

Finally I met someone who not only knew Gergiev but had made a film about him: Lisa Kirk Colburn. Her film, called “Sacred Stage,” featured Gergiev in his role as chief conductor and general director of the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg. Gergiev conducted symphonic and operatic excerpts in the film, and he also narrated it – in perfect English – but little of his musical character came through. When I told Colburn about my hope of making a film that focused on Gergiev's way of conducting, the idea of collaborating with me interested her.

Colburn had scheduled a screening of “Sacred Stage” at the Kennedy Center in early 2005, to coincide with a time when Gergiev was to be conducting there, and she thought we could find an occasion to talk to him. I arrived at the Kennedy Center a few minutes before the screening was to begin. As the lights dimmed, Gergiev entered along a side wall. For the first time I saw him close-up. He was tall and broad-shouldered, with thinning hair and the scruffy beginnings of a beard. He took a seat in the last row, with his overcoat collar turned up. I waited till the end of the film to approach him, but during the applause, as the house lights came up, he left the hall.
 
Colburn invited me to a gala dinner the next night, where she hoped for another chance to introduce me to Gergiev. About forty guests sat on both sides of a long table set with candles, flowers and a promising variety of wineglasses. Gergiev was seated at the center, and everyone nearby was trying to talk to him. I sat across the table, but too far down to manage more than a quick greeting. Once or twice I caught him looking at me. But we never spoke.

Lisa Kirk had married Richard D. Colburn in 2002. A Los Angeles business man, philanthropist, and amateur violist, he had become a friend and close advisor to Gergiev, helping him identify potential supporters of the Mariinsky Theater in the U.S. Gergiev called him the wisest man he had ever met. Richard Colburn died in June, 2004.

In July, 2005, Gergiev was to conduct Tchaikovsky's opera “Mazeppa” at the Salzburg Festival. As Richard Colburn had owned a large house outside Salzburg, now vacant, Lisa Colburn and about a dozen friends arranged to use it for a few days while waiting to see the opera, and they invited Gergiev to stay in a small annex on the property during his rehearsals and performances. Lisa Colburn arranged for me to be included – there would finally be an opportunity to meet Gergiev. 

Henry Segerstrom seemed to be the head of the group of guests. Rich, self-made, and shrewd, he was a successful business man from Orange County, California, and had built the Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa. His contribution of $40 million went toward a concert hall which bore his name. Gergiev often performed there with his Mariinsky Orchestra, and soon brought Segerstrom into his circle. He became an important contributor to the White Nights Foundation, an American organization that raised money for the Mariinsky Theater. Segerstrom was totally devoted to Gergiev – he always called him “Valery,” as did the rest of the guests. Like all those who orbited around Gergiev, they were first attracted by his music making, and if they had a chance to get to know him, they soon joined those who helped support the Mariinsky. This conferred on them the right to use his first name, they felt, and Gergiev seemed perfectly comfortable with it. 

I arrived at the Colburn house a few days before the opening performance of “Mazeppa.” Gergiev was already in residence, but he never had time to meet with me. He traveled to Salzburg every day for rehearsals, and during the few hours he was at the house he was immersed in discussions with scenery and costume designers, in meetings with members of the Vienna Philharmonic to plan future concerts, or on the phone with his office in St. Petersburg. There was no way for me just to walk up to him and say, “I'd like to make a really interesting film about you – can we discuss it?” I did get to attend some of the rehearsals, however, and could observe Gergiev more from the front. He was completely focussed and said very little. He was able to show the orchestra everything he wanted.

I thought that maybe I'd have a chance to talk to him at one of the dinners held every evening after the rehearsals. The guests, usually numbering about twelve, were seated around a large oval table, making small talk, or participating in general discussions about politics and the history of Salzburg. Gergiev kept up with the conversation in a cordial way.

At one of these dinners someone finally asked me why I was there. I answered that I was exploring the possibility of making a film about Maestro Gergiev. “What kind of film?” someone else asked. “One that explores his special gifts as a conductor,” I answered. This produced blank looks and a change of subject. For the rest of the dinner I said almost nothing. But when Gergiev asked me if I had made “From Mao to Mozart,” I realized that he knew who I was and had begun slowly making up his mind about me. 
 
In the afternoons I strolled around the grounds of Colburn's estate. I also toured Salzburg and visited Mozart's house. In the room where Mozart worked, it occurred to me that after all these centuries, artists were still forced to spend time seeking patrons to support their work. 

After the performance of “Mazeppa,” which was thrilling, I was included in a small dinner party honoring Gergiev. The conversation was all about the exciting performance; it was definitely the wrong time to bring up the film.

The next day, as Gergiev was getting ready to leave for Russia, I met him in the driveway. I told him I hoped to see him soon in New York. He smiled and nodded yes, and his car pulled away. During these Salzburg days, I thought, I hadn't made much progress, but perhaps I had opened a door and left my calling card.

* * * *

During the next few months I waited for Doug Sheldon, Gergiev's manager, to arrange a New York meeting for me with Gergiev. For most of that time, Gergiev was conducting in St. Petersburg or guest-conducting outside the U.S. But when he finally came to New York, Sheldon still seemed in no hurry to get us together.

Meanwhile I was trying determine what the ambitious film I had in mind might cost. It would certainly be expensive, requiring shooting in St. Petersburg, possibly in New York, and in many European locations. The person to see was Margie Smilow, then Producer of Arts Documentaries at Channel Thirteen, WNET. Smilow and I had made several films together, and had become good friends. I asked her whether WNET might become one of the funders of a film about Gergiev, as well as the venue for a broadcast. Smilow was immediately enthusiastic. She said she'd make a draft budget and talk with her colleagues about the possible participation of WNET. 
 
In the first week of March, 2006, almost eight months after our Salzburg meeting, Gergiev was to conduct another series of performances of “Mazeppa,” this time at the Metropolitan Opera. Lisa Colburn managed to arrange an intermission meeting with us in Gergiev's dressing room to discuss the film project. Also present would be Doug Sheldon and Margie Smilow, as well as David Horn and John Walker, producers from Channel 13. Our purpose was to assure Gergiev that we would make an exciting film, and that a major broadcast would be guaranteed. 

Gergiev was not the kind of conductor who liked to be alone at intermission time, contemplating the music that was to follow. During the breaks, his dressing room was usually filled with orchestra executives, potential funders, and famous musicians. His friends and colleagues also knew that they could pop in unannounced to say hello. 

Even before a performance Gergiev shunned solitude. He usually arrived at the hall very near performance time, and after adjusting his tie and combing his hair, go straight out to conduct. He would bow to the audience, step onto the podium, look around at the orchestra, and be immediately lost inside the music.

As our intermission meeting proceeded, Gergiev asked me a challenging question: “With so many films already made about me, why do you want to make another?” Everyone was looking at me. I couldn't really say that my film would be more interesting than all the others, so I was glad to be saved from the embarrassing silence by the sound of the orchestra warming up for the next act. The meeting was now over and I had barely said anything about the film; I felt the whole idea was doomed. But when Gergiev stood up to go, he told me to arrange another meeting with Doug Sheldon. I heard myself say that I had been trying to schedule such a meeting for a long time but that Sheldon had not been terribly cooperative in making it possible. Silence. I could see Sheldon was furious. At this point, the orchestra began tuning to the oboe A; Gergiev said goodbye to everyone and left. I got out of there fast.

The next morning I received a sharp email from Doug Sheldon, excoriating me for complaining about him in front of the others, especially Gergiev. I wrote back an apology, and waited. A week or so later I was surprised to be invited to meet again with Gergiev and Sheldon, this time in the apartment Gergiev stayed in near Lincoln Center. I remember walking up and down Central Park West. I had left much too much time before the meeting, and was experiencing maximum anxiety. Were things gong to be settled? I sat on a nearby bench and agonized.

Gergiev's apartment was on a high floor, with huge picture windows facing New York City in three directions, We sat at the dining room table. The view toward New Jersey reminded me of Steinberg's map of the American continent seen from Manhattan, and looking out past Gergiev, I thought I could see beyond San Francisco all the way to St. Petersburg.

Sheldon asked me if I had a written contract with Lisa Colburn. I said no, but I would feel bad if after all she had done to get the project going, she would not be allowed to continue. He made no reply to this and went on to ask me about Margie Smilow. Sheldon had apparently talked to her since the Met intermission meeting and was impressed with her. I said I was a big fan of Margie Smilow. Sheldon and Gergiev both seemed to like that.

The second question was from Gergiev - whether I could meet with him on April 5 in Miami, to discuss the film during a long afternoon. It was now mid-March. I said indeed I would. (I would have been free to go to Uruguay for such an afternoon.) 

The meeting was adjourned. There was no commitment, but things seemed to be moving forward; I wondered what Sheldon would say to Lisa Colburn. 

One month later, on April 5, 2006, my taxi pulled up to a large gated house in Miami. A servant let me in and a few minutes later I was greeted by M. Lee Pearce, a man of medium height in his late seventies or early eighties. I learned later that he had both medical and law degrees, and that an investment business he owned had earned him enough to endow hospitals, clinics, and several arts organizations. He was also a member of the Distinguished Board of International Advisors to the White Nights Foundation.

The house had many spacious, sunny rooms filled with sculptures and large paintings. Through a rear window I could see a canal, and I noticed a boat moored at a small dock. Pearce escorted me to the dining room where Doug Sheldon was already seated at a large table. 

A few minutes later Gergiev came in and greeted me. I sat at the side of the table, with Gergiev at the head and Sheldon at the foot. The first thing Gergiev did was to line up three cell phones in front of him. He explained that the first one was for his American concert and opera managers, and the second for administrative business at the Mariinsky. The third had a number known to only one person in the world. I guessed it was either a high Russian official, or his mother, who was ailing.

For the next ninety minutes, Gergiev talked non-stop. He began by telling me about the extraordinary growth of the Mariinsky Theater during his tenure, enabling him to raise salaries for the staff and the performers. Then he talked about the Russian economy: six years ago Russia had been one hundred years behind the US and Europe; the national budget was twenty-five billion. Today (2006) the budget was two hundred billion. He talked about oil prices, about Gorbachev, about Yeltsin (whom he called erratic). According to Gergiev, Yeltsin had fired some of the best Russian brains in the country, and sold the oil, gas, and aluminum industries to the oligarchs. In passing, Gergiev mentioned Putin's efforts to resurrect the country.

Barely taking a breath, he picked up the second phone and called someone in Moscow. When he hung up he said he had just told a television producer named Alexander Malinin to expect to hear from me, and gave me his number. 

A few minutes later the Russian phone rang and he talked for about ten minutes. When he hung up, he said he had just instructed his office to contact a ballet dancer who did not want to participate in an upcoming international tour. We waited a few minutes, and the phone rang – it was the dancer; I could hear her voice on the phone. When the brief conversation was over, Gergiev told us, with some satisfaction, that he had praised her lavishly while strongly hinting that by not going on tour, she might jeopardize her standing in the company. He was sure that now she would agree to travel with the troupe.

He then described a terrible fire in 2003 that destroyed a storage warehouse next to the Mariinsky theater. It contained all the company's sets and costumes: a disaster. Gergiev had gone the next day to Moscow, and had spoken to a meeting of six or seven rich men convened by his good friend the mayor. The mayor demanded that each of those present immediately pledge to contribute $1 million within a few days to replace the warehouse and its contents. Then Gergiev switched to another story about how he had raised money for a new concert hall, budgeted at $10 million, but in the end at a cost of $30 million – the first building in Russia ever financed by private funds, he said. He had quickly sold 13 million tickets – next season the figure would no doubt climb to 15 million. 

Gergiev never said anything about the film, but I supposed that filling me in with all the background material was his way of indicating that we were going forward. When the taxi arrived to take me back to the airport, he walked me to the door and we shook hands. Then he thought of something else to tell me. He mentioned the name of a television producer who was pursuing him. “Avoid him,” he said. “He's a born idiot.” 

* * * *

Later that month Margie Smilow negotiated contracts for a ninety-minute film with Gergiev, the White Nights Foundation, and Channel 13. Soon after, I signed my own contract.

Next chapter: the making of the Gergiev film.